\u201cHelp, I can\u2019t figure out what makes my dog so aggressive\u2026\u201d \u2013 questions of this type I get asked a lot, even though it is not really a problem that the potential students are having.<\/p>\n
So why does that dog, or this dog, your own lap-loving, couch-adoring cuddly pooch demonstrated the signs of the aggression, even though we know well that there\u2019s never been a reason for them to act in this way?<\/p>\n
Well, talking about dogs\u2019 aggression, and this is the cause of almost 70% of my trainees\u2019 worries, dogs behave in this way because\u2026 they are dogs<\/b>. Dogs eat, run, play, chew, poop, growl, bite, chase, dig, jump, scratch and roll\u2026 If you go through the whole list, you will see that it is not endless, and talking about the most well-behaved dog you will be able to confirm that they all have tried pretty much every little behaviour from the list above.<\/p>\n
They have a set of behaviours, a repertoire, that they all go through during their life, just trying some of the things out, but sticking with the other threads for the rest of their lives. (Pavlov<\/i>)<\/p>\n
So, aggression<\/b>\u2026<\/p>\n
Commonly known either as affective<\/b><\/a> (emotional), hostile or <\/b>retaliatory<\/b><\/a> aggression, and the instrumental, goal-oriented or <\/b>predatory<\/b><\/a> aggression, the list just begins here: fear-based, nervous <\/b>aggression, frustration, redirected (or misdirected) <\/b>aggression, sexual, territorial, dominant <\/b>aggression, chase or competitive <\/b>aggression, possessive and food- and resource- related <\/b>aggression, punishment <\/b>aggression, pain<\/b> aggression, maternal, paternal and play <\/b>aggression, relational and occupational <\/b>aggression, and when you thought you were coming to an end of this list, there\u2019s an Idiopathic aggression<\/b> (an unprovoked, unpredictable form of aggression with no known cause. Otherwise described as \u201crage\u201d syndrome)…<\/p>\n Well, and I will tell you that your dog probably has all of those within. Concealed, camouflaged, but they are all there. Because they are dogs! Acting on it \u2013 is a different matter, so don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 this does not justify the fact that he \/ she just pounced on a passer-by or chased a school-girl down the alley…<\/p>\n Well, you equipped yourself with all of the theories available, and put your dog to the most serious test of his \/ hers life. Of course it is a big deal \u2013 the behaviourist invited to judge you two on it has probably charged you a mere 3-4 hundred quid just to sit and talk to you over a table and later on present you with a massive report telling you that you do have a dog and your dog is xxx- aggressive and a bit less yyy-aggressive, but not zzz-aggressive at all! Money well spent, you think, just to go home and realise that the dog-guru has not taken the problem away… So what now? After you have gone through that mean verdict over and over again… \u201cKeep working on it\u201d \u2013 just does not do it for you after days and days of practice.<\/p>\n Do not despair \u2013 I have seen just the solution in \u201cBack to the Future\u201d recently: You get yourself one of those, a time-machine, I mean, and \u2013 go back to the day and time when your dogs snarled at you for the first time or nicked a sausage from your other dog and run off with it. Change that, remove the initial cause \u2013 and \u2013 back home, to find your dog well and happy with himself and not indicating to any of the dangers you were so concerned about. Yes, knowing where your dog\u2019s aggression had originated is extremely important!<\/p>\n But then \u2013 I have had an offended trainee turning all unhappy when I held this talk at one of my recent \u201cgrowlers\u201d class. And I understand why. I make the same old hole even deeper by contributing to the shame and embarrassment of having a \u201cproblem\u201d dog. So it is actually all that bad?<\/p>\n Identifying the cause of the dog\u2019s behaviour is of a paramount value, I will confirm. But what actually spoils the rehabilitation of that hound is identifying it wrongly. And I will try to explain why.<\/p>\n A dog snaps at another animal. It gives him a short-term benefit of, say, gaining a comfort, safety or resource (This is your Operant Conditioning, or Instrumental Learning<\/b>, practical application). There\u2019s always a reason why it happens on the first place, we\u2019ve just been through it all. There are plenty of those. Then it happens again, and the hesitation and uncertainty of what to do in similar circumstances disappears fairly quickly (Thorndike<\/i>). \u201cIf I do that, the problem goes away!