Bonochick said:
I'm not scared of dogs at all...I have two labs. However, one of them bit me this past weekend. She started freaking out while some people were walking by our campsite. I don't know what the heck was wrong, she must have gotten a really bad vibe from them, she was going crazy. I went to calm her down, and she chomped down on my arm. It didn't seem like she'd even realized she'd done it. Once the people were gone, she was fine and giving me love and affection. She didn't break the skin, but I've got a bad bruise.
There was no excuse for her to bite me...but, then again, I was stupid for having my hands and arms by her mouth when she was so upset.
Were you reaching for her collar when she bit? I've read 20% of all dog bites occur because someone reached for a collar, but based on experience I'd bet on it being the majority of dog bite incidents. For some reason this really startles the dog and they issue a corrective bite without thinking (well, dogs never think or rationalize, only react). It's scary because it's your own dog, but it's a very common thing. In the dog world, they correct each other with bites to the neck, so if they are not conditioned to understand that collar grabs = treat delivery, they assume a collar grab is a correction and when they are already anxious, they will correct right back, hence the quick nip to the hand.
If your dog doesn't normally react like that, something about those people probably scared her. Most aggression is fear based. They are acting defensively rather than actually wanting to tear into the dog or person passing by.
Make sure when you're calming her down she is done being fearful and aggressive, otherwise the "calming down" actually reinforces the behaviors she's exhibiting (ie, the dog thinks "Hmmm, BC comes to
me to calm me down when I'm all worked up like this, and I like when BC is calming me down and coming to me instead of me having to go to her, so I'm gonna always get worked up like this!!"). If she doesn't stop barking and going nuts with a simple "no" or stop command, ignore her and then work on a "leave it" command once she's ready to be calm.