By its very nature, a dog is an aggressive animal. Aggression is necessary to not only hunt, but also to protect territory and resources, and mate successfully. Breeding has diminished this behavior immensely over the centuries. However, dogs remain more than able to inflict serious injury on humans, other dogs, and themselves.
If you are attempting to properly train an aggressive dog, you are actually trying to reprogram mother nature’s hard-wiring of your dog’s brain. That doesn’t mean that the task is impossible – not in the least. As dog-owners, there are numerous things we could do, to effectively subdue and train dangerous, aggressive behavior out of your dog.
1) It is vital that you socialize your dog. By doing this, you are getting your dog to learn through their experience with humans(other than you) and other dogs. In addition, this conditions your dog to easily accept and deal with new situations and people without fear or anxiety – two factors that rear their ugly heads in the form of aggressive behavior. Socializing your dog is more of a consistent concerted effort, rather than strict regimental training.
2) Seriously consider group dog-behavior classes. These are a great opportunity for your dog to interact with other dogs and humans, as well. Ideally, these types of classes will be initiated when your dog is still a puppy or quite young. Often, an unruly, imbalanced dog will be turned away from such group-classes, because they pose a danger to the other dogs, their owners, and themselves. If this is the case, you and your aggressive dog will be better suited for intensive on-the-leash obedience training with specialists experienced in dealing with these particular dog-behavior problems.
3) Don’t waste any more time waiting for the perfect solution to your dog’s aggressive behavior to fall in your lap. Get ahold of a system, guide, or program and stick to it. Training the aggression out of your dog doesn’t have to be a tall order. However, the longer you wait, and the older your dog gets, the harder training your dog not to be aggressive will be.
A Mastiff puppy aggressively toying with the cat might make for a great photo, but a full-grown Mastiff doing the same with someone’s baby definitely is not. An aggressive adult dog is the result of dog-owners that relish the spontaneous, “cute” behavior of their puppies, yet completely fail their dogs, by hindering their mental development with a lack of discipline. This is a recipe for a dangerous, destructive situation to arise. In addition, your dog continues to struggle with aggression, anxiety, and confusion around other dogs and humans(often your own family). They are yelled at or scolded, but they will NEVER realize why.
All too often, the laziness and ineptness of the dog-owner results in a tragic accident involving their dog. Thousands of dogs are destroyed every year, because of attacks on humans or other dogs. These incidents are readily attributed to the particular breed being “naturally dangerous and aggressive”. That is a cop-out, actually better translated as certain dog-owners being “naturally lazy and irresponsible”. There’s no way around it. The training of your dog has everything to do with the training of YOU and vice versa. If you aren’t fully prepared for the investment of effort, money, time, patience, furniture, frustration, and love that is necessary to properly rear a dog, please do the world a favor – don’t get a dog.
By: James Mitchell
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Filed under Aggressive Puppy by on Jan 26th, 2012. Comment. 
Will my aggressive dog hurt a puppy?
Watch this Video to stop your aggressive dog.
Filed under Aggressive Puppy by on Jan 23rd, 2012. 8 Comments.
Intro
Dog training. It is one of those areas that there are a lot of sideline professionals. What I would like to outline for you here are some of the basics behind training you dog for a few of the more common problems that you could find;
1)Biting
If there is one area that you should concentrate on the most I would recommend you deter your dog from biting. If you think about it for a minute your dog’s mouth is his primary medium for interacting with the world. Therefore he will want to use it as a means to get your attention. Weather your dog is engaging in play or not, it is a good idea to persuade them to use another medium like pulling on a rope or getting their ball as a way for them to get what they want. The problem with him using his mouth for play (especially at a young age) is that you are inadvertently telling your dog that it is an acceptable behavior. As a puppy this may not be a big deal, but as an adult they may misconstrue this lesson and think it is not only acceptable for play but also for fear and/or territorial issues. There is one more point that I would like to make that will make a huge difference in not only the dog you buy but also the training methodology you use. Biting can come from multiple sources.
They are play, fear, aggression, and learned behavior.
The point I am trying to make is that you need to research the dog you wish to buy to know the level of training you will need to do. Some suggestions I have for biting would be to give a small pinch at the scruff of the dog’s neck each time he gives a small nibble on your person. I am not talking about pinching until the dog yelps but enough that you get his/her attention at the moment your dog bites. This will simulate the interaction your dog would have had in the wild with its mother. She would give him a nip to let him know the behavior that he/ she was doing was not appropriate. Also the pinch should be accompanied by a firm “NO” in an authoritative voice. I do not suggest the dog understands the word “NO” the way you do but it is a tool for you to use (with consistency) that will help them understand what it is that you want or don’t want them to do.
