Your home will be so much happier if your dog is a friend in the family, someone you can always trust. Even if you plan to use the dog as a guard dog, it should still know how to behave around you and your family.
If you encounter aggressive dog behavior, then you need to arrange training to make sure your dog understands who's in charge from the start. A bite at the wrong time can easily cost you $1 million in a payout or a claim to the pet insurance firm for compensation and legal fees.
These tips will help you learn how to help your dog to act responsibly at home or in its place of work.
Photo Credit: Jan Tik/Flickr CC
The first thing you need to understand is that it isn’t the dog’s fault if it’s aggressive. Aggressive dog behavior is the fault of the owner. That might not be you as you may have taken the dog on when it already had aggressive tendencies, but you need to deal with it immediately.
This is what usually causes aggressive dog behavior in the first place:
• The owner’s behavior
• How the dog is punished
• Shouting at the dog
• Leaving the dog alone for too long
• Not feeding the dog properly
Dogs in unfamiliar surroundings can become worried. This can present itself in territorial behavior and also opening up the dog’s natural instincts. Dogs can also appear aggressive at similar times that humans get grumpy – when they’re ill, have a disease that isn’t being treated, or aren't being fed enough or the correct food and water.
To address this, get expert help to train the dog. If you have a young puppy you may be able to carry out some minor training yourself, which is really a reinforcement of basic rules. If the dog is more than six months old, you may do more wrong than right if you try to overcome the dog’s fears with forceful training. The trainer should be someone who is an expert in aggressive dog behavior training. They should be prepared to visit your home to do the job.
You will soon become used to your dog’s aggressive behaviors so you will learn when to react to stop the problem. This might be forceful barking, too much growling, trying to outstare anyone and the most worrying, when they bare their teeth, particularly when combined with growling.
There are some actions you can take to reinforce your expert’s training.
Cuddling and talking nicely to your dog will overcome any fears or anxiety they may have. This, in turn, will help them feel wanted and less aggressive.
If your dog is a puppy, you can control biting by saying ‘NO’ if he bites. Leave the dog alone for a half minute to learn that the behavior isn’t acceptable. They will learn quite quickly.
When your dog shows aggression, it’s time for you to calm them down by speaking in the right tone and not showing threatening behavior yourself.
There are some basic rules you must adhere to when your dog might become aggressive.
You must never leave them alone with another animal or a child.
Make sure you muzzle your dog when you are out in public and avoid going on walks with it to places that might cause aggressive dog behavior. A dog park might be just too much for them to cope with, soon after newly learned behavior.
Some experts suggest that you treat your dog when they get aggressive going into an unknown area. This way they will hopefully learn that going into new areas can be rewarding, but you must be sure you don’t relate aggressive troubles with gaining rewards otherwise the aggression will return whenever they want a dog treat.
You must be prepared to act swiftly at any sign of dog aggression behavior so the dog learns that you will not tolerate it anymore. Dogs love to be told what to do so the more you control the dog’s behaviors, the better your dog will become when you issue kind, careful commands.
In the long term, any aggressive dog behavior can be trained away once you’ve ruled out any medical problems. You should always maintain your dog liability insurance for the times when things go wrong.
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Guest written by Isabella Woods.
Isabella is a professional writer for numerous websites and publications. Exclusively for the Russian Dog website.
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