\u201d \u2013 your pet might conclude and continue acting in this manner. And soon they just do it not because they are hungry, frightened of bothered by an intruder, but because they did it last time, and the time before that. Please read this bit again. We are about to discover something major here!<\/p>\n Sexually frustrated dog feels rather uneasy in presence of another male competing for the loyalty of the same bitch. It is hormonal and instinctive. But having this done once, and twice the whole behaviour quickly becomes associated with the subject of the aggression \u2013 another male (Pavlov<\/i>). And there you go \u2013 you will soon have a dog-hating canine budging to \u201csort out\u201d any potential threat in site, be it with, or without a female present to guard. Just because I did it yesterday…<\/p>\n This is called a \u201cLearnt Behaviour\u201d, or \u201cLearnt Adaptive Behaviour\u201d<\/b>. This is what creates a problem for all of those dogs in trouble. And this is the most common reason they end up where they do.<\/p>\n Lets talk about this in a bit more detail.<\/p>\n Learning does not necessarily lead to a change in behaviour. Some learning processes lead to a permanent change in behaviour, this goes not only to the problem patterns\u2019 description. But some \u2013 do not. Not every dog, frightened to death by a dog-attack turns offensive in future. Practice demonstrates that most animals can learn new information without demonstrating new behaviours. Good in most scenarios, but bad when it comes to teaching a badly-behaved dog to act better. Knowing what to do and how does not necessarily makes them re-think their repertoire or change anything in the way they act. Attention and Retention <\/b>of information is what influences this process. They can be individually present there, or might not be \u2013 every dog and every situation is highly individual.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBut I had never rewarded my dog when he tried to defend his bone, so why is he so protective over them now?\u201d \u2013 some might ask. And this is what makes dog training so exciting and thrilling. It does not have to have an outside stimuli to reinforce the behaviour. It could become self-rewarding, such as scooping a piece of chicken off the floor in front of another person, but it could also be based on what they call an Intrinsic Reinforcement. <\/b>According to <\/b>Bandura,<\/i> external, environmental reinforcement is not the only factor to influence learning and behaviour. He described intrinsic reinforcement as a form of internal reward, such as pride, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment. Too much? Well, and that is not the end of it also.<\/p>\n Lets talk about ourselves for a second. Most of our behaviours are very automatic, we do things without thinking too deeply about the consequences, most of the time. We are animals, just like the rest of nature, and we respond in the same way they do. Like Pavlov\u2019s famous dogs<\/a> \u2013 if you show us something that we\u2019ve seen before, we often respond to it in a pre-programmed or learnt way. You will also probably think certain thoughts as a result, again often automatically (though they might not feel automatic). Some of these thoughts are so subtle and you have them so often, you might not even notice them. But believe you me \u2013 you did in the beginning, this is why you are where you are.<\/p>\n But the answer to that original question still remains So why is my dog behaves aggressively? Because they did the same last time, and the time before that. Because this is what you have conditioned them to be, or let them develop the behaviour you are talking about. How many aggression types are there that our dogs get affected by? My suggestion is \u2013 One! Learnt Behaviour\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n But what do we do to help them to get out of acting this way \u2013 is a subject for another discussion. D.Y.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cHelp, I can\u2019t figure out what makes my dog so aggressive\u2026\u201d \u2013 questions of this type I get asked a lot, even though it is not really a problem that the potential students are having. So why does that dog, or this dog, your own lap-loving, couch-adoring cuddly pooch demonstrated the signs of the aggression, … read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dimadogs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}