My Dog is Dog Aggressive. What Can I Do About It?

By Ed Frawley

One of the most common problems that dog owners email me about is a problem with their dogs being dog aggressive or aggressive to other animals. There are many, many different reasons for dogs being aggressive to other dogs, cats or other animals. This article will only address a couple of areas. I am currently writting a book that attempts to list all of the reasons for dominance and aggression. At this time I have identified a little less than 30 catagories.

To understand the solution to these problems one must first understand the cause of this aggression. The most common causes are:

1- Once a dog has been attacked by another dog or even badly scared by another dog. Many times once a dog has been attacked it will be dog aggressive its entire life. This only needs to happen one time in a dog’s life .

I compare this to a woman who has been raped. Being raped has a life long effect on a woman. A dog who is attacked suffers similar trauma. More often than not being attacked or badly scared often changes them forever.

People who allow their puppies to socialize with strange dogs are playing Russian roulette with their dogs. I would never allow one of my dogs to be around strange dogs. Dogs are pack animals they don't need to meet and greet other dogs. Read the article I wrote on dog parks being a very bad idea.

Many fighting dogs attack with lightning speed. The attack comes right out of the blue. Dog fighters have learned that a sudden, violent attack is usually a sucessful fight. So unsuspecting naive owners in dog parks never see a fight coming.

When they meet other dogs they are immediately going to determine a pecking order with the new dog. Too often this leads to fights.

 

Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs $49.00+s&h

 

Dogs look to their pack leader for protection:

It is vitally important that dog owners understand that their puppy or young adult looks to their owner for protection when faced with a threat. Many times new owners foolishly think their poor puppy or young dog should try and protect himself and act tough. This is foolish and wrong. This kind of thinking shows a complete misunderstanding of a dog’s genetic pack instincts.

In a dog pack the pack leader (YOU) are supposed to protect the pack members. Lower ranking members of the pack, (your puppy) expects this to happen when they are threatened by another dog.

When I am out for a walk and a strange dog approaches I become aggressive towards this strange dog. If the intruder does not back off I will actually attack the other dog if he will not leave us alone.

Very few untrained dogs are going to try and fight a human. I begin with a serious warning, i.e. GET AWAY AND GO HOME!

If this does not work I will advance on the dog with direct eye contact and a loud deep-throated threatening warning.

If this doesn’t work I am looking for something to hit this other dog with. If I have pepper gas I will use it, even if the owner is there.

If another pet owner is so slow or so stupid that he will not take control of his dog when he sees another pet owner is upset, well they will witness the consequences of their stupidity. The way I look at it is this then becomes part of the experience they need to become a responsible pet owner.

If you have to explain your actions to the police you simply tell them that you were afraid for your personal safety and that you were protecting yourself from an unleashed dog.

I never gamble that a strange dog is going to be friendly with my puppy. Until I know the temperament of another dog and I am sure he will not attack my dog I have to deal with it my way.

2- The second major reason for dog aggression is rank drive within the dog pack.

Very few people who are new to dogs understand how strong their pets’ genetic pack drives are. From the time a puppy comes out of the mother it is programmed with very powerful genes that effect their dogs’ behavior. The strongest of these genes is pack drive.

When we bring dogs into our homes their pack drives effect their behavior in how they interact with family members.

A perfect example was my personal dog (Cyrus). Cyrus was 2 1/2 years old and is good with almost all people except my 16 year old son. When he sees my son his tail goes up, his body stiffens and he will growl at him.

He did this because he was trying to increase his pecking order in the family pack. In other words, he thought he should be a higher level in the pack than Jeff. When I see this happen I verbally correct Cyrus. Every instance of unwarranted aggression should result in a serious correction.

Many people have more than one dog in their household. They may be able to control and get by with two dogs in a family situation, but the minute they add a third dog they have a dog-pack.

When a dog pack is established in a home the balance of nature changes and it is only a matter of time before these animals begin to establish a new pecking order.

Sometimes this is done without a dog fight but more often than not a fight takes place.

It’s important for these people to know how to safely break up a dog fight, I have written an article on this subject.

