Stimuli that trigger aggression in dogs are many and varied. In addition to identifying the particular stimulus that triggers an aggressive (over-reactive) response from your dog, it is important to understand their emotional state at the time of the over-reactivity. For example, you have asked your two children to go outside with their cricket bats and ball … they don’t, and subsequently the lounge window gets broken. How would you react? Get slightly annoyed and shout at them? Perhaps. But what if you had the flu and were feeling really poorly – would your response be more angry? Probably.

When resolving any behaviour problem in dogs, but particularly aggression, it is important to keep them “below threshold” … below the point at which they react. If your dog is reactive when he sees another dog at a distance of 20 metres, then start walking him in the presence of just one other dog that is 21 metres away. Progress very gradually, up to, and slightly over the threshold of 20 metres, until your dog is relaxed and in a good emotional state.

After many, many repetitions of walking slightly closer each time, your pet will be ready to walk alongside the other dog, even if you can only get a calm response at a distance of 3 metres. The most important point to consider is ensuring that your dog stays in a relaxed state emotionally as they cannot learn or focus at the point of reactivity.

For many years the understanding was that dogs did not experience emotions such as fear, frustration, depression, pleasure etc., but it is now widely accepted that dogs do possess an emotional part to their brain and can experience a wide range of emotions.

Dogs will repeat behaviours that give them pleasant emotions … indeed, this is how positive reinforcement dog training works at a deeper level. However, although dogs do not like to repeat behaviours that give them a negative emotion, they may be forced to do so by some subconscious action from the handler. For example, your dog barks at other dogs in the street, which you may think is in response to them not liking the other dog, even if they don’t know them, but it may be that your dog is responding to you tensing up and tightening the lead when you see the other dog.

So, although dogs may not enjoy the negative emotional state of over-reactivity to other dogs, they are being “cued” for the behaviour due to tension from the handler. In effect, we are teaching dogs to react to other dogs because we are reacting ourselves.

We Train Any Dog specialise in all forms of dog aggression:

• Fear - induced aggression
• Inter-dog aggression
• Territorial aggression
• Inter-pack aggression
• Protective aggression
• Maternal aggression
• Play aggression
• Response aggression
• Possessive aggression
• Redirected aggression
• Food-related aggression
• Pain-induced aggression
• Defensive aggression
• Learned aggression
• Dominance aggression
• Taught aggression
• Predatory aggression
• Aggression towards children
• Aggression towards people/family
• Aggression towards visitors

TRAIN WITH PATIENCE AND KINDNESS AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED MANY TIMES OVER

Heather Stevens MCFBA

Dog Aggression Specialist and Master Dog Trainer www.godt.org.uk

Full Member of CFBA www.cfba.co.uk

Volunteer Assistance Dog Trainer for Dog AID www.dogaid.org.uk

Advanced Reiki Master