It can be very scary when a dog acts differently toward one person or a group of people over others, especially when that dog acts aggressively.  Have you encountered something like this?

A three year old spayed German Shepherd acts aggressively toward a particular man. She acts perfectly fine with everyone else but she does not like or trust him.  His erratic actions hinder their relationship, as sometimes he is calm with her and others “he yells and swats.”  If he is laying on the bed, she will lay by him and ask for attention, but as soon as he gets up, she tenses.  She is a “one person dog,” though she tolerates petting from others.  She has never snapped at or bitten anyone, other than this man.  Her body language when she shows aggression include a wagging tail, low rear and upright ears.  The biggest problem is that the man described is also the owner’s husband.

First, let’s address the body language she displays.  Contrary to popular belief, a wagging tail is not always a friendly sign.  Her lowered rear end, probably a crouching position, is an indication of her fear.  The erect ears shows that she is “on alert.”  When you couple that with the barking, charging, and crouching, you have a dog that is trying to figure out a human, the husband.  What happens?  Is it a snarling, vicious bark?  I doubt that he needs to defend himself from an attacking dog, since they are both still in the house.  To me, this sounds like an attention bark, since it probably gets her attention.  Even though it may be corrective or negative, she gets attention.

The real problem here is the human factor.  If you want this man to be safe, then HE better be ready to make some changes.  The husband is not PART of the problem, he IS the problem.  When she is lying next to him and they both are calm, the dog feels safe.  However, when he gets up, the dog responds by tensing up, as if she expects him to strike her.  She certainly shows signs of fear around him.  What I worry about here is how fast that fear can turn into aggression.  Unfortunately, in a situation like this, when she does bite, she will be likely be put to sleep, when there are things HE can do to rectify the situation.

Dogs do not like to be yelled at anymore than humans do.  They certainly do not like to be “swatted” either.  The unpredictability of her relationship with the husband ruins it.  Some dogs may take this for their whole life, while some dogs may snap one day inflicting a bite that may cost them their life.

Remember, adult dogs have 42 teeth in our mouths.  These teeth serve a purpose, biting down hard, holding the meat and pulling it away from the bone.  Why would a human think they can take that on?  The average German Shepherd bite unleashes a force of 238 pounds of pressure.  They make great police dogs, because not many people can withstand or overcome that bite to get away.  Only an idiot would try to intimidate that!

For this situation to continue incident-free, the husband needs to learn some canine communication skills.  First, it is never acceptable to strike a dog.  If you do, you deserve to be bitten!  As for the yelling, most dogs have a very keen sense of hearing.  Sometimes, my Mom will whisper commands to me.  I think she is just testing my hearing.  This dog is confused.  She wants to understand what she does that causes the yelling and swatting.  Since most of of do not use reason or logic, it is the person that must make the change.

He needs to know that the dog does not understand his actions and barks and charges out of frustration, as if she is asking him, “Why do you yell and swat at me?  It frightens me and I really just want to be loved.”  He MUST change his ways if you want him to be safe around her.  Once she knows to expect a calm demeanor from him, you can work on building a stronger relationship between the two of them.

Barking is a subject that people always want to hear more about.  For dogs, barking is one of our forms of communication.  Is it our fault that humans do not understand us?

I suggest that we share the fault equally.  Personally, I think that is being pretty generous, since humans are supposed to have the power to reason.  As we have discussed previously, you already know that dogs do not have a clue as to what you are saying.  To us, your constant talking can be just as annoying as our barks are to you, unless you are telling us how great we are.  Then, we completely understand, and we do not find it annoying.  No matter what you are saying, we listen to your words, and we act like we understand what you are talking about.  Can you say the same when we bark?