 

How to Break Up a Dog Fight eBook

 

For this reason I am not a fan of people trying to raise three dogs at the same time. Doing so requires additional handling skills that most people are not prepared to deal with. I have a free eBook on my web site titled THE GROUND WORK TO ESTABLISHING PACK STRUCTURE WITH ADULT DOGS. You may want to review this.

I also have a free eBook titled HOW TO INTRODUCE A NEW DOG INTO A HOME WITH OTHER DOGS. This is also a good resource for new pet owners.

So the solution to dog aggression can start with the handler making good decisions as they raise their puppies and not allowing dogs to live (unsupervised) in a dog pack.

But if you have come to my web site to read this article you probably already have a dog aggressive pet and need to know how to change his behavior.

3- Another common reason that dogs are animal aggressive is because of their prey drive. Some dogs have a strong prey drive and they will chase and kill other animals by instinct. Chickens, cats, sheep or other animals that will run from them are prey.

Correcting this behavior is best done with an electric collar. I talk about electric collars at the end of this article.

Here is the solution:

You are supposed to be the pack leader. In many pet homes this is not always the case. Too often the dog does not really see the owner as his true leader. These dogs can love their owner but not respect them.

So the solution to the animal aggression problem starts with changing this pack leader issue.

Obedience training is the first step. The process of normal obedience training is sometimes (not always) enough to establish rank and leadership within the family pack. For new owners I recommend that you get my Basic Dog Obedience training video, a prong collar and a dominant dog collar. I seldom train a dog without a prong collar and or a remote collar, I call them power steering on dogs.

 

Basic Dog Obedience $40.00+s&h

 

There are also a number of subtle things that can also go into the process of establishing rank within a pack. I will not cover all these items in this article but rather point you to the article I have written on Dealing With the Dominant Dog.

Unfortunately, all too often normal obedience training does not solve the aggression problem. This is because the pack leader issue has not been settled with the dog. When aggression issues continue after or during obedience training the dog does not look to the owner as the leader.

You know that this is the situation when the dog will mind in normal circumstances but when it sees another dog the desire to fight (or protect itself) is so strong that it loses self control and becomes aggressive again, even when the owner is standing there telling him not to.

The ultimate training goal for the handler is to make the dog understand that “IT MUST MIND.” The owner must be able to convince the dog that NOT MINDING IS NOT AN OPTION.

With some dogs this can only be done with force in corrections. Not everyone can train a dog to do this. Some people have soft temperaments and cannot correct a dog to the level that the dog respects the consequences of not minding. These people either have to find a new home for the dog or keep their dogs away from other dogs and animals.

People need to understand that this work is not rocket science. There is no magic training method that is going to make them into a pack leader for a strong dog.

I often get emails from people who have gone to dog behaviorists that have tried to modify the behavior of the dog through halties and other positive methods. With most dogs these goofy methods fail because the behaviorist simply doesn’t understand dominance, pack behavior and pack drive.

 

Dealing with the Dominant Dog eBook

 

So back to the corrections to fix the problem.

I begin with a normal command (LEAVE IT!!)

I do not raise the level of my voice, I just give the command in a firm voice. If the dog ignores me I give it a level 20 (on a scale of 1 to 10) correction with a prong collar. There is an old saying in dog training - “One good correction is better than 1,000 nagging corrections.” That is the concept I apply here. When I tell the dog to LEAVE IT - I only have to correct the dog 2 or 3 times and it will always understand that HELL HAS NO FURY LIKE ED AFTER THE “LEAVE IT” COMMAND!

When a dog understands this it will not get aggressive when it sees another dog or animal (this concept applies to animal aggression - it does not need to be just a dog - it could be a cat, chicken, or cow etc.)

I wrote an article titled THE THEORY OF CORRECTIONS IN DOG TRAINING. I recommend that your review it.

The concept is simple - the dog must respect the handler and the potential for a correction more than it has the urge to fight. Just as importantly the handler must praise the dog (with a happy voice) when the dog minds or when it stops becoming aggressive after a correction.

This concept must become very black and white to the dog. Aggression means getting my head taken off with a prong collar and not being aggressive means getting praised. The dog must understand that if a strange dog comes near, my pack leader will kick it’s butt and deal with the situation.

