Dominant Aggression:
Although it may seem cute when a young puppy growls, this could be the first signs of aggression. Food guarding and snapping at guests, may seem harmless when a dog is small, but people don’t understand is that this dog is showing the early signs of dominance. The truth is that this pup is probably going to grow up to be aggressive to family members in addition to strangers. Early growling can easily develop into an adult that tries to take control of the house. Dominant Aggression needs to be controlled from the start, (no matter how cute or small the dog is).
Often people will say that dog aggression seems to appear out of the blue, but there are always warning signs and early indicators of aggressive tendancies. For instance “offensive (dominance-related) aggression is often indicated by high postures, staring and chasing (Borchelt and Voith, 1996; Lindsay, 2001). Unfortunately, posturing and body language are often overlooked and growling as well as food guarding is simply punished, to the point the dog stops giving warning signals and goes straight to biting.
Dogs are pack animals and they live a pack life that has been bred into them since the beginning of time. Their very nature demands a pack order and if one is not set up for them, they will take it upon themselves to develop their own pack order by which they live. If the owner doesn’t establish itself as the pack leader and all humans to rank above the dog, it may take it upon itself to become the alpha. This is why many dogs will only obey one person in the household. It all comes down to how the dog views its order in pack.
Proper socialization at an early age can help reduce the chance of aggression. A dog “can be influenced by its experiences during early life, a time that is critical for establishing social relationships (Scott and Fuller, 1965). Puppies raised in isolation until the end of the sensitive period (12 weeks of age) tend to show deficits in play activity and to behave aggressively towards peers (Fox and Stelzner, 1967). Even if a dog learns to interact appropriately with littermates, these social skills may not be retained unless the dog continues to receive frequent conspecific socialization”. (Lindsay, 2001). The socialization must be ongoing and varied in order to expose the dog to as many things, people and stimulus as possible.
Prevention is the best cure, but to get control of an already dominant dog you must have his view of the pack order changed. He needs to be moved to the bottom of the list in terms of dominance. He must realize that all humans rank higher than himself. This is done by monitoring the order of every aspect of the dog’s life. Dominant dogs do not sleep on the bed or in the bedroom. The best place to sleep goes to the pack leader. Dominant dogs never eat from the table and are always fed “after dinner,” (lower pack members always eat last). Humans must have first access to all resources, to establish that the dog is the lowest ranking member of the pack.
Spaying and neutering the dog can help in reducing aggressive tendencies. However, not always in the case of females. “Most household aggression involves spayed females (Sherman et al., 1996) Furthermore: in regard to multiple dog homes.
“Overall (1997) observed that compared to neutered males, aggression in intact males is often more intense, quicker, and lasts longer. In contrast, spayed females have been found to initiate aggression more frequently than intact females (Sherman et al., 1996) and to display more dominance-related aggression after spaying”. (Voith and Borchelt, 91982; Kim et al., 2006).
The real key to controlling and preventing aggression is obedience training. This is a very important part of establishing some kind of order. The training method, when dealing with aggression, should not be the strictly a motivational approach. Motivation is used but it must be tempered with corrections for all unwanted behaviour. It is essential to interrupt all aggressive and dominant behaviour and provide the dog with a healthy and happy alternative. However, if the dog’s dominance has developed to a point where it tries to attack the handler when it gets corrected…then its time to get some professional help.
For information on the myths of pack order and dominance check out this link:
http://www.4pawsu.com/dogpsychology.htm
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