When Dogs Growl or Snap: What NOT to do
If your dog recently growled or snapped, you may be wondering why. After all, you may have done your research and made sure you adopted the best dog for your family. Does this sudden behavior change mean you must rehome him, or worse? Does it mean you have a dominant dog on your hands that you must force to be submissive? What would suddenly make your dog act aggressively?
To us humans, expressions of canine aggression are unacceptable behaviors. However, for a dog, they’re simply ways of communicating. From a dog’s perspective, there’s always a good reason for aggressive behavior. The good news is that growling and snapping don’t necessarily mean that worse behavior is inevitable. Simply put, dogs can’t use words to talk to us. They can’t say, “Please don’t do that to me. I don’t like it.” They can’t reason with a small child to quit pulling their ears or quit crawling on them. Instead, they communicate via the only means available to them–they growl or snap.
Humans and dogs have different communication systems and as a result, there are often misunderstandings between the species. Many dogs are uncomfortable with being hugged or being approached with direct eye contact. When humans approach dogs in this way, they usually intend to be friendly, but dogs may perceive this behavior as threatening or intimidating, and react accordingly. There’s no way around it: we don’t want canine aggression in our homes. A dog’s aggression can lead to a bad outcome if your dog bites someone. The good news is that a growl or snap is your dog’s way of communicating a waning—and your dog is choosing to warn you instead of biting.
In the past, many dog trainers viewed growling and snapping as dominant behaviors and advised dog owners to respond by doing alpha rolls (forcing the dog down onto the ground and onto his back), stare-downs (staring at the dog until he looks away, which signals his acknowledgement that you are dominant over him), shaking his scruff, and long, forced “stays.” Unfortunately, even though a wealth of information now exists about the hazards of these training techniques, a number of trainers continue to use them, including popular celebrity dog trainers who make them appear effective through highly-choreographed video editing. Some trainers recommend even harsher methods for dealing with aggression such as shock collars, which allow you to administer a shock to dog when he displays aggressive behavior. You’d be best advised to stay away from such trainers and advice.
Any trainer/behaviorist who understands dog behavior and the psychological process behind modifying behavior knows that punishment does not help aggression. In fact, punishment often makes the problem worse. If the aggression is motivated by fear, punishment will only make the dog more fearful, and therefore more aggressive. Attempting to punish a pushy or controlling dog is likely to make his behavior even worse. In either case, the dog and owner end up in a vicious cycle of escalating aggression. Punishing territorial, possessive or protective aggression is likely to elicit additional defensive aggression and is likely to ultimately result in worse behavior.
Sometimes, dog owners assume that punishment prevents further aggressive behavior. I probably could have intimidated my dog into not growling at me again. But would that have solved the underlying problem? Not at all.
If you don’t address the underlying issue—perhaps of fearfulness or possessiveness—behind your dog’s aggressive behavior, you’re not changing your dog’s feelings about the incident that caused the growl in the first place. The danger in this is that even if you’re successful in making your dog suppress a growl, your punishment might intensify his feelings. Thus, the next time a similar incident happens, your dog will still feel threatened and become more likely to bite. The dog has learned that his warning (growling) doesn’t work, and in his mind, the next logical step is a bite.
It’s also important to remember that your dog will associate his punishment with whatever is causing him to be upset in the first place. For example, if you punish your dog for growling at a crawling toddler (when your dog was just trying to tell the toddler, “Please don’t bother me!”), your dog may interpret your punishment as “I get yelled at when that child crawls towards me.” Thus, the punishment could cause an escalation of aggression towards the child.
The moral of this story is that we want our dogs to communicate with us. We want them to warn us when they feel uncomfortable or threatened and we want them to know we’ll respect their warning. If they growl and we respect the growl, they’re much less likely to resort to further aggression in the future. The purpose of this article, however, is not to advise you to be permissive with your dog or to ignore the circumstances that caused the growl. If your dog is growling, there is something bothering him and you must address it. It’s important to understand why your dog is growling and what you can do to fix the problem proactively rather than punitively. Your dog will thank you and you will ultimately reap the reward of having a great relationship with your dog.
If you wish to learn more about how dogs perceive human behavior, behaviorist Patricia McConnell has written two very insightful and easy-to-read books about this titled The Other End of the Leash and For the Love of a Dog.
If you have any questions or concerns about your dog’s behavior, visit www.ThinkingOutsideTheCage.org
My Dog Snapped At Me For The First Time – What To Do
If you are going through this situation, continue reading this article. We will show you what to do when your dog snaps at you.