One last point: for those people who cannot correct their dog hard enough (maybe because of a physical strength issue) the solution is to use an electric shock collar. When collars are used I believe that it is very important to let the dog know that YOU are the one giving the correction. This means that you always use the LEAVE IT command before applying the shock.

 

Remote Collar Training for the Pet Owner $40.00+s&h

 

Some trainers make the mistake in saying that the handler should remain quiet when trying to modify a behavioral problem. These people are wrong. This is a pack drive issue and the dog must understand that the correction comes from the pack leader.

If you choose to use an electric collar, I would recommend the Tri Tronics products. There are a number of collars on the market but in my opinion these are the best quality there is.

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An email on DOG Attacks

Ed,

Kudos to you, for telling it like it is. Ignorance is the cause of most of the problems I've just read about on your site. I applaud you for your honesty, and for trying to provide pet owners with good, truthful information.

I stumbled across your site while searching for information on causes / remedies for aggression. I've learned quite a bit. And realize that our "pack" should be treated differently than we have been treating them. I will be visiting the site often and reading up on pack behavior.

Currently we have 5 fur-kids, ranging from 14 to 1 year in age. Lucy, a malamute/boxer mix, age 3 and definitely the leader of the whole pack, has attacked a dog in the past, Sandy, that we had to put down after breaking a rear leg in the tussle for the second time - our vet determined that the chances for another recovery from a broken leg was not very likely for Sandy. The first time, Sandy was in a cast for 5 months, with weekly bandage changes. Lucy has now turned on our other female, a sweet submissive black lab/chow mix named Dory. Thanks to our neighbor, a local animal control officer and rescue worker, we were able to get Dory stitched up and taken care of in the middle of the night.

However, since this is the second female dog that Lucy has turned on, and she has always shown signs of aggression to the point of requiring a muzzle at the vet's office, and trying to "eat" a vet tech, we have decided that her aggression is too dangerous. I've caught her once with my cat in her mouth, as well, several months ago. She's well behaved towards me, but not anyone else, canine, feline or human, including my husband. My neighbors fear her, because she's an intimidating looking dog - although she is featured in the Dog Fancy page-per-day calendar for 2005....someone thought she was cute besides me.

Sadly, my Lucy will be euthanized this weekend. It's breaking my heart, but I believe that this is the best thing for her. I have worked with our vet, and a behaviorist, and the consensus is that she's not going to get better, but worse, as she has in the past year or so, progressing to the point of even growling at me and at the other dogs besides the female. I've seen aggression info on the web that advocates re-homing the animal - but your site is the only one that seems to take an honest approach, that if there is danger involved to people, or other dogs in the home, the dog needs to be put to sleep. Why dump a behavior problem on an unsuspecting potential owner??? I admit that I should have done more work with her regarding her aggression at the first signs. I've noticed that most of your emails come from people who won't admit their mistakes. I'm admitting it, and thanking you for providing a wealth of information on what to do differently going forward.

It's been a hard week, waiting for this weekend, knowing that it's Lucy's last few days. Your site reinforced my belief that we are making the right decision, and I guess I just wanted to thank you. I can tell you've put tons of time and thought and experience into your site. People tend to be quick to complain, and slow to compliment. I just wanted to let you know, you've done a wonderful service to pet owners.

Thanks.

S

My Answer on Dog Attacks and Killing this dog:

The problems you have seen are problems that result with people who own dog packs.

They also result when these dog packs are not properly housed – in other words are allowed to run together and then are not trained. The fact is these problems are a result of mistakes that you made and not mistake the dogs made. The dog is just acting like a dog.

Had you used dog kennels or dog crates and controlled the environment these dogs were allowed to live in – this dog would not have to be killed.

So when you say that my web site promotes people who have dogs like this being put to sleep you are 100% wrong. My web site promotes that people learn pack behavior, that people learn how to properly live with multiple dogs,(using dog crates) and that people properly train their dogs and control them when out of their crate. You have done none of the above.

So when you take this dog to the Vet and kill it you should look it in the eye and apoligize for your mistakes just before it gets the needle!!!

