Dog Decoder: The app for dog bite prevention

Every year thousands of children and adults are bitten by dogs and family dogs are attacked by other dogs leaving emotional and physical scars for life. The inspiration for the Dog Decoder app came after watching Good Morning America’s news anchor bitten by a dog on the air. This was a set up for failure for everyone involved and it didn’t need to happen.
After watching the video one time, I saw all of the signs the dog was giving before he bit her and if she knew these signs she would have been spared. Dogs never bite out of the blue. There are always warning signs and can be very subtle to the untrained eye so when I hear a mother say “Oh my he’s never bitten anyone before”, I know that this dog has been giving signals for day’s even months before the bite occurred.
All of the body languages are beautifully and colorfully illustrated by Lili Chin of Doggie Drawings whose work is well known in the dog training community worldwide. Each illustration is carefully crafted to depict real life scenarios that I witness daily in my training practice of 36 years. Our mission with this app is to teach safety and humane education between dogs and humans. If people knew what dogs were trying to tell us fewer people will be bitten and fewer dogs will end up in shelters to be re-homed again and again or worse, euthanized.

Dog Decoder has already reached places around the world; in a school in India where there are street dogs with rabies where The Dogstar Foundation is using the app to teach the students what body languages to look for so fewer children will be bitten. It is being used in a powerpoint demonstration by Dr. Marty Becker who has a mission called Fear Free Veterinary Practices- “take the pet out of petrified…and put pets back into practices.”

This app is for veterinarians and their staff, groomers, shelter volunteers, teachers, parents, breeders and all people who love and work with dogs.
download the app:
www.dogdecoder.com

By Jill Breitner