Aggressive Dog
Any behavior meant to intimidate or harm a person or another animal can be marked as aggressive. Baring teeth, snarling, growling, snapping and biting are all known as aggressive dog behavior intentions. This kind of behavior is quite normal in a dog’s view, but is unacceptable to us humans. Even if a person may have peaceful intentions, a dog can perceive this persons behavior as threatening and act aggressively upon it. Because dogs and humans communicate differently, misunderstandings can occur.
Aggression is a complex subject and potential consequences can be serious, I recommend that you get professional help if your dog’s aggressive behavior is abnormal.
Type of Aggressions
There are many types of aggressions, here I’ll point out three most common ones.
- Dominance Aggression. If your dog’s social status is challenged or his control over social interaction is threatened, most likely your dog will react aggressively. Dogs are social animals and can coralate this social group with human family. If your dog thinks his social ranking is above yours, it’s likely you’ll get challenged it trying to “master” him/her and can expect growling and baring teeth. When not challenged, dogs can be very friendly. This is known as “Jekyll and Hyde” as immediately when your dog feel his social positioning is at stake, he will try to defend it.
- Fear Motivated Aggression. Whey your dog believes he is being attacked or he is in danger, aggression is motivated by defensive reaction. But this is just your dog’s perception and it can be wrong. For example, you may raise your arm to throw a ball while your dog can see this as a threat and may bite you because he believes he is protecting himself from getting hit. Also, when approached by other dogs, your dog can be fearfully aggressive.
- Protective and Territorial Aggression. Defense of dog’s property and territory can be aggressive act. When your dog believes his territory or possessions are threatened, he will try to defend his valuable resources. For example when you walk your dog around the block and allow him to urine-mark, to him, his territory may be the whole block! Aggression directed towards animals and people that a dog perceives as family or “the pack” can usually be referred to as protective aggression. Dogs become protectively aggressive when defending their food, toys, or other valuable possessions.
What You Can Do
Again, there’s lot’s of reasons your dog is behaving aggressively, so don’t take these suggestions too strongly. Consult your professional dog doctor if you think your dog is behaving too aggressively.
- Check with your veterinarian to rule out medical sources for aggressive behavior
- It it gets too tough, don’t try to be a hero. Seek professional help
- Your first priority is to keep everyone safe, so take precautions. Supervise or restrict your dog’s activities until you can get professional help. Remember, you are liable for your dog’s behavior!
- Avoid situations which could stress-out and scare your dog, causing him to act aggressively
- If your dog is possessive for one thing (toy or food), don’t allow him access to those items. If the situation gets worse, try to bribe him with similar objects (old shoe, old blanket). Don’t let him have what he wants when he wants it. You are the master!
What Not To Do
Your dog’s mind is simple, so while he can try to play some tricks on you (like pretending not to see you) you must show him who the real master is. Whatever you do, don’t use violence or aggression on your dog. It won’t help.
- Acting violently on your dog’s aggressive behavior will make the problem worse. Attempting to punish or dominate a dominating dog will cause him to act even more aggressively trying to defend his social status. This can result in biting or a severe attack.
- Don’t encourage aggressive behavior. Wrestling with your dog encourages him to attempt to “win” over you or “best” you, which can lead to aggressive behavior. Don’t encourage him to “go and get ‘em” or to bark in response to outside events.
While these two lists are in no way complete, you can do a lot to fix your dog’s aggressive behavior. Don’t settle with “I can’t”. I’ve seen a lot of owners give up to their dogs aggressiveness and acknowledge their dog as “master” thus allowing him to bark, bite and growl without any means to stop it.
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