For the most part, dogs do not just sit around and bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark…  That is, unless we have something to bark about.  Humans will not always understand that we have something to bark about because you are not capable of hearing and sensing the things that we do.  Often, your dog may be sitting in the back yard and for what appears to be no reason to you, he begins to bark. Some people will listen to the barks for a few minutes, but it is inevitable that someone will stick their head out of a door and yell, “QUIET” or even something more colorful.  Sometimes, that will be followed up by insulting us and calling us names.  It is very seldom that the area humans searches for the reason that a dog is barking.  You should learn to use that power of reasoning to realize that we do not bark just to hear ourselves bark.

For example, perhaps we hear a dog or two barking a few miles away.  Bear with me for a few minutes as we assume that these dogs are sharing directions to a new campground filled with people and discarded food with their barks.  These two things are among the most important to dogs, because we enjoy the company of humans, and food is at least as valuable to us as money is to humans.  Because humans do not hear nearly as well as we do, the “colorful” human did not hear the barks of the dogs located a few miles away.

I would like to share a story with you to illustrate my point.  One of Mom’s former students lived next door to a family that had a dog that lived in the backyard.  The dog was tethered to a fixed object, and we all know how I feel about that.  After many months of living in the backyard, the dog suddenly started to bark, and and he continued barking constantly.  After several minutes, his owners went to the back door and yelled at the dog to cease.  The dog did not.  He continued the constant barking for several hours, and the family began calling the dog “colorful” names and throwing things at him.  Not once did the humans ever bother to go outside and look into why the dog was barking.  They ASSUMED that the dog had suddenly become retarded, stupid, untrainable, bad, ridiculous, loud-mouthed, ungrateful, demon possessed, and numerous other words that contain language I am not allowed to use.  The people that never checked to see why their dog was barking did allow their five year old child in the backyard to play with the dog.  The dog appeared to be his normal self so long as the child remained near the house, but if the child tried to venture into the “dog’s part of the yard,” he barked, growled and snarled to keep the child from approaching.  It appeared  that the dog was guarding a certain area of the yard.  Finally, after viewing such odd behavior when the 5 year old went into the backyard, the adults decided to see what was so important to this dog.  As the man approached a weeded area near the dog, he began barking more and more and even tried to snap at the man, so that the man would not enter.  Sensing that the dog was trying to tell him something, the man picked up a stick and began to poke around in the weeds.  After a few moments of poking around, the man saw the reason for his dog’s odd behavior.  There was a very unhappy five foot rattlesnake sticking its head out of the weeds!

The most important thing about this story is that you should not just assume a dog is trying drive you crazy or to be bad with his barking.  He may, in fact, be trying to save your life!  Mom never told me what breed of dog potentially saved the lives of his family, but I think it is safe to assume that it was not a Jack Russell Terrier.  A Jack Russell would have killed the snake and placed it on the back porch as a present to the humans.

It seems like you have a wonderful dog, you have given him a great home, but when you go out to the off leash dog park, things change, right?  Being off leash is truly a fantastic feeling.  Running around with the wind blowing through your hair as your ears flap in the wind is almost as much fun as riding in the car with our head hanging out of the window.  However, such a fantastic joy as it is, being off leash is ALWAYS a privilege.  This is something that needs to be earned. Continue Reading

There are times when you have conversations with “dog” people that know little or nothing about dogs or their behavior.  They are often looked to for suggestions and advice because they hold a position of influence.  Oftentimes, they will dispense advice throwing words around that they may have overheard in a conversation.  Some of those words or phrases can be dangerous in the hands of untrained, uneducated individuals.  Phrases like fear aggression are among those that are dangerous.  They think that because they were thinking fast enough to throw out that phrase, it will impress people, increasing their influence among those they encounter.  Some of these people do not have a clue as to what fear aggression actually is, let alone what can be done to modify or manage it. Continue Reading

Dominance Aggression:
Hackles will be raised, teeth barred, tail may be up or back, body & legs stiffen, lips are drawn back, growling, eyes fixed on target.

Fear Aggression:
Body and head lowered, ears are back close to the head, tail is down or may be tucked between the legs, growling, lips are drawn back, teeth barred, hackles raised, nose wrinkled.

