Dog Aggression – What Causes it and How to Deal With It?

Dog Aggression Training Sydney – What Causes it and How to Train It?

Advice from Eazy Dog Training Sydney

Dog aggression is more common than you might think and there are many reasons for dogs to show aggression. Based on studies about 90% of dog aggression is fear-based, meaning most dogs that seem aggressive are insecure or fearful of something which causes them to show aggression to increase distance. This has been the case with most of our private training clients with aggression issues and for example, the most common reason for it has been a lack of socialisation early on which makes dogs fearful and timid of new things and strangers.

However, there can be other reasons than just fear for aggression such as:

• Resource guarding (this is also fear-based behaviour, fear of losing something valuable)
• Frustration
• Over-arousal
• Pain
• Repeated unwanted interactions or encounters (such as grooming and handling that hasn’t been trained in a positive way)

Especially frustration and over-arousal-based aggression is common on leash.

A leash-aggressive dog can behave completely differently off-leash, and many reactive dog owners often say that their dog is reactive but not aggressive. This is a very dangerous statement. Here’s why: over-excitement can easily escalate to over-arousal which then can escalate further to aggression. I would say that reactivity walks hand in hand with aggression and it’s good to keep in mind! Just because a dog can handle the same trigger in a different situation (off-leash) doesn’t mean that they will in all situations (on-leash). And even if a dog is friendly off-leash doesn’t mean they will be on-leash. And more so, approaching another, strange dog, with a reactive dog can easily cause the non-reactive dog to defend himself causing a serious fight! This would be the same as if you were approached by an aggressive stranger on the street, you probably wouldn’t feel very good about it either.

Dog aggression is manageable and treatable

Knowing how to help your dog cope in those situations where their go-to-reaction is aggression is the key to successful training. Unfortunately, there’s no magic remote control that would allow us to reprogram a dog and fix them in one training session. This only happens on TV because it’s all acted and cut to show you only what they wish to sell you, it is not real! In the real world, working with dog aggression issues takes consistent training and management. 

The key elements of dog aggression training are:

• Consistency, when you start training there’s no going back, the plan must be followed in order to change the behaviour.
• Distance, working from a distance that allows the dog to behave in an appropriate way is crucial for changing the aggressive response.
• Changing negative into positive if fear-based aggression.
• Controlled exposure to triggers to gain desensitisation
• Management: planning ahead and preventing explosions of aggression goes a long way when unlearning aggression.

If you need help with your dog’s aggression, contact Eazy Dog Training today! Pricing starts from $325 for a 2h session, depending on location.