If you’re looking to figure out how to stop dog aggression, let’s begin by asking yourself a couple of simple questions:
- Do you join your dog in their aggressive behavior?
- Does your dog pay attention to your commands before it becomes aggressive? How about when you try to show it there’s a better way to act?
The answers are likely to be as follows:
When your canine begins their aggressive behavior, they aren’t paying attention to you. They’re doing their own thing at that point, and they’re not going to listen when you try to give them a different command.
What they’re doing is imperative and, in the canine mind, the right thing to do. Dogs display this behavior in order to protect themselves and their families.
There’s a variety of different types of aggression, and they range from fearful behavior to asserting dominance, and a whole slew of different shades of emotion in between. There are intermittent patterns of this behavior and constant aggression and even seemingly random bouts of violence. The target of this destructive, generally negative behavior can be almost anything or anyone, even inanimate objects will occasionally be slated for the focus of their doggy wrath.
Put simply: your dog thinks that it’s leading the pack. An anxious dog will be trying to protect either you or itself. A dominant dog will take the initiative, attacking when retreat is an option while a fearful one will only display true aggression when there is no other option. All of the other factors in their behavior are subordinate to these two.
If you wish to stop this behavior, you want to make sure that your dog knows that you’re in charge. You need to convince them that you’re the master in your own home, and from there you can work on making sure they understand that you’re in control of the situation when you’re elsewhere as well.
Taking things further, once your dog knows that you’re in charge they’ll look to see how you react before they begin to try to assert their dominance. Once you’ve gotten there, you’ll find that you have a much easier time controlling your animal whether at home or out and about. If you don’t convince your pet that you’re the leader, then you’ve got virtually no chance of actually controlling this kind of behavior.
The biggest thing to remember about your dog, no matter what else you may forget, is that they’re a pack animal and that means that they’ll be following their alpha’s lead. Take control and be the leader your dog needs, otherwise, they’ll continue to run amok.