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Crates

 

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QUESTION on Dog Fights:

I found your web site tonight and it was VERY interesting. I wonder if you could PLEASE give me advice?

I have an almost 2 year old boxer/lab mix (about 60 lbs) who has been a GREAT dog and easy to train (myself) until recently. We moved to a new house two months ago, and he was attacked by a VERY SMALL dog from down the street. The little dog was actually on my porch and my dog Hunter was cowering in the corner. I wasn't home (I am mainly his alpha) but my husband was and he tried to encourage him to stand up for himself. I guess it took awhile, and only when the little dog got near my husband who was shooing him out of the yard, did Hunter finally lunge and growl to chase the dog out. I'm sure my husband gave him praise for this...

NOW, since then, Hunter aggressively lunges/growls toward any PUPPY he has come into contact with. It is very scary since Hunter was a puppy/dog that was VERY friendly with all other dogs until just recently. I have always socialized him with people and dogs since he was 7 weeks old. This aggressive/growling/lunging behavior is NOT going on toward the dogs that he already knew beforehand. Although, he is a male dog and he tries to mount his dog friends (male or female) ALL the time to show his dominance. I am constantly telling him to get off, which he does listen to me eventually.

He is VERY good with people. Anyone can walk into our house (although he barks and growls first at the noise) or onto our property and he just wants to PLAY PLAY PLAY with any ball that they want to throw him. He is good with kids. There was a time that he tried to drop and roll on the feet of the kids to show dominance, but I immediately reprimand him and he stops and does something else.

But I can not get him to stop this awful behavior toward puppies (I think it may be all small dogs). I don't know how far Hunter would actually take it because each time he was either on a leash and I yanked him back and reprimanded OR the owner was holding the puppy to try to introduce slowly so he just backed away past the electric fence (which by the way the owner got scratched in the lunge/growl/attack). Also by the way, this has happened in a park, in a vet's waiting room, AND on my property.

Please help. What can I do? What can I read to learn to break this habit? I'll do whatever you think will work EVERYDAY if I have to.

Caryn

ANSWER on Dog Fights:

Your husband made a serious mistake. It will have a life long effect on your dog. You are not going to change what happened, now you have to figure out how to deal with the results of doing something stupid.

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QUESTION on Dog Attacks:

I would like your advice. I just got back from taking my 16-month-old intact male rottie to the vet to be put down. Never showed any signs of aggression. Never growled at anything or anybody. Friendliest dog you ever met. Everybody loved him. I work at home, had this dog with me constantly - no long separations. This morning we went down to the barn as we do every morning to feed the other animals. He is the only housepet we own. I let the two labs out of their kennel as I do every morning, and held onto Griz's collar to give the labs a head start (they like to run and play together). We have been doing this for over a year. Today, as I held onto the collar, Griz turned and bit me in the thigh. He broke skin through the jeans, in fact I have a nice little hole in my thigh. I was very angry and grabbed him by the scruff (roughly) and told him no! He made no further aggressive moves towards me. Had this been my 14-year-old daughter he bit - I would have shot the dog myself. I felt if he would bite me for simply restraining him, I could no longer trust him. My vet felt the same way.

Should I have seen this coming? I have had many dogs in my life - including a GS and a Dobie. Never had my dog bite me. I believe strongly in discipline - but have never beat my dogs. I don't want this to happen again, but I have always liked large dogs will eventually get another one. Question - got any idea what went wrong? Should I have seen this coming? What should I look for in a puppy that I missed this time?

Ann

ANSWER Dog Attacks:

You made a number of mistakes.

1- You should not have tried to keep an intact male Rot as a house dog. You found out why. The dog should have been neutered or kept in a dog kennel.

2- You should have trained this dog. Training would have helped establish your rank as pack leader. The dog did not see you as his leader. If he did he would not have bitten you.

3- Dogs develop problems with rank within the pack when they go through maturity. This begins at 15 to 36 months of age. When a dog has a strong pack drive it needs to be trained and it needs to belong to an owner who understands pack drive. You do not understand this or you would not have done the things you did. Read the article I have written titled Dealing with Dominant Dogs.

