Play Aggression in Dogs

Play Aggression In Dogs

By Ed Frawley

dogs

Photo by Jinn Sabarika ~ www.spiralingdreams.com

Play can often manifest itself into agression, both with dogs playing with dogs AND people playing with dogs. If this happens with your dog - get my DVD on dominant dogs

I have a 3 month old female red nose pit-bull. I have a problem I’m not sure how to address this. She is very aggressive towards my husband. She will climb up on the couch and just start biting and pulling his hair. She is like she is out of control. I have to literally pull her off of him. My husband is worried when she gets older she my even try to kill him. When we first got her he would play with her on the floor and wrestle with her. When she starts attacking him she does not know when to stop. Please help me. I love my dog and don't want to get rid of her, but I’m scared for my husband. please tell me what I can do. Thanks.

Basic Dog Obedience

Hello, I am the owner of an 8 week old german sheperd pup. We bought this pup 2 weeks ago to be a loving member of our family and nothing more. "Chase" has a definite biting problem and shows some aggression by barking and snarling, and shows some signs of what I will call "cowardly traits" as he will turn and hide if he feels threatened. (Sometimes I wonder if he was abused before we got him.) We wonder if we made the wrong choice in choosing this puppy as I do not want an aggressive dog. Is it too early to make this decision and how do you know? The kids are even struggling with the aggressive behavior. For instance our 12 year olds will pick him up and he will snarl and turn to bite. Or if I would correct him with a "NO," he really acts offended sometimes with a growl or snarl even though I follow with love and praise. I would appreciate your input.

Prong Collars

We just got our first dog. He a Border Collie/Lab Mix. He was 6 weeks old when we got him. He is now just 3 months old. He is brilliant. Maybe too smart. That's not the problem. I read your article on different aggressive behaviors and I am more curious about the prey aggression. I see this in my puppy. When the children or I am running he runs in front and nips at my legs, and at my children, almost as if he were herding them. He has gotten the skin a few times. If I yell "down" in time he will stay down. I have been also expressing to my children to "freeze", and, usually, he walks away. Occasionally, he doesn't and continues to jump and puppy bite on their arms and legs. He is not at all mad, or angry, just playing, but it can hurt sometimes. I usually grab him by the scruff, like you suggested, and that works for the moment, but he is getting big really fast, and that is not so easy for me. Not to mention, when I've done this, a few times he bore his teeth at me. But for the most part he will pull his tail between his legs, lower his head and pull his ears back. When I sit to play with him, it consists of biting at every part of my body, and the biting gets hard, enough to break skin. I can tell him "no bite" and he will then just bump me with his nose for a few seconds then the mouth opens again. It usually ends in someone getting hurt (me or one of my children) him being shaken (by the scruff) and sent to his kennel. As smart as he is, it seems like he would get it by now. He has also started growling when he plays with my son. I'm not sure about it. His tail is wagging', but it sounds mean.

What I'm asking is this. His playing gets aggressive. I do NOT believe he is trying to hurt us, but he is not learning and I do not want a dog that thinks he is dominant. I want to do everything right by the dog, but also by my family. I have read enough articles of yours to know usually there are signs, I just don't know if I'm over reacting, I just want to be sure. If there is aggression here, I want to know what to do, if anything, or is he just a puppy that chews on everything (including me and my children) and doesn't understand how hard is too hard?
Thank you,

Dealing with
Dominant & Aggressive Dogs

I am a new dog owner and I have read your articles and I would like to say thank you for all you hard work. I do need some advice. I just got a puggle half pug and half begal mix. She is 3 months old and I have had her only a week. She gets real excited and starts to get rough and I know its not intentional, but when she does it she can do some damage. I have tried correcting her by doing the alpha roll she fought that a lot. I then tried grabbing her by the scruff and she yelps but no she seems to be a little scared of me. I am not sure if I have her full respect. She does sit when I tell her to but that is about it. I don’t want her to be scared of me but I do want her to respect me. I understand that cause of her age she won’t listen to me right away but I am trying real hard. Also how long should I be leaving her in the create. I work 9-6 I put her in the create. I corne horne at lunch and walk her and then put her back in her create till 630 and then I walk her and play with her and put her in her create at about 11-11:30 till she is ready in the morning. I do have to create her here and there when she gets hyper or too nippy. Can you offer me some guidance how to correct this? I am currently a student so I am on a limited budget and can’t afford to take her to a whole of classes so I have to be real choosey. You are the best from everyone I talked to on the net please help.

