dog behavior aggression not this dog
After anxiety in public and barking, dog aggression and separation anxiety are the next two top dog behavior problems.
Dog behavior problem DOG AGGRESSION
This is the first serious issue brought up by the survey these dog behavior topics are taken from.
Yes anxiety in general and barking can be annoying, but they don’t easily lead to a death of a dog or harm to a human.
Dog aggression is a major issue for the public and often specific breeds are blamed. Those breeds are often highly physical and were breed for fighting, guarding or doing a task that was based around the ability to fight/ hold or kill prey or another dog.
Owners again are at the center of the issue for this dog behaviour problem.
Even a large dog breed created for fighting, can be socialised and learn to redirect its energy most of the time. Positive reinforcement techniques can be applied, and by continual practice with your dog and a dog training professional dog aggression can be over-come.
The problem is mostly that owners don’t have the time or money and seek a quick solution, sadly they are out of luck on this and either abandon their dogs or have them put down.
Dog behavior aggression is caused by fear usually little else
The number one cause of dog aggression, in dogs not specifically trained to be aggressive, is fear.
Fear is caused by the fear of the unknown, typically because the dog is not socialised often enough and correctly.
A dog learns to be social around other social dogs. it learns what is acceptable behaviour and that working within bounds will let it have freedoms and a happy life.
Aggression is a response of fear, for protection of the self. An automatic response to have safety. Sure a dog can flee, but many dogs choose to stand their ground and fight when confronted even by a social dog just wanting a sniff. Then sometimes the animal part of a dog can take over automatically where it is geared to fight to increase its status.
If a dog is red zone, you probably won’t be able to train it yourself to become social.
If a dog is yellow zone (some anxiety, occasionally snappy), many daily on lead walks with a bite muzzle in an off lead park around social dogs where the other owners understand what you are trying to do, and you are consistent with its interactions and you make all interactions positive, may have the dog come around.
To remove aggression from a dog, you are trying to desensitise the dog, have it be ‘normal’ and natural and want to be part of a pack, not fear everything that comes its way and want to lash out at it.
I am not going to tell you to follow this advice to the letter and not to seek professional dog training advice because that would be foolish without me seeing your dog. You need to do what is best for your dog and you, and long term that is getting the dog over any aggression issues it has, that means removing all triggers and slowly having it exposed to triggers and it handling anything that previously activated it.
A professional dog trainer will help with this !