IS YOUR DOG AGGRESSIVE?
Aggressive Dog behavior is very common and can have various causes associated with it. Some of the most common causes of dog aggression may be dominance between you and your dog or it may have been a result of a traumatic incident in your dog’s life; like an attack by another dog etc. Luckily, training aggressive dogs is easy and with some effort, you can save yourself and others from any danger caused by violent dogs.
Training Dogs to avoid Aggressive behavior
Training aggressive dogs should begin early on in your dog’s life. When your dog is around 6 weeks old, you should begin the training process because this is the age when dog aggression kicks in. They should be socialized with other dogs and given proper training to ensure that they don’t bite or get unhappy when they see other people. It is ideal to let your dog socialize with other dogs until they are 14 weeks old at least.
There are several important points that any person training aggressive dogs should consider. First, off you should treat your dogs gently especially at an early age is that between 8 to 10 weeks, the dogs should not be treated violently at all. Hitting, yelling, and all other sorts of harsh punishments should be avoided when the puppies are young. You should also never take dogs away from their litter at a young age. By the time a puppy is 14 weeks old, most of the aggression issues will be resolved if your dog has been properly socialized.
Sometimes when training aggressive dogs you need to consider a few other factors that might have triggered this behavior. Heredity is one of them. Certain breeds of dogs are genetically more aggressive than others. Dogs that haven’t been spayed or neutered have also been associated with serious tendencies of aggression.
Although various factors are involved in making a dog aggressive the most prevalent is the specific environment they call home. If they are raised in a harsh environment without socialization or have been a victim of a dog attack, they are more prone to being aggressive and their aggression becomes stronger as they grow up.
Dogs have an inbuilt instinct to attempt to establish dominance and become the leader of the pack. They might try to bite or posture and show other aggressive tendencies to establish their dominance so it is an essential part of training aggressive dogs to enforce and sustain your dominance on the dog from an early age.
How to handle Aggressive behavior in Dogs
Dogs reach sexual maturity at the age of 14 months and if after this age your dog still exhibits aggressive behavior then it is a cause of concern. In such cases the first thing you need to make sure is that you make them realize that you are their master. It is very important to NOT reward your dog for any aggressive behavior even if they look scared.
Control feeding and walking times of your dogs and make them generally run to your time schedule and commands whilst training aggressive dogs. This will communicate to your dog that they have a strong leader. Failing to do this will make your dog exhibit even more aggression towards other people or Dogs to try to gain control over you and assert their dominance.
Sometimes your dogs may become ‘defensive-aggressive’ and might pick on and strike at people in fear. This can be due to lack of socialization. It is important that you keep these dogs away from young children to protect them. You might also consider seeing a behaviorist who can slowly train your dog to accept social atmosphere.
Training aggressive dogs might be a challenge but it is essential that you do so as early as possible to better control it. A violent dog is a threat to yourself and to others so make sure your dog is not responsible for any mishaps and injuries to others and is properly trained.