4- It is too bad that this had to happen. I think that had this dog had a different owner, one who did a little research before they put their dog to sleep, or one who did a little research before they got to this point - the dog could have lived a normal life.

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Electronic Collars

 

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QUESTION on Aggressive Dog:

I'm not sure what to do with my nearly 6-year-old lab retriever. He gets along with most people, but he shows aggression toward one man in my neighborhood.

Shortly after we moved to the neighborhood three years ago, two of the man's

golden retrievers kept getting loose and they came into our yard twice and got into a fight with our dog. Shortly after that our dog barked whenever the man loaded up those two dogs in particular in the back of his truck. The man has several other dogs and if neither of those was in the truck he wouldn't bark.

Now our dog constantly barks at this man, whether his dogs are with him or not. He could be eating or sleeping or playing and he will drop what he's doing to bark at this man. We think the man may have done something to him, and some neighbors suspect that as well.

Our dog is fine with all other humans. He is on an underground fence and will sometimes chase other dogs out of the yard. He won't start a fight unless they start one.

Is there anything that we could do to change this behavior, or is it too late?

ANSWER:

No matter what the reason - EVERY SINGLE ACT of unwarranted aggression MUST be met with a stiff correction. No exceptions.

You are the pack leader - you are the one who is supposed to determine who and when to fight someone - not the dog. Dogs instinctually know this. Yours knows he can get by with being a dink so he does.

If this were my dog I would be training with an e-collar. In a month or so I will be releasing a training DVD on e-collar use for the pet owner. It will be announced on my Table of Contents.

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QUESTION on Dog Aggressive Great Dane:

Hello, my name is Melissa and I have an approx. 8 month old Great Dane/Boxer cross female.

To make a long story short, my ex and I got her unexpectantly (she was thrown out of a car window at approx. 3 months old) and now my ex and I are no longer together. He kept her up until last weekend (Aug. 19, 2006) where my new boyfriend went and picked her up because my ex said he couldnt have her anymore because she kept attacking his roomates dog (male bulldog).

Needless to say when my boyfriend and his friends pulled up to get Nimh, they pulled up to her being punched in the back of her head by my ex as she was apparently fighting with the bulldog again. Everything was fine for the first couple of days once my boyfriend got her home, but she has started literally attacking my boyfriends dogs (he has 3 of them... a cockapoo, a cockapoo/yorkie cross and a purebred boxer who is outside by her choice) anytime they go near the food bowl, and has started just laying down near the bowl and growling at any of the dogs that comes near. His boxer is about 5 yrs old and that is where Nimh has been staying is outside with her, because she grabs the two smaller dogs by there backs when she goes after them.

Anytime my boyfriend raises her voice or goes to grab her collar to break it up, she litterally pisses herself because she thinks she is going to get beaten for it, so we know that she knows its wrong (and no my boyfriend and i have never beat her, but yes my ex has), but just can't control herself?

Before I left the US to come back to Canada when my ex and I were still together (shortly after getting Nimh), I had her all the time and I was training her and she was doing really well... well my ex neglected her and she started messing all over the house and destroying things... and then when he moved she started attacking the bulldog where he is at now, now she is going after my boyfriend's dogs.

I am worried that he has wrecked my dog, and if this keeps up I will have to put her down (she went after the boxer's throat, but released as soon as my boyfriend said something and grabbed her collar, but she also pee'd everywhere).

If you could give us any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

I had an aggressive dog with food before (my parents still have him, and he is the most wonderful dog), I broke him of his habit with a muzzle anytime he showed over aggressivness (he's was towards people, and he even bit my mother twice drawing blood) and by handing feeding him as well... he is now about 10 years old, and I still wouldnt stick my hand in his bowl nor anyone else in my family (well except my nephew but he was just a baby at the time and didn't understand, we had to teach him, but Chase never showed any signs of aggression towards him, he always just backed off and walked away until my nephew came to him with a handful of dog food.)

So I do have faith that something can be done with Nimh, I just can't be there yet until next week... Would the fact that I was the dominat one before have any effect now even though I haven't seen her in 5 months? Would the muzzle thing work again?

