Before we can begin to address how to solve a given aggression issue in a particular canine we must first understand why……..why does the dog aggress? As I stated before, I keep this part as simple as possible for my own sanity. There are literally thousands of individual reasons a dog may hold aggressive tendencies. There are the more commonly used reasons - foster homes, history of abuse, “dominant” behavior…….but there are many more plausible reasons that contribute to aggressive action - removal from the mother too early, physical inadequacies, particular phobias (both rational and irrational). That is why I use two simple categories that we can group all of these issues into, “Focused Fear” and “Fearful Anxiety”. Most aggressive tendencies fall under Fearful Anxiety, because most aggressive action is taken in order to alleviate what is being viewed as a stressful or threatening situation. In fact, if the dog viewed fleeing as an option it would most likely much rather do so. Canines are much more intelligent than they are typically given credit for. It is my observation that most dogs express fear through aggression, toward humans in particular, in order to avoid any confusion on the canines stance on the given issue. Under classic canine communication, fear may be exhibited by tucking the tail, raising hackles, etc. Unfortunately, most humans don’t notice or take the time to learn their canine counterparts language - so we misinterpret most of what a dog will tell us in the first greeting. In most cases where aggression surfaces, the dog has communicated to the handler or other parties involved that it is uncomfortable and will soon change behavior patterns. The dog will, in fact, give you at least one (if not several) opportunities to address the issue before it feels that you are either ignoring the communication or do not care. This is when the aggression occurs. Again, in my history, I have noticed that it is much more common that the dog feels this is the last possible way to communicate its fear in a way that will result in it having the pressure alleviated. A dog who has limited social history with humans may growl or show teeth at a first greeting, this is NOT an aggressive action. It is common canine communication, in fact you and I do the same thing with regularity. I walked into a supermarket last week and asked a young lady if they carried a certain kind of light bulb. She said she didn’t know what I was talking about. I then, like you have a hundred times, used my hands to show her the shape of the bulb and the size…..which elicited the response “Oh!, you mean that kind of bulb……sure”. When we approach a dog we are the supermarket attendant. The dog asks for something that we don’t recognize immediately, therefore it is forced to demonstrate it physically………by growling, or showing teeth. The problem here isn’t that the dog growls, that is its natural behavior. What is wrong is that we have labeled the growl a precursor to an attack, and become fearful upon hearing it. When you learn to understand what it means, it actually becomes a great insight into what your dog is saying. If your first indication to a problem is when your dog growls, you should take a deep breath and say “Wow, I must have missed something…..let’s go back and see if we can find where this begins.” - I say this because, the growl is not the beginning, there was communication before that we overlooked and ignored. That communication is what we must notice, understand, and evaluate because it is the most accurate indicator to the root of our problem. By the time we arrive at the growl or attack, we have traveled too far to identify the cause of the aggression and must backtrack.
