Identifying Aggression in Dogs: Offensive VS Defensive
Dogs operate very honestly and clearly. They show their emotions and needs through body language. Whether they are trying to show aggression or appeasement behaviours, youll see changes to posture and expression. Identifying aggression in dogs is fairly straight forward with a little bit of learning.
Signs of dog aggression all come at certain thresholds. A dog will show signs of aggression in escalating patterns in order to convey their intent. All of these signs will exist at different thresholds. When a dog is said to be sub-threshold, they are willing to encounter and accept the current situation without showing signs of aggression or agitation. When you spend time socializing and building desirable behaviours for things that dont have a naturally conditioned positive response, like nail trimming or grooming, you are actually building your dogs threshold. If a dog is put off, they may initially show subtle signs of aggression. They may pin their ears, lightly curl their lip, offer a low growl, etc. These are all warnings. If their warnings work, they will continue to operate at that threshold in a recurrent situation. If the warning doesnt work, they will up their behaviour to the next level, which may include a snarl, snap or bite. We can build these thresholds with the right information and the right approach by adding more tolerance to the dogs ladder of thresholds and reinforcing each step. Your approach will most certainly differ depending on the reason for the dogs aggression. In initial simplification, aggression can be divided into two main types: offensive and defensive. Identifying the dogs intent will help you address the unwanted behaviour and build your dogs thresholds.
Offensive aggression occurs when a dog is feeling the need to be assertive in a situation. Perhaps they are facing another dog or guarding an object. Youll see motion forwards and differences in their body postures. Some differences are subtle and others are obvious. A dog whos feeling assertive will likely have their ears motioning forward, they may have hackles and tail raised to make them appear larger. Their chest will be forward and their eyes will be locked onto what they are trying to intimidate. Offensive aggression is quite rare in dogs when dealing with humans. Most often, if a dog is behaving aggressively, it is either a conditioned response or a defensive response. Unfortunately, dogs are often misdiagnosed as being overtly or offensively aggressive when they are regarded by individuals that lack the proper training. Its a normal human response to assume the dog is being overt or “mean,” when they are actually worried and responding defensively. It is quite possible to create an conditioned offensive response in a dog by inadvertently rewarding it. For example, if a dog is protecting a bone from a human because they are worried it will be taken away, they may growl. If that works (I.e. the human leaves them alone), they will learn that this sort of behaviour is rewarded (I.e. they got to keep their bone). If this situation is presented again, they rely on their history of growling to get their way and are empowered if it works again. If it doesnt work they may try snarling the next time. This creates an offensive response through conditioning and builds the wrong behaviour.
A dog who is behaving defensively will display different body language. Theyll likely try to shrink away. Youll see them tuck their tail to protect their genitals and belly, avert their gaze and make attempt to flee the situation. If this dog is not allowed to flee the situation, theyll be forced to fight. Most likely, this is their last resort. Defensive aggression is the more common type of aggression seen in dogs. Most dogs are happy to go along to get along. Its only when they are threatened that theyll resort to aggressive body postures and language to try to convey their concern. Seeing aggression at its earliest warning is not always easy. Often, dogs show sub-threshold warnings that are very slight and may be easily missed. Things like slight differences in their ear carriage, averting their eyes, slight lip licks, etc. Educating yourself in the cues your dog may offer will help you help them and will help to keep everyone safe.
Hi! Im Shannon Viljasoo and I joined the McCann team in 1999 while training Quincey, my wonderful and spirited Rottweiler, to have good listening skills. Im the Director of Online Training and Content for McCann Professional Dog Trainers and I enjoy writing about dogs and dog training for the McCann blog. I currently share my life with 2 Tollers (Reggie & Ned) and I love helping people develop the best possible relationship with their 4-legged family members.
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What Is Defensive Aggression in Dogs?
Defensive means to defend oneself, while aggression means showing hostile or violent behavior towards something or someone. Everyone has the capability of defensive aggression in them, and that includes your dog. When faced with a threat, humans do one of three things: flee, freeze, or fight. Your dog is no different in that department.
Defensive dog aggression features all three of those terms. If your dog shows any of these three reactions to something, he’s scared. In most cases, pet parents ignore the flee or freeze part of this because they don’t know any better. They do step in when their dog reaches the fight part of the trio because that’s something concrete that needs to be stopped.
However, defensive aggression in dogs can be dangerous and needs to be stopped before a person or pet ends up injured or worse.
Pet behaviors can be caused by all kinds of things, but sometimes the source is medical. You can manage veterinary costs with the help of a pet insurance company like Lemonade, which offers adjustable plans and balanced coverage.
Steps to neutralize these behaviors and head them off before they start.
