Dealing with dogs’ behavioral issues is never so easy, but at the same time, dealing with an aggressive dog is extremely difficult. When you see your dog growl, snap, or bite, consider your dog aggressive. It is important to seek help from a specialized dog coach or animal behaviorist.
It’s not that larger dogs are disposed to aggression, but any given breed can get violent under the right circumstances. Yes, you cannot curb it overnight; certain steps can help your dog remain calm.
Before dwelling on the steps, let’s talk about the signs that show that your dog is aggressive.
- Raised fur
- Averting gaze
- Rigid body and wagging tail
- Snapping and growling
- Visible whites of the eyes
- Cowering and tail tucking
Please note that not all dogs reveal similar characteristics because many of the signs above indicate anxiety and fear.
Steps to Lower Down Dog’s Aggressive Behavior
Dogs that do not tend to get aggressive if they develop aggressive behaviors suddenly may have an underlying medical condition. Some health conditions include painful injuries, hypothyroidism, brain tumors, encephalitis, and other neurological problems.
Get in touch with your concerned veterinarian to know whether your dog is facing a similar kind of problem. Treating the illness with required treatment and medication can help in doing big improvements in the dog’s overall behavior.
Create A Plan
Having a trainer or behaviorist can easily help you find the right approach to managing the overall aggression of your dog. In most cases, it is important to use positive reinforcement to familiarize your dog with a new set of behaviors. For instance, if you find that your dog is slightly aggressive toward strangers, make sure to stand far away from everyone your dog doesn’t know or is familiar with.
You must maintain a distance so that dog does not start growling or snapping. You can then reward with lots of treats and praise as you shorten the distance between the dog and the stranger while using positive reinforcement.
After a point of time, you will notice that the dog starts realizing the fact stranger treats equally, and there is a significant fall in the overall level of aggression. This same technique can be used to get your dog used to many other situations.
Deal With Unavoidable Situations
It is important to consider whether your present lifestyle allows you to stick to a certain plan created before. For example, in case your dog acts aggressively towards children and even strangers and on top of it, you have got kids, it is difficult to avoid such a situation that lets the dog become aggressive.
In such a case, the best way to deal with it is to shift the dog to another house space. In order to restrict from attacking or biting strangers, you can install an electric dog fence also.
Use Medication
Depending on the training alone is not adequate at times, and you need to start medication. Aggressive dogs need medication in order to manage the problem. One needs to understand that the dog might be experiencing stress, fear, or anxiety but can adapt to new things.
You can consider medication as an effective tool to help your dog overcome the fear. In some cases, dogs need medication for a temporary period. The best way to deal with this is to refer to the veterinarian about the options.
Stop Punishing Your Dog
If you punish your dog for being aggressive, it is seen that it backfires and eventually it also increases the level of aggression in most cases. In case you respond to a growling dog by hitting, yelling, or through some other rude method, the dog will certainly feel the need to defend and will come to bite you.
Giving strict punishment will also lead your dog to bite someone else without warning. For instance, if a dog growls at a child, this way, he/she lets you know about the sense of discomfort. So, in such cases, if you punish your dog for growling, next time, there will be no warning or growling and will simply bite.
Following these tips will certainly help you lower down your dog’s aggression. Please share your insights if you know any other ways to get rid of this problem with your dog below in the comment section.
Photo by David Taffet on Unsplash.