Recognizing Signs of Aggression

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

22 May 2007 08:20 PM

You may not want to believe that your dog can be aggressive. It can be a hard thing to recognize -- we often try to assign human motivations to animal behaviors. We try to reason with our pets: "It's only the mailman; you don't have to bark at him." But our dogs don't think like people. They think like dogs.

Aggression is not a breed problem. It can exist in any dog, any breed, at any time.

Signs of aggression can include:

• Growling
• Snarling
• Baring teeth/curling lips
• Mounting people or other animals
• Lunging
• Snapping
• Blocking your path
• Aggressive barking
• Biting (whether or not it breaks the skin)

Any of these signs could mean a dog is about to bite.

Situations where you may see aggression:

• Coming too close to the dog while he is eating
• Trying to take away a piece of dropped food or a treat
• Trying to remove the dog from your bed
• Getting the dog out from under your bed
• When family is roughhousing with the dog
• When guests are roughhousing with the dog
• If a child pulls a dog's tail or ears
• Teasing the dog
• A stranger comes to the house or into the yard
• If a stranger approaches the car when the dog is inside

Please don't ignore signs of aggression in your dog. It won't go away on its own. He won't grow out of it. There are ways to change aggressive behavior in dogs. The sooner you catch signs of aggression, the easier it will be to deal with. Talk to a trainer, a behaviorist, or your vet and ask them for advice and assistance.

If your dog is showing signs of aggression, you may want to start with a trip to the veterinarian. Some diseases can cause behavioral changes in animals. Pain aggression is a possibility if your dog is sick or injured. Ruling out physiological causes can help you determine the reason for the aggression.

Learn more about Aimee Amodio

Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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