The first step toward a solution is by first understanding your dog in order to take control of the situation. (Bondburn/ShutterStock.com photo)
A seven-year-old Griffon just bit its sixth person. The victim, an adult male, well known to the dog in field situations, reached over the fence to pet the dog who was home alone. The bite was serious enough to require surgery. The first time the dog had shown aggressive behavior was three years earlier when the dog was four. In that situation, a neighbor was in the dog’s yard talking to the dog’s owner when the dog ran from the house to attack. Three of the four bites occurred in the dog’s yard—all young men. The remaining one was an adult man inside the house. The man picked up a parcel left for him—again there was no one home. The common thread is that all bite victims were men, young or older adults, and all instances were in the dog’s yard or house, his personal space—his area and possessions. Advertisement
The dog goes on daily walks, mostly with the woman of the house and has never bitten or even threatened anyone on these outings. To everyone he meets, he is considered to be friendly and actually loveable. There are two other dogs in the house of the same breed, one older and one younger. There has never been any possession problems or resource guarding problems among the three dogs. I was asked if the aggressive behavior problem could be fixed and if so, how?
Understanding canine behavior and learning to recognize their body language will go a long way in managing your dogs behavior. (Jerry Imprevento photo)
The first thing to consider for any versatile hunting breed is they were developed to do everything necessary for hunting and they were also designed to live in the home of a family and to act as a protective dog when necessary. Another thing to consider is that every dog is aggressive to at least some degree, just as every person is, given the right (or wrong) circumstances. Considering these conditions, this dog was doing what he was selectively bred to do—he was genetically programmed for it. His only failing was being a bit too much over the top, too much into the job. Advertisement
Being genetically predisposed to home space defensiveness, this dog cannot be totally cured. But it can be controlled by training and by limiting the cues that set off the aggressive behavior. The training for this involves desensitizing and counter conditioning—gradually increasing the intensity of the stimulus (person) invading the dog’s space and rewarding the dog for not acting aggressively toward the person in or near the dog’s defended space. However, implicit in this training is the handler being present and in control. The dog at home alone cannot be trusted—not ever. The aggressive behavior can be masked under controlled conditions but not eliminated except when under strict supervision. The problem is not eliminated, just walled off.
Limiting the cues that release the aggressive behavior would entail either never having the dog home alone and/or never allowing anyone to enter the dog’s space when no one is there to control the dog and the situation. Both the training and the eliminating the cues in combination will work but it also says loud and clear that you cannot trust your dog. This is a stressful situation for both owner and dog. The dog, being a perfect reader of body language, will know he is not trusted and so will be in a constant state of anxiety making for an increasingly bad dog/owner relationship.
Punishment is usually the first thing tried. The ‘thought’ process goes something like, if the dog is clobbered in some way when he attacks someone, he won’t do it again.
Punishment for unwanted behavior is never recommended and can lead to a dog becoming more aggressive or defensive. (Justin F Woomer/ShutterStock.com photo)
Two things are basically wrong with this ‘thinking.’ First, the punishment, also known as negative reinforcement, must be given within a second or less of the crime or the dog doesn’t associate the punishment with the crime. The correction hardly ever can be given in time so is practically useless. The second thing is the dog is highly agitated when aggressive behavior is happening and so is still concentrating on the bite victim when punishment finally arrives. The association the dog does make is the hurt from punishment is because of the person he is defending his space from. The bite victim becomes the cause for the punishment and so is a reason for more defensiveness toward this or any invader. This is totally counter-productive.
Everything that comes at a pup in his first six months sticks like Crazy Glue on your fingers and is chiseled in granite. If you want to modify the genetic directions a pup inherits, you must do it during this sponge period. This is the period when a dog’s innate aggressive behavior can be guided in the direction you want. The best way to get things running in your direction is enroll a pup in a good obedience course when the dog is about four months old. At least take the dog through a level one course that emphasises the positive direction with mild correction. One of the major things your pup will learn is how to greet people. Done correctly, though the dog might be a bit genetically heavy on the aggressive behavior toward people, the genetic influence can be mellowed out by learning that people are not bad things to allow into his space. Had the dog been given the basic obedience training and learned how to greet people, chances are the question of whether the dog should be euthanized would not have to be considered as a solution.
Socializing your dog with people and other dogs is an important part of their development and provides the opportunity for your dog to become properly balanced. (Kreminska/ShutterStock.com photo)
If the natural inclination to be defensively aggressive is not anticipated and steps aren’t taken to modify it early, it could escalate into a world of hurt and a basic distrust between the dog and his person. If ten, one-hour obedience lessons spread over ten weeks with some homework between lessons can head off the problems, why not do it? Both dog and handler will learn something.
For some reason, owners of hunting dogs, especially first timers, want to put more emphasis on getting the pup into birds, testing his pointing potential by flipping a wing on a string in front of him and always trying to increase his enthusiasm, desire, drive and other neat euphemisms. They pay little attention to basic obedience, putting it off until later when the dog has gotten out of control and learned a lot of bad things. Unleashed aggressive behavior is only one of the things that can happen. Advertisement
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