Dog aggression is natural. Survival in the wild required the evolution of this characteristic over many centuries. 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 makes my dog aggressive?

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

Stranger aggression:

Dogs are naturally cautious and suspicious. Unfamiliar situations may cause your dog anxiety if it has not had much experience with strangers and new surroundings. You are responsible for making sure your dog is exposed to new experiences in a positive way. Check out our Review of Charlie Lafave’s Dog Training Zone for more ideas to deal with aggressive dog behavior.

What can I do about it?

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. Experience will teach your dog how much fun other places, people and animals can be. Socialising is quite an easy thing to do. You might want to begin with puppy pre-school. When you and your puppy feel relaxed around new dogs and people you will be able to increase your area of socialisation. Your dog will continue to need socialisation, to stay stranger friendly.

Aggression around family members:

When dogs feel they need to look after something that is theirs, they can react aggressively towards their family members. This is called resource guarding. This can appear as overly-possessive behavior, such as growling if you approach your dog when it is eating, or if you reach your hand out to take a toy away. 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 leader. Dogs are used to organisation and are ranked according to a hierarchy of position and power in relation to everyone in their family or pack. Since your dog does not have a dog family, it will rank itself against its human family and this ranking will tell it how to behave at all times. If your dog is behaving aggressively then it perceives itself to be at the top of the pack. If your dog behaves in a submissive/passive way it perceives its self to be ranked lower than other family members and wouldn’t dare growl or snarl if you approached during eating or if you took away a toy. 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?

Working with your dog regularly and consistently in obedience training will help to re program your dogs preception of you as the pack leader. Short and regular training sessions are paramount to effective behaviour modification. Positive praise, treats and lots of pats are important for making your training sessions enjoyable and productive.

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