Ok I think I've rambled enough, if you could offer any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much,

Melissa

ANSWER:

To a great extent dogs live in the present and not the past. This means if you change the way you live with this dog today you can fix this problem.

To begin with you own a dog pack and you don't understand pack structure. I have written extensively on dominance and aggression.

If this were my dog I would be using a dog crate to keep it away from these other dogs. Read the article I wrote titled HOW TO INTRODUCE A NEW DOG INTO A HOME WITH OTHER DOGS. You will see the mistakes YOU MADE when you brought this dog home.

I would also start with serious obedience training TODAY. Get my Basic Dog Obedience DVD and do this correctly.

Not knowing this dog I might also train it with a remote collar. If you read the description of my training program with it you will see why I never DON'T use a collar anymore.

So in closing this problem is man made and can be fixed if you make the effort to try.

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QUESTION:

Hello Mr. Frawley,

My wife and I recently purchased and recieved your video on e-collar training, and after watching it, we believe it will be a great help with our dog. We rescued our dog (Jake) from our local humane society about 3-4 months ago; we believe he is a 18 month old German Shepherd mix (looks to be part Husky perhaps). Anyway, we have taken him through a first level obediance class and have been able to make huge gains with him. He was very mouthy and would jump up on visitors and ourselves when we first brought him home (which by the way seemed to be encouraged behaviour - play - at this particular branch). We have brought him to a point where he will wait for us to go up or down the stairs, go through doors, go to bed at night (his crate) as well as sit, down, stay; most importantly he doesn't mouth us or jump up on people (very rarely jumps and is then corrected). Also, during play he will always give up his toys shows no reaction when we put them away. The trainer we use describes our dog as very dominant, but not agressive.

We believe that we are ready to take our training to a new level by adding more distractions, as he is very good inside the house but not great outside. He is ok outside and will walk to heal and doesn't pull on the leash and is generally focused on me; unitl he sees another dog or any animal for that matter and then he won't respond to commands (until he is given a hard correction then he may sit, but stays very focused on the other animal) and even his name. We do walk him on a choke collar which only seems to be mildly effective, even when given a tough correction (we haven't used a prong collar on him based on our trainer saying she thinks he might show handler aggression - I don't, but then I am not as experienced as our trainer or yourself) I am going to guess that you will say this is a pack order issue (as it shouldn't matter if we are inside or out, if I am truly pack leader he should fall into place - I read and re-read your article of pack structure regularly, I guess I have some more work to go) We are about 1 week into conditioning jake to wearing his e-collar and he doesn't put up any resistance and seems to be getting used to it. He doesn't scratch at it and he even naps with it on, so hopefully this will be a good start to getting him conditioned; I really agree with your idea of having a dog that will mind you based on YOUR voice and not just because he is wearing an e-collar and this is our ultimate goal. I guess my question is two-fold; 1) what leve correction (1-10) would you give a dog that shows excitement when is sees another animal? 2) Is an animal that shows excitement towards another animal always displaying animal agression? The reason for my second question is because there is a part on the your video where you talk about dog aggression and that you start your correction at the highest level on the e-collar - this was my understanding anyway. I am prepared to do this if necessary, however, I do not want to ever over correct my dog.

I would be interested and thankful to hear any feedback with regards to my email and questions!

Sincere Thanks,

Laurence

ANSWER:

I would like to say that when I take my dog out for walks I always have the remote collar on the dog. I may not use it very often but it is always on the dog. It’s my emergency brake – so to speak.

So don’t set yourself up to think you will get the dog to mind a voice command and NOT NEED TO HAVE HIM WEAR THE COLLAR. That could result in a tragedy. I never took my patrol dog on a call out without his collar on. I seldom had to use it.

In regard to your second question. It does not sound like your dog is crazy dog aggressive. Those are the dogs that need high level stimulation the instant they SEE ANOTHER DOG – not WHEN THEY LIGHT UP ON ANOTHER DOG.

If I had your dog I would experiment with the levels until I was able to find the level that the dog was more concerned with minding than it was concerned with the other dog it saw. With that said, train with the collar first. Don’t just jump into walks in areas where there are other dogs. Do your recall work in your yard with a long line on and that type of thing, use food as a motivator. There is no hurry here.

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