The Shocking Truth Behind Preventing Aggressive Dog Behaviors

Is your dog aggressive? Are you worried that someday your dog may hurt you or worse hurt someone else? Here are some things you can do to prevent and help your dog's aggressive behavior.

Different Sources of Aggressions in Dogs

This type of behavior can start as young as 6 weeks old. In this age, the puppy is introduced to bite inhibition and socialization through play with it's interactions with their siblings and mother. The period socialization can last until they reached 14 weeks of age and it can even extend longer.

Taking Your Puppy to Early From the Litter

Avoid taking your puppy away from the litter before it reached the age of 8 weeks. It would also a good idea that you never use harsh discipline with your puppy when they are only between 8 and 10 weeks old. It is important that you are gentle when you treat them. When you use harsh discipline, it can cause aggression to worsen as they get older.

Why Socialize?

It is important that you dog needs to socialize more with people and as well as other dogs when they reached 14 weeks. Even after they are taken away from the litter, socialization is very important to help enforce good behavior and bite inhibition. Practice makes perfect, the more your dog "practices" on how to behave around others, the better your dog will learn what is accepted.

Aggressive Behaviors and Breed

The aggressive behavior can be triggered by many factors. One of them heredity and genetics because there are some breeds are more aggressive than other breeds. Another factor is that dogs that have not been spayed or neutered can be more aggressive.

Aggression and Environment

Another thing that can contribute to aggressive behavior is the dog's environment. When your dog lives in an environment that has poor living conditions, with harsh discipline, with no socialization, the more likely the dog will become more aggressive as it grows older.

This aggression can grow because dogs want to establish alpha status. When dogs are biting, posturing or has some other aggressive tendencies, it is a result of the dog is testing for its dominance at home. What you need to do is that at a young age for your puppy, you need to show your dog that you are the "alpha dog" and do that until it reaches adolescence to prevent any future aggressive behavior in your household.

How to Stop Existing Aggressive Behavior

If your dog is starting to be aggressive after it reaches its 14 months, the age where it reaches its sexual maturity, you need to face the problem right away. What you need to do first is that you have to show your puppy that you are the pack leader. Never give reward to your dog when it shows its aggressive behavior, no matter how cute or vulnerable your puppy is. The more you coddle your puppy (giving excessive attention) at a young age, the less likely you will you establish alpha dominance.

Becoming the Alpha Dog

What you do is you need to train your dog to respond to your commands. Your dog will naturally see you as the alpha dog when you control their feeding, walks and outside time. Make sure your dog understands you control all the fun. When you let your dog do whatever it wants, it can show a stronger aggression to others because of their confusion on who's the "alpha dog" in the house.

Aggression Caused By Fear

When your dog is defensive-aggressive, what they can do is to react to people in fear. This means that these dogs were not socialized with other dogs. You need to keep them away from small children. Children's unpredictable behavior can result in a dangerous and scary situation for the parent. The defensive-aggressive dog can mistake their actions as threatening and inflict major injuries on whomever they feel threatened by.

Aggressive behaviors in dogs can be easily avoided when their younger. It's a little more challenging when their older, it's not impossible to fix when patience and consistent training. If you've tried everything you can to fix aggressive behavior, you might need to find professional help.