Diagnosing Fear Aggression

First of all, I believe that dogs aggress due to fearful motivation. This is a fairly simple conclusion based on the observation that confident dogs with a well structured background tend to exhibit aloofness, almost a sense of entitlement in most social settings. So, as we begin our preliminary diagnosis of aggressive actions in a dog, we must first determine what type of fear motivation we are dealing with. I break it into two categories, one that is common and tends to follow a more consistent pattern - and one that is less common and is also more difficult to solve.
Fearful Anxiety is the type of fear motivation that resembles a recipe, and is also the most common. There will be certain “ingredients” (environmental stimulus), that will remain constant in bringing the aggressive behavior about. Yet, other ingredients are like chocolate chips, walnuts, or frosting - all can be present without changing the fact that the item is a cookie……In other words there will always be environmental stimulus that is present that doesn’t actually impact the aggressive action, although it could impact the aggressive action taken. In this type of case we want to address the issues that elicit the aggressive behavior, the other issues will be inconsequential once we have solved the actual stimulus that creates the anxiety.
Focused Fear is much more direct in manor. The environment will hold little weight in the dog determining to aggress or not. It wont be impacted by owner presence, other dog presence, or presence of most other environmental stimulus. These actions are usually directed at specific individuals, objects, people, or dogs and appear to be irrational actions much more than they seem to be protective or dominance issues. Unfortunately, these dogs are less predictable in their aggression - thus making it imperative that we understand the dog and have a good working knowledge of his behavior pattern.
Once you can place a dog in one of the two categories you can then begin to seek resolution on the aggression. The truth about aggression in canine behavior is that, up to this point and time, we have solved it by pushing our dogs to suppress the actions instead of relieving the pressure of the aggressive tendencies. When a dog attacks the door when company knocks, most commonly we treat that by training a dog to hold a good sit stay while we answer the door. Possibly treating the dog for not offering aggressive behavior, or worse punishing the dog if it breaks into a tirade. Yet, in either circumstance we didn’t deal with the issue at hand. The fact is that we need to take this subject and start with a clean slate. No predisposed notion of training paths, or curriculum - just a blank slate. If I were working on this case - I would have to start with what I know……When the combination of having myself in the house, being in the house itself, and having a guest knock are all present when aggressive tendencies appear. So we have to test what we know. I would first remove myself and videotape the dogs behavior at a guests arrival while it inhibits the home alone. If the behavior is the same, we can begin to rule out certain aspects of our relationship with the canine as the reason at fault. You would be amazed at how many dogs aggress at a front door in hopes that they are bringing some sense of comfort to their owners, regardless of our response once the aggression is engaged. It is also quite possible that they may take these opportunities to indirectly show us that they are socially unprepared to handle common greetings with new people - in other words, they don’t want them to come in the door because they aren’t adequately versed in human/canine greeting rituals. I use this example because most people would immediately lump this dog into the category of “focused fear” - where his fear is focused at the door in the home. In fact, there are obvious indicators to tell us that it is not. The fact that the person knocking has no identity to the dog until the door opens, tells us it isn’t focused on one person. The fact that the dog doesn’t bark at the door when there is no one there tells us the door isn’t the stimulus. Once we eliminate ourselves as the cause for the actions, we can start to look toward the anxiety that the dog is trying to avoid or alleviate. They obviously don’t want the door opened, and now we have excluded the door, ourselves and the guest as potential causes of the anxiety………so how can we determine how to alleviate this anxiety without forcing the dog to bury it (where it will just resurface somewhere else anyway). By knowing the dogs personality a little better we can begin to slowly piece together the puzzle. I assure you that knowing the dog that you will be dealing with on a personal level is the first step to gaining the insight in dealing with any aggressive actions.