How to Fit a Prong Collar

eBook

We recently just purchased your 8 week to 8 month old puppy training video. We do have a guest ion about rough playing with a 12 week old german shepard puppy that responses with excessive growling and barking and at times an occasional nip when my husband is playing with her. My concern is that this type of rough playing could be setting us up for problems or sending mixed messages to her on appropriate behavior when she interacts with other members of the family. Our shepard is being raised as a family dog not a personal protect dog. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Dominant Dog Collar

I am hoping you can help us. We have a 2 year old lab/pit mix that we adopted at 9 weeks. For the most part he is a good dog but he has some strange aggression that makes me fearful for our son. Our dog does not like our 3 year old son. Sometimes, he'll lick our son's face or what ever but most times, if the dog is sleeping and our son even walks by him, he'll growl and get up and move. It used to be he'd growl at just our son but now he's getting like that with us. If he's sleeping or laying by us, if we even touch his back to pet him, he'll growl, get up and move away from us. Our dog also hides under things, like beds and the couch if he knows he's been bad, but if you try and get him to come out from under there, it is an all out war. He will lay under there are growl and bare his teeth and bark at you. It's hard because you can't pull him out easily to discipline him and he knows it! He's a very smart dog and very trainable when it comes to sit, stay, fetch. But when he is bad, and he knows it, he gets mean. My husband and our dog had it out the other day because he had been bad and immediately ran under our son’s bed. My husband tried to get him to come out and when he reached under there to yank him out, our dog turned on him and bit him. He bit him hard enough to draw blood.

Then the other day, my son was standing by our dog who was standing in the living room and my son put his arms over the dogs back and the dog turned around and bit him in the hand. I am fearful that our dog is not getting enough exercise because we live in an apartment and so he's getting aggressive out of boredom. Could this be the case?? He has a ton of energy and even though we try to get him to a dog park to run, it doesn't seem to help that much and I feel bad that we can't always go as much as he needs.

I personally want to give him to someone that has room for him to run, but my husband refuses to talk about giving him up. He keeps thinking the dog will change if he works with him more, but I'm afraid that we will be good and aggressive at the training for a few weeks and then slack like we did when we first got him. I don't want this dog to hurt my son worse than he already has and frankly I'm scared of the dog. Every time I see him growl at me and bear his teeth, I am so afraid that he's just going to lunge at me one day. We wanted a calm, friendly, family dog who our son could play with, and it hasn't turned out like that. What should we do????

dogs playing

Hi. We recently got a female lab/shepherd mix and I am concerned at how much she nips and or bites at my husband and I. We try to distract her with other toys, as mentioned in your video Puppies 8 weeks to 8 months, which she chews for a moment and then if we move, and even when we may be standing still she will nip at our calves, thighs and jump to nip at our hands. We have her outside in a 5'x15'x6' kennel. Our concern is our 1 yr old daughter. If the dog nips and bites at us, what could she do to our daughter. What do you recommend we do to stop the biting/nipping before someone gets hurt? She also growls and nips when excited or when playing. I know I shouldn't be "afraid" of her, but I feel it sometimes any how. Thanks for your advice.

Remote Collar Training for the Pet Owner

We have this puppy that is just barely one year old. He is a great dane so he is big. The only problem is that every now and then he will really snap at someone. For some odd reason his favorite person to snap at is my little sister, who is only 7 years old. He just barely snapped at her a few minutes ago. He snapped at her face and got her to bleed just a little just a tiny dot, but we want to be able to trust him. He can be a really lovable puppy and we love him with all our heart. So we do not want to get rid of him, but we want to trust him. What can we do to prevent this from happening anymore? Not only to my sister but also to every other person he randomly bites? Please help! Thank you for your time.

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