The Big Bark dog podcast sponsored by dogs.ie is Irelands Number 1 dog related podcast. Each episode, Darragh and his trusty sidekick pups Bruno, Milly & Roxy bringing all the canine stories to you, with the biggest interviews with pet professionals. This week, we launched our brand new campaign around Consent and the importance of asking an owner if its ok to pet their dog. The campaign was launched in response to a new ISPCA campaign which solely puts the blame of dog bites to children on dog owners. While unprovoked attacks by dogs which are not under effective control are the responsibility of the dog owner, statistics show that most dog bites occur due to the behaviour of a child and in many cases adults also. This comes down to 3 issues. 1) Neither children or parents ask a dog owner for permission before rubbing or greeting a dog, and end up scaring that dog to the point where they are forced to retaliate and defend themselves by biting the child or adult. 2) Many people, both dog owners and non dog owners, fail to understand the body language - commonly known as calming signals that a dog displays to them, which in essence is telling said individual to back off and in the dogs words "leave me alone - I don't want you near me" 3) Hugging, close contact and being too rough with a dog - Dogs generally don't like to be hugged, particularly by strangers. Many dogs don't want to be hugged outright but children in particular fail to see this and their parents often blatantly ignore this due to the fact they think "its cute that theyre hugging". The reality is that if a dog does not want to be hugged, it will make them anxious by doing so and this anxiety if ignored will escalate ultimately to growling and eventually biting. We also discuss Scoop the Poop week this week with Ciaran Sheehan from Mutt Mitts Ireland and the importance of picking up after your dog. Be sure to visit https://muttmittsireland.ie this week and get 15% off all orders with the code bigbark Lastly we also discuss how hiking and trekking to Glen of Aherlow and Knocknafierna is making a big difference to mine, Jen's and Roxy's well being and how this new challenge is getting us fit and active on a weekly basis. Links: https://www.facebook.com/thebigbarkpodcast https://www.instagram.com/thebigbarkpodcast https://www.twitter.com/bigbarkpodcast https://www.patreon.com/thebigbarkpodcast https://thebigbark.ie Guest Links https://dogs.ie https://www.facebook.com/irishdogs https://www.treatyveterinaryclinic.com/ https://www.instagram.com/treatyvets/ https://www.facebook.com/Treatyvets/ https://muttmittsireland.ie Become a member of The Big Bark Podcast + By becoming a member and subscriber, you can gain access to behind the scenes videos and interviews, bloopers and see what our wonderful puppies get up to. https://plus.acast.com/s/the-big-bark-dog-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.