Many dog owners refuse to see their canines for what they really are…dogs. Instead, they see them through human eyes and attempt to explain their behaviors in human terms, as if dogs were “fur people”. This is not to say that people can’t love their dogs or give them a respected place in the household. But treating dogs as if they were human is at the least misguided and at the most a formula for disaster.
Most people (and this can include canine professionals such as veterinarians, breeders, and, yes, sometimes even dog trainers) don’t really understand dogs, especially when it comes to aggression.
Myth: Certain Breeds are Aggressive and Certain Breeds Aren't
Any dog is a potential biter. Without this ability, dogs would not have survived as a species. Aggression has nothing to do with breed. It is a product of such considerations as breeding, training, socializing, and environmental conditioning. A Rottwiler can be very friendly while a Labrador retriever can be very aggressive.
Often dogs behave aggressively because they have been pushed beyond their stress threshold or because they have somehow, in ways too subtle for some humans to discern, learned through experience that a certain behavior gets them what they want or helps them to avoid what they don’t want.
Myth: Dogs Know Right from Wrong
Dogs have no moral or ethical sense.
Often a distraught dog owner is shocked by a pet dog that has bitten the owner or a family member, often a child. “You don’t understand,” the owner explains. “Bailey has never been mistreated. She is like our own child. She is a sweet, lovable dog. Why would she do this? She knew it was wrong. Right after she bit me, she whined and licked me because she was sorry for what she did to me.”
The above scenario is a very common one for dogs that are status aggressive, aka dominance aggressive (see description below). During the bite, a dog's brain chemistry is such that she goes into a heightened, “zoned out” state. After the bite, the dog comes back to reality and can be her sweet self again.
Bailey’s reaction may seem remorseful, but that is a human misinterpretation of her behavior. What Bailey know is that her human is screaming in pain or otherwise yelling at her, and she may respond to that by whining, licking, or cowering.
Myth: People can Always Tell When Their Dogs Have Aggression Issues
A dog that bites for the first time has been sending out signals to his or her humans all along. Dogs rarely go from zero to 100, i.e. never having acted aggressively to the act of biting. Much aggressive display goes undetected or is rationalized or justified by owners. Besides biting, aggressive displays include aggressive barking, snapping, growling, or aggressive body language, sometimes very subtle.
Aggression usually progresses in stages. For ease of understanding, these can be described as follows:
- subtle body language meant to intimidate or scare off a person or another dog(refer to the following for illustrations of canine body language: Canine Body Language – A Photographic Guide by Brenda Aloff )
- lip raise, snarl
- snap at the air, lunge, or bark
- contact with no bruise
- contact with a bruise
- contact with puncture
- contact with multiple punctures
Dogs do not necessarily move from one stage to another in rigid sequence. Also, one never knows when a dog will move from one stage, e.g. from aggressive body posture to growling or from the latter to biting. Sometimes once a dog bites, it can be a while before the second bite occurs, months or even longer. However, often after the second or third bite, the interval between bites shortens.
Even when their dogs bite, owners will often rationalize or justify the first bite or two: the dog was startled while he was sleeping and bit my husband’s leg when he was on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night; the child was trying to take the dog’s bone away; the dog is teething. These may all reflect the facts of these situations, but many dogs do not bite when startled or when a bone is taken from them. As for teething, a puppy has to learn that human body parts don’t belong in a dog’s mouth. Waiting to see if the dog will outgrow the biting once he has stopped teething is taking a risk.
Often dog owners will explain that their dogs lunge, bark, and/or snap but that their canines are “not biters”. In a sense this is true, as dogs aren’t labeled biters…well, until they have bitten. But a dog can sink its teeth into human flesh for the first time at any age. So a two-year-old Lab that lunges, growls, and/or snaps but hasn’t bitten should be more precisely labeled not-a-biter-yet. And if that dog has plenty of opportunity to engage in these aggressive displays, then an even more precise label might be biter-in-training.
Myth: Aggressive Dogs Always Act Aggressively
Dogs that act aggressively do so only when certain triggering agents are present. Sometimes it is very clear what triggers the aggressive display—a pig’s ear treat, for example. Sometimes the trigger is not immediately clear; this is especially true when it comes to status aggression. A trigger can be very specific, e.g. a bone, or quite general, e.g. anything the dog claims as his (food, toys, people, territory).
A dog can have one or more than one type of aggression. Karen Overall in her book, Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Small Animals, includes some of the following types of aggression:
- possessive (aka resource) aggression
- dominance (aka status) aggression
- territorial aggression
- fear aggression
- play, or excitement, aggression
- displaced aggression
- interdog aggression
- maternal aggression
- pain aggression
- idiopathic aggression
Fact: Canine Aggression is a Very Complex, Multi-faceted Problem
The understanding that aggression is a multi-faceted rather than a unitary phenomenon is fairly recent and, as Overall points out, not completely known. Calling in a professional that has experience working with dogs that act aggressively is essential. Knowing the first subtle signs that a problem exists and learning to read "dog" might just save your dog's life.
Judith Goldman - In general, my life has been a whirlwind of travel and stays in various countries around the world, as well as in states around the ...
