Dog Anger Management
Aggression – Triggers, Tools and Techniques
Do you have a problem with aggression with your dog? I have been seeing various clients recently who have rescued a dog from a Rescue Society only to be bitten when the dog is in the home. Sometimes the Rescue organisation has mentioned that the dog “has some issues”. Sometimes they don’t say anything or they say that they don’t know much about the dog’s background.
In most cases the dog is at least mildly fearful, anxious or insecure but in all cases the dog has learned to quickly resort to a range of growling, barking, showing teeth (and gums sometimes!!!) and finally of snapping escalating to grabbing and biting to draw blood and cause injury.
We feel outraged and betrayed when our own dog bites, as well as frightened and this can make us angry and want to defend ourselves from the dog. Many people are advised to punish the dog to “teach it a lesson”. However, if we realise that the dog is probably feeling something similar to what we are feeling ( frightened, betrayed, self-defensive), we can then start to deal positively with the situation.
We can start to manage the dog’s anger and change it to a more positive and relaxed emotion and reaction. Then we can retrain the dog to offer preferable behaviour instead of the defensive aggression.
Dogs Behaving Badly
This week I will talk about Triggers.
Something causes the dog to react with aggression. Often owners can tell a few minutes beforehand that the dog is about to behave badly or with aggression. “He gets that look in his eye”. “She starts to pant and growl”. “He goes quiet”. But we can learn to identify the triggers for that behaviour much earlier so that it doesn’t get to the point of defensive aggression.
For example, people love to hug dogs, and to tickle the dog’s tummy. These things are very comforting for people but are very stressful for many dogs – especially for rescue dogs that are trying to adjust to a new home and environment.
If you look on You Tube you can see many example of dogs using very clear Canine Codes to tell people that they are feeling stressed or conflicted. The body goes stiff, the eyes become either stary, or show the whites of the eye, the breathing changes, and the dog looks worried.
People misinterpret these signals and say the dog is “looking guilty”, “looking cute”, “looking sorry”, or “looking sad”. Another dog knows that all these signals are very strong warnings to back off. Many times people tell me that they want to hug and kiss the dog and tickle the tummy and the dog “really wants it” and then bites them. “He / she loves having a cuddle” they will say, but I can see the dog tensing up, looking away, flicking the tongue out, doing a stress yawn, either panting or suddenly not breathing – all these signs are telling the person to stop.
What choice does a dog have in this situation? The dog can’t say to the person “Please stop this, it makes me very uncomfortable. I like you but I get stressed when you do this”. So the dog escalates the signals from warning to action – snapping, bumping the hand with the muzzle, or actually biting.
If we love our dogs and want the best for them, we need to study all the different Canine Codes that dogs use to tell us what they are feeling and what they would prefer we did or didn’t do for them to stay friends with us.