In 76% of the bites, people bent over the dog just before the bite. In 19% of cases, a bite was preceded by people putting their faces close to the dogâs face, and in 5% of cases, gazing between dog and person at close range occurred before a bite. In no incidents was a bite to the face preceded by trimming the dogâs nails, falling on the dog, hitting the dog as punishment, stepping on the dog, pulling the dogâs hair, tugging the dogâs body, or scolding the dog.Related article
All of the dogs who bit someone in the face were adult dogs, and over two-thirds of them were male. In only 6% of the bites did people report that the dog gave a warning such as growling or performing a tooth display (aka, showing their teeth) prior to biting. (To me, this is the single most surprising finding in the study, and I think itâs quite possible that some people did not notice or failed to remember warnings from the dogs.)As the authors of the paper mention, their research is based on questionnaires that asked people about past events. As a result, there are inherent limitations to the study. Still, the findings about the frequency with which kids are bitten, the greater likelihood of male dogs biting faces than female dogs, and the finding that only adult dogs bite faces are consistent with previous research.
If you have ever been bitten in the face or seen it happen to someone else, what do you remember about the human behavior right before the bite? As this study shows, human behavior matters!
Karen B. London, Ph.D., is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist and Certified Professional Dog Trainer who specializes in working with dogs with serious behavioral issues, including aggression, and has also trained other animals including cats, birds, snakes, and insects. She writes the animal column for the Arizona Daily Sun and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University. She is the author of six books about training and behavior, including her most recent, Treat Everyone Like a Dog: How a Dog Trainerâs World View Can Improve Your Life.
More than 75% of the bites to the face happened to people who knew the dog. Over two-thirds of the bites were to children, and of those, 84% were to children under the age of 12. Children who were bitten were with their parents in 43% of the cases and with the dog guardian in 62% of the incidents. Sixty percent of the bites were to females, and no adults were bitten by their own dogs. More than half of the bites were to the nose and lips of the person, as opposed to the chin, cheek, forehead or eye area.
Dog Snaps and Growls at Owner! | It’s Me or the Dog
One disadvantage of being a canine behaviorist is that many human behaviors scare me. My heart leaps into my throat when I see people performing risky behaviors like hugging and picking up dogs, sticking their faces right by a dogâs face, or bending over a dog. When I see people doing things like this, I want to shout out a warning. (I feel the same way when Iâm watching a horror movie and want to yell, âDonât go in the house!â)
I work with many clients whose dogs have bitten someone, and as I hear the stories of what happened, the same human behaviors are mentioned over and over. Iâm not saying this to blame the people, but rather to help us all learn how to lower our risk of being bitten. Dog bites are a serious problem that should be avoided at all costs. Among the most distressing are bites to the face. In a study, scientists examined 132 incidents of bites to human faces that did not involve bites to any other parts of the body. The goal of the study was to determine the human behavior that preceded the bites.
Well-known risky behaviors such as bending over a dog, putting your face close to a dogâs face, and making very close eye contact with the dog occurred before many of the bites, (which is no surprise). What was a bit of a shock was the percentage of times that these no-no behaviors happened before the 132 incidents in the study.Â
In 76% of the bites, people bent over the dog just before the bite. In 19% of cases, a bite was preceded by people putting their faces close to the dogâs face, and in 5% of cases, gazing between dog and person at close range occurred before a bite. In no incidents was a bite to the face preceded by trimming the dogâs nails, falling on the dog, hitting the dog as punishment, stepping on the dog, pulling the dogâs hair, tugging the dogâs body, or scolding the dog.Related article
More than 75% of the bites to the face happened to people who knew the dog. Over two-thirds of the bites were to children, and of those, 84% were to children under the age of 12. Children who were bitten were with their parents in 43% of the cases and with the dog guardian in 62% of the incidents. Sixty percent of the bites were to females, and no adults were bitten by their own dogs. More than half of the bites were to the nose and lips of the person, as opposed to the chin, cheek, forehead or eye area.
All of the dogs who bit someone in the face were adult dogs, and over two-thirds of them were male. In only 6% of the bites did people report that the dog gave a warning such as growling or performing a tooth display (aka, showing their teeth) prior to biting. (To me, this is the single most surprising finding in the study, and I think itâs quite possible that some people did not notice or failed to remember warnings from the dogs.)As the authors of the paper mention, their research is based on questionnaires that asked people about past events. As a result, there are inherent limitations to the study. Still, the findings about the frequency with which kids are bitten, the greater likelihood of male dogs biting faces than female dogs, and the finding that only adult dogs bite faces are consistent with previous research.
If you have ever been bitten in the face or seen it happen to someone else, what do you remember about the human behavior right before the bite? As this study shows, human behavior matters!
Karen B. London, Ph.D., is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist and Certified Professional Dog Trainer who specializes in working with dogs with serious behavioral issues, including aggression, and has also trained other animals including cats, birds, snakes, and insects. She writes the animal column for the Arizona Daily Sun and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University. She is the author of six books about training and behavior, including her most recent, Treat Everyone Like a Dog: How a Dog Trainerâs World View Can Improve Your Life.