Socializing Your Bull Terrier To Be Affectionate and Gentle
Now that you know some of the reasons your Bull Terrier may act aggressively, it is in your hands to do your best to ensure this never happens by taking the proper steps with your dog right after the adoption.
Here are my top tips to ensure you do not deal with an aggressive Bull Terrier in the future.
Fear Can Spark Aggression With Bull Terriers
Fear can cause aggression with all dog breeds, not only Bull Terriers.
Fear makes people do some crazy things, so a Bull Terrier may show aggression if they are scared or backed into a corner.
Do not worry; we will cover what you can do to counter this issue in the future.
English Bull terrier personality: dog aggression
This is where some of the reputation may be somewhat true – bull terriers can be and often are aggressive towards other dogs.
This is particularly true of mature male English bull terriers who can be territorial towards other males. Bred to fight other dogs, the bull terrier’s instincts are still powerful enough to incite aggression in the situation of close contact with another dog.
Normally, in a well-behaved English bull terrier, this only happens if a bull terrier is attacked by another dog. This can be a really dangerous situation for the attacker. If the bull terrier decides to counter-attack, it can be hard to persuade them to stop.
A bull terrier can easily cause serious damage to any other dog, including much larger dogs, such as German Shepherds or Rottweilers.
English Bull terriers are incredibly strong dogs, and very stubborn, which can make them particularly dangerous if they do decide to attack. They also are insensitive to pain, and fighting is literally in their genes. With bull terriers, if you don’t invest enough time and effort to raise a calm, obedient dog, and socialize it with other dogs, you may very well raise a monster.
Socialization, training and dedication to your dog is crucial – more so for English bull terrier than any other breed. Your bull terrier needs to get used to other dogs and animals (cats, squirrels in the park, etc) being in his field of vision.
He or she needs to learn to play with other dogs in early puppy-hood, so that, by the time the bull terrier matures, it becomes natural for them to be surrounded by other animals.
If you don’t socialize your English bull terrier, they will be afraid of other dogs, or aggressive towards them, or both, since they simply don’t know how to behave around them. If you provide your English bull terrier plenty of opportunities to socialize from the time they are young, they will not be a danger to other dogs or terrorize neighborhood cats etc. Instead, they will grow as a well-behaved citizen that you can take off the leash in a park and that will find friends to play with everywhere you go.
If you aren’t the type of person who will be able to dedicate time and effort into being a responsible owner and training your dog, a bull terrier isn’t the right dog for you.
Aggressive Bull Terrier Flyod Social Progression | Majors Academy Dog Training and Rehabilitation
Let’s talk about the English bull terrier temperament. What are these often misunderstood and mis-labeled dogs really like?
Are they the aggressive monsters always ready to kill, as some people think? Are they fighting dogs at heart, bloodthirsty and thriving in situations of conflict and violence? Can you raise a bull terrier to be your personal weapon?
Or are they loving, loyal and intelligent dogs that have endured decades of a bad reputation due to overall human confusion about their nature and a few incidents (of which English bull terriers weren’t even a part of?)?
English Bull terriers really do have a bad reputation. Since they were originally bred to fight other dogs and exploited in such cruel activities for centuries, a lot of people believe they are intrinsically vicious and dangerous.
English Bull terrier appearance doesn’t help matters either. Sturdy, bulky, powerful-looking dogs with shark-shaped head and small eyes – they just have to be evil, don’t they?
But any person that knows English bull terriers closely will tell you it’s far from the truth. Bull terriers are not any more vicious or aggressive than any other breed. Yes, they are very powerful, strong dogs. They are born power athletes of the dog world. But they are not evil. In fact, they are quite the opposite.
English Bull terriers were specifically bred NOT to be aggressive towards people. This is because, during dog fights, people had to be able to break the most heated fights at any moment. If a bull terrier was aggressive towards the person trying to break the fight (responded by snarling or biting the person) the dog was not considered suitable for further work and/or breeding.
An English bull terrier historically has to have a “cool” mind to be able to have enough self-control and not lash out at people even in the middle of a fight with another dog! These traits of self-control and non-aggression towards people have been encouraged and strengthened through selection for generations and generations of English bull terriers.
This is why, contrary to the popular belief, an English bull terrier is a very patient, collected, calm and tolerant breed when it comes to people. Bull terriers are NOT aggressive towards people. They love people, especially their owners, but they are also normally very friendly with everyone.
People attacks by bull terriers are actually very rare and are not any more common than other breeds. In fact, some other breeds, such as German Shepherd or Doberman, are much more guilty of being aggressive and attacking people since those breeds are guard dogs and it’s in their nature to distrust people. Bull terriers are nothing like that! They are one of the most people-centric and people-loving breeds out there.
Bull terriers are very good with children, even really young ones. Patient and calm, an English bull terrier will let children do things that another breed would never tolerate, both due to their self-control and calm demeanor and to their high tolerance to pain. A mentally healthy and well-raised bull terrier will never attack a person unless there is an evident danger to the owner.
One reason English bull terriers are not necessarily recommended for families with very young children is that bull terriers can be somewhat rough in play, as well as a little clumsy. Since they are pretty muscular and heavy, they can accidentally hurt a very young child while playing. But that is only accidentally and more due to excitability and playfulness of the bull terrier – never due to aggression.
This, of course, only applies to well-raised, well-behaved dogs. An English bull terrier that hasn’t been socialized and trained, and that is not paid enough attention to, may very well be dangerous just like any other breed. Probably more so because of several factors that are specific to the bull terrier breed.