Is Your Dog Showing Aggression in the Home?
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Aggression in the home has become an epidemic. What I mean by aggression in the home is where your dog has possibly bitten the kids, the adults, and even the other dog in the house. Sometimes it hasn’t gone that far yet. Maybe you are just at a point where your dog growls at you or a family member when you try to get it off the couch or the bed or something similar.
Quite often the dog showing aggression in the home is great with strangers in or out of the home. The good thing about this problem is that about 95% of the time it can be fixed with some training and some behavior modification. The hardest thing is finding a trainer or behavior specialist that has experience solving this type of problem.
When we see this type of aggression it is because the dog has gotten to a point where it thinks it is the alpha in the home. He/she does not want to be corrected by somebody else in the pack that it feels is not higher in “the pack”.
Typically when this problem arises in the home it’s because of an untrained dog. When I talk about a trained dog I am referring to obedience training. Obedience training is what establishes you the owner as the alpha in the home. Without obedience training the dog doesn’t know who the alpha is so it assumes the position.
The obedience training exercises you need to do include are the sit, down, sit-stay, down-stay as well as the recall (come). You should also train your dog to walk nicely on a loose leash (heel) so it does not drag you down the street.
Along with the obedience training, you should consider some behavior modification. What type of behavior modification depends on your dog and the extent of the aggression problem.
Usually, this problem will not appear until sometime between 12 and 24 months of age and will actually get worse as the dog gets older. The sooner the problem is corrected the better chances you have of correcting the problem. The longer your dog shows this aggression it starts to become a learned response and is harder to correct.
If you have aggression in the home with your dog find a good trainer and/or behavior specialist in your area that has experience with this specific problem. Remember to start the corrective action early before it is too late and before someone in your home is seriously injured.
And if you scroll down, there are prior posts with videos where I demonstrate live with my handsome, man dog friend, Frisbee how to do all of the above training commands. It’s actually pretty easy to teach your dog these basic commands and they love the one-on-one time they get with you in the process.
I found that when I work with Frisbee on his training it bonds us in a very special way.
So, take a look at those blog posts and if you got value from this post please leave a comment below. At Peppy-Paws we always strive to provide useful information and your feedback helps.
