Lately many potential clients have been calling me regarding their “aggressive dog.” Canine Aggression is defined as behavior that threatens to or actually does injure another dog or human. It is understandable that an owner witnessing their dog’s aggressive behavior can be quite upset and stressed. I explain to the owner aggression is part of the normal behavioral repertoire of dogs. Any dog is capable of biting, whether or not the dog has a “bite” history. Since aggression is part of a dog’s normal social communication (the “threat” can include averting eyes, growling, exposing canines, body stiffening warning the person or dog to move away) owners should have a realistic view of this behavior and not label their dog.
A trainer must first evaluate the stress-based reasons for the dog’s aggression including fear, illness, guarding and/or status-based aggression. Canine Command focuses on the reasons for your dog’s aggression and then trains you and your dog to lessen the risk for aggressive behavior. Remember aggression is always contextual. Take, for instance, food bowl aggression against a stranger. You must understand:
1. What your dog is trying to accomplish by employing aggression (stay away from my valuable food resource)
2. Both the recent antecedent stressors your dog has experienced prior to aggressing (stranger approached within three feet of your dog’s food bowl)
3. And distant antecedent stressors (your dog just got over an intestinal ailment and hadn’t eaten for 2 days).
4. You must also understand any reinforcing circumstances that keeps the frequency of the behavior strong (stranger backs off when the dog growls around his food bowl).
Since aggression is almost always provoked Canine Command trains owners to recognize canine stressors and stress responses. To lessen the possibility of further aggression, we employ the 3 M’s-Management, Modification and Medication, if necessary. In the above food aggression case, management would mean feeding the dog in an area away from foot traffic. Modification would mean desensitizing and counterconditioning the dog’s reaction to people near his food bowl. Naturopathic medication such as CBD and Composure may be utilized to lower the dog’s stress level.
Untrained dogs have a low threshold towards reactivity and aggression. Trained dogs have more confidence and a higher threshold which means they would have to experience a much higher level of stress before they would even consider using aggression. Training actually reshapes the canine brain strengthening calming connections in the prefrontal cortex and tapping down the “fight or flight” neural connections in the primitive brain specifically- the amygdala.
Since aggression can obviously lead to biting. It is critically important that owners contact an experienced, credentialed trainer when their dog starts exhibiting aggressive behavior. Study after study has shown that the longer an owner waits to get training in these situations the poorer the prognosis becomes for rehabilitation of the dog. In fact, Dr. Ian Dunbar, the founder of our Association of Professional Dog Trainers, has created a Dog Bite Scale to illustrate this. The Scale shows the more often and deeper a dog bites, the less chance for rehabilitation. Therefore, if your dog is exhibiting aggressive behavior, make sure you get it addressed sooner rather than later. Canine Command will be happy to discuss any issues you may have in this regard and tailor a training program to turn your dog into a Canine Good Citizen.
