Dog Aggression - Part 1

Dogs are aggressive creatures by instinct. In the wild aggression is necessary as it helps dogs to hunt, defend themselves from other creatures, and to defend resources such as food, mates and a place to sleep.

Over the centuries though, selective breeding has minimized and refined this trait somewhat but, even still, dogs of all sizes are still physically capable of inflicting serious harm.

However, that doesn’t mean that we, as dog lovers and owners, are totally helpless when it comes to handling our dogs. There is a lot we can do to prevent aggression from rearing its ugly head in the first place and, even if prevention hasn’t been possible (for whatever reason), there are still steps that we can take to recognize and deal with it efficiently.

Most Common Aggression Types

Whilst there are several different types of canine aggression, the two most common ones are:

Aggression towards strangers

Aggression towards family members

These two different types of aggression stem from very different causes, and require different types of treatment, let’s take a look at each in turn:

Aggression Towards Strangers

The symptoms are: a jumpy and nervous dog who is constantly on the alert - either he can’t sit still and is constantly fidgeting or leaping at the smallest sound and pacing around barking and whining; or he’s very still indeed, sitting rock-steady in one place, staring hard at the object of his suspicions. Be that a visitor, the mailman, or someone approaching him on the street.

Why does it happen?

…There’s one major reason why a dog doesn’t like strange people: he’s never had the chance to get used to them and be sociable with them.

Socializing Your Dog

The process of accustoming your dog to the world and all the strange people (and animals) that it contains is called socialization. This is an incredibly important aspect of your dog’s upbringing: in fact, it’s pretty hard to overemphasize just how important it is. Socializing your dog means exposing him from a young age (generally speaking, as soon as he’s had his vaccinations) to a wide variety of new experiences, new people, and new animals.

When you socialize your dog, it helps him learn through experience that new sights and sounds are fun, not scary.

However, you can’t just expose your dog to a crowd of unfamiliar people and tell him “Settle down, Roxy, it’s OK” – he has to learn that it’s OK for himself. And it’s best to do this from puppyhood for the lesson to sink in.

The more types of people and animals he meets (babies, toddlers, teenagers, old people, men, women, people wearing uniforms, people wearing motorcycle helmets, people carrying umbrellas, etc) in a fun and relaxed context, the more at ease and happy (and safe around strangers) he’ll be in general.

Socializing your dog is pretty easy to do – it’s more of a general pastime than a specific training regimen.

First of all, you should take him to puppy preschool. This is a generic term for a series of easy group-training classes for puppies (often performed at the vets, which has the additional benefit of teaching your dog positive associations with the vet!).

In a puppy preschool class, about ten or so puppy owners get together with a qualified trainer and start teaching their puppies the basic obedience commands: sit, stay, and so on.

Even though the obedience work is very helpful and is a great way to start your puppy on the road to being a trustworthy adult dog, really the best parts of puppy preschool are the play sessions. Usually these are held several times throughout the class where the puppies are encouraged to run around off-leash and play amongst themselves.

This is an ideal environment for them to learn good social skills because there’s a whole bunch of unfamiliar dogs and unfamiliar people present plus the environment is safe and controlled. They learn how to interact with strange dogs and that new faces are nothing to be afraid of under the watchful eye of a certified trainer who ensures that nothing will get out of hand.

Socialization doesn’t just stop with puppy preschool, though. It’s an ongoing effort throughout the life of your puppy or dog: he needs to continually be taken to a whole bunch of new places and environments.

But don’t overwhelm him though, take things slowly and allow him to build up confidence at his own speed.

If you would like more information about dog aggression and how to train an aggressive dog take a look here.

Speak to you soon,

Stuart