How to Stop Dog Aggression - Tips and Tricks

Dog aggression is natural. Survival in the wild required the evolution of this characteristic over many hundreds of years. Many centuries of selective breeding techniques have reduced dog aggression traits. Some tips to help you to understand your dogs aggressive behaviour are below.

What is the cause of dog aggression?

Factors such as lack of exposure to other people and dogs as well as dominance are the most common causes of dog aggression.

Aggression towards strangers:

Caution and suspicion are natural behaviours for dogs. Inexperience with strangers and unfamiliar situations will almost certainly make your dog feel nervous. Make time to expose your dog to new people and situations and reinforce these experiences in a positive way. Read our Dog Training Zone Review for help to stop dog aggression.

What can I do about dog aggression?

Start with your dog when it's young and expose it to a wide range of experiences. Make sure you include other people and animals in your choice of experiences. Positive experiences like this will reinforce in your dogs mind that meeting new people and going to new places is ok. Socialising your dog doesn't need to be stressful. You might want to begin with puppy pre-school. Once your puppy is at ease with new people and dogs, you'll be able to expand this experience. You will continue to need to socialise your dog.

Aggression with family members:

When dogs feel they need to protect something that is theirs, they can react aggressively towards their family members. This is called resource guarding. If your dog gets snarly or growls at you when you are near where it is eating or playing with a toy, then you know you have a resource guarding problem. This is caused by a misunderstanding about where your dog fits in to the pack. Pack animals such as dogs need to know who is the boss. Dogs are used to structure and are ranked according to a hierarchy of position and power in relation to everyone in their family or pack. If there is no dog pack to be ranked against, your dog will rank itself against its human pack and this will determine how to behave in any situation. If your dog perceives himself to be at the top, it is his job to behave aggressively. If on the other hand, your dog perceived itself to be a lower ranking member of the family, it wouldn't dream of growling at you when you are near its food or toys. It is up to you to reinforce in your dog that you are the leader and it is a lower ranking member of your pack.

What can I do about my dogs aggressive behavior?

Re-establish your authority with your dog by regular and consistent obedience training work. Short and regular training sessions are the key to effective behaviour modification. The more enjoyable you make these sessions, the more your dog will want to please you and remember to use lots of praise and treats.

For more detailed information about dog training and other behavioral problems, check out Secrets to Dog Training. Check out a full Secrets of Dog Training Review at DogHelpdesk.com