Continue Reading

I received a question via e-mail last week about aggression.  Since there are eight different types of aggression, I have decided to break things down into an eight-part series on aggression.  Fear aggression is the second topic I will cover, and it is included below.

What is fear aggression?

Fear aggression is actually pretty self-explanatory.  It occurs when a dog is frightened by something and that will trigger a “fight” response.  Since his fear does not allow him the luxury of the “flight” response, he will respond the only way he can.  He bites.

This often happens as the result of a puppy’s improper socialization, especially not being properly socialized at the appropriate time.  From the age of three weeks to three months, your puppy should only be exposed to positive people and things.  Don’t ask me why, but some things to avoid this include men with beards, anyone with a hat, ladies with shrill voices, and even children, unless VERY CLOSELY SUPERVISED.  Taunting a dog or punishing him too severely can also lead to fear aggression.

Signs of fear aggression in your dog:

• Nearly always displaying submissive body language
• Ears that are laid back usually flat against the head
• Tail is tucked between the legs
• Reluctance to rolling over to expose their belly
• Avoidance of eye contact
• Tilt of their head toward the person seeking the dog’s attention, often licking their lips
• Do not like to be groomed, especially the feet

What can be done to help correct this?

• Train him using ONLY positive reinforcement. Remember, you are building or re-building trust!
• Do not reinforce any fear aggressive behavior positively.
• Never surprise or startle the dog.
• Do not punish bad behavior.  Correct the behavior.
• Do not allow people to pet the dog without permission, especially strangers.

Fear aggression can be very tricky.  Often, people will observe a fearful dog and try to give the dog some comfort.  However, the dog may not be aware of what the human is doing, and he will bite as a response.  Although any breed of dog can be fear aggressive, some breeds are born with fearful or anxious behavior tendencies and are more likely to be fear aggressive.

Dogs are the most social creatures on the face of the earth.   In fact, a dog is actually more social than a human being.  Allowing your dog to learn how to socialize at an early age will help prevent fear aggression.
Because most people are not well versed in canine body language, it is advisable that a professional be contacted to help with this situation in a dog that is exhibiting fear aggressive behavior.  The most important thing with fear aggression is to avoid the situation that causes the behavior (leashes, cages, grooming, etc.) when possible, until you can correct it with the aforementioned professional.

Simply, yes.  But it is not the language you might think.  As far as the spoken word, dogs understand it all, from English to Spanish, Chinese to Pig Latin, it really does not matter what language you speak to them.  To them, body language is the most important language there is.

Dogs never learn a word of any spoken language, instead they learn the repetition of specific sounds.  When  that sound is heard, they know there is a certain action expected from them.  This is especially true when you train your dog with hand signals as well as the verbal cue.

If you use a hand signal for your dog to “SIT”, when you say the word in English while giving the hand signal, then he or she knows to put his butt on the ground.  Now, if you say “¡siéntate!” (the same command in Spanish) while giving the same hand signal, your dog knows to sit.  Wow! That dog speaks TWO languages!

With dogs, the key to success lies in repetition.  In addition, the tone that you use is also very important.  If you are giving a command to SIT, then it needs to sound like a command.  If your tone is one that is more of a questioning nature, then you may or may not get a SIT.  It is important to note here that yelling at or to a dog is not a good practice.  The act and tone of yelling indicates a possible threat to your four-legged friend.

With a threat possible, your dog must resort to interpreting the language he thinks he understands, body language. People function on a very high level when it comes to interpreting non-verbal cues, and they do not always get it right.  Your dog is looking for other signs of possible aggression from the person that has started yelling. In the dog’s mind, he thinks, “I need to watch this person to see if his arms raise, perhaps he might strike me.  Maybe his heart rate has increased or his breathing pattern has changed.”  All of these are body language signals watched closely by dogs as they are committed by humans.

What if you are just yelling to your dog about how much you love him?  For your dog to interpret you correctly, you better make sure that the rest of your body language says the same thing.