2)House breaking
House breaking is another area wrought with misconception. Some misconceptions are as follows,
1 Rubbing their nose in it
2 Smacking you dog
3 Yelling at your dog
The methods I just mentioned may eventually get your dog to use the appropriate place to go to the bathroom but they will go there more out of fear of you than wanting to do the right thing for you. Lets not forget that everything your dog does he does to make you happy, all you have to do is show them how. When house training your dog you should try to spend as much time as you can at home with your dog. It will help you in providing consistent guidance to your dog.
The first thing to do is make sure your new puppy does not have worms. Worms will lead to diarrhea and will make the task of house training all that much harder. With a consistent diet and meal times your puppy will get to know the schedule and slowly adopt his own schedule for needing the bathroom. Nighttime accidents could be limited by keeping your puppy’s bedroom close to yours so you can hear when he needs out.
While you are out you should keep your puppy in one or two rooms that don’t have carpet. Spread layers of newspaper over the entire floor. Once you get home you should pick the paper up and only return it once you are ready to go out again. In the meantime, continue to train him outdoors. If you gradually reduce the amount of paper you lay down over time you will be down to just a small area. Once he is old enough to “hold it” while you are gone, try permitting him in a larger area of your home. Use patience in this training because negative reinforcement when he/she has an accident will only stifle your puppy’s development. The only scolding you should use would be the aforementioned “NO”.
3)Barking
Barking is a topic that is a little more difficult to deal with do to the fact that this is one of just a few ways for a dog to verbally communicate. Some times dogs will bark at strangers and some dogs will bark at any car that drives by your home. The simplest explanation I can give for this is that your home is the den. When something or someone approaches the dog lets out his early warning system (i.e. barking) to let you know that there is an intruder inside your territory. This is the same reason dogs mark their territory when they are outside. It is their way of letting approaching animals know that they are coming into a territory that has been claimed by your family. Stopping a dog from barking is not as hard as it sounds.
With the command I taught you earlier “NO”, and consistency in your use of the word will help let him know that his behavior is not appropriate.
A couple things to remember is that…
1) only use the word “NO” to let them know they are doing wrong. That goes for anything you are trying to teach them. They do not understand complex sentences or even simple ones so to tell them to get off the couch or stop barking will only lead them to confusion.
2) Dogs are dogs, they will never stop barking altogether but with patience and consistency on your part you should be able to limit the amount this happens.
Too sum this up, weather you do trick training, basic obedience, or behavior modification with your dog just remember that it takes care, patience and consistency on your part to make this happen. Your dog wants to learn to make you happy, they just need to be shown how.
By: mike hill
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Mike Hill writes on dog related issues. You can learn more at my blog http://mikesdogs.blogspot.com/
Filed under Puppies Problems by on Jan 15th, 2012. Comment.
Filed under Aggressive Puppy by on Jan 12th, 2012. 3 Comments.
It is best to start disciplining your puppy straight away so he learns at an early age how to be an acceptable member of your family.
It is important to be patient when dealing with a puppy. You need to find the best method that suits your puppy’s character, all puppies personalities are different, just like people. So what works with one puppy might need to be adjusted a bit to suit another.
The important rule to remember is to discipline your puppy for naughty or inappropriate behaviour and to praise him for the times his behaviour is appropriate.
It is also important to have fun with your puppy and to realise that he will go through all the stages of development that children do, so keep this in mind with your expectations of him. He needs time to learn how to behave acceptably so don’t expect him to adhere to your command the first time.
As the puppys master, you will want your dog to respect you and that does not mean that he trembles every time you walk into the room, that is fear, not respect. When your dog respects you he will watch you and will eagerly await your next command, he will want to please you. Respect comes from a number of ways you treat your dog. Too much discipline without showing any affection will create a fearful and sometimes aggressive dog. However, too much unearned praise will spoil your puppy and make it think it is pack leader and this will also cause problems with it’s behaviour. It is important to try to achieve a balance between the two.
Disciplining your puppy should never involve hitting him. This will make him either cower away from you all the time or it will turn him into an aggressive, troublesome dog. You should find a method which the puppy clearly understands and then praise him when he does good.
You must make your commands clear, direct and they should be given as soon as the puppy misbehaves, this is important so the dog knows why he is being corrected.
Obedience training builds a strong bond between you and your puppy. The key to successfully disciplining your puppy is to persevere with the training methods and don’t give up, the rewards will be worth it when you have a well behaved happy dog.
By: Annemarie Daniels
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Filed under Aggressive Puppy by on Jan 11th, 2012. Comment.
