© LINDA S. GREENFIELD / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Aggressive Dogs
or
Reactive Dogs
If any animal (including humans!) has teeth, it can bite.
It is much easier to prevent the majority of dog biting issues with training early in a dog’s life & owner awareness & prevention education.
Even though it is scary, any dog that growls & shows it's teeth instead of biting, actually tells me that dog is probably an excellent candidate for training.
Just because a dog growls, shows it's teeth & has nastily nipped once does not necessarily make it an aggressive dog.
These may be signs that you are unaware that you & your dog are having major relationship issues & a total communication breakdown!
Anytime a dog uses it’s teeth on human skin, I will bet money that another bite will happen in the future.
When your dog uses mouthing or biting as an option for dealing with any situation, this behavior will continue with very serious consequences so it must be managed immediately.
All dog bites must be taken very seriously because one bite tends to escalate to more, guaranteeing that any person in your home or the public, especially children, can be dramatically & permanently injured, both physically & emotionally.
Once your dog develops a biting issue, it is very unlikely that just training the dog will resolve the aggressive behavior.
Training the dog, combined with training the owner on how to prevent & deal the situations that trigger your dog's aggressive behavior, have proven to be a more successful management approach for most dogs.
Read below about the types of dog aggression I commonly see
Common Types of Dog Aggression
A - Dog to human aggression
Dog biting problems are often inadvertently created by dog owners/ parents that:
allow their puppy or young dog to "play" nip, mouth & grab at humans with their mouth
spoil their dog until at some point the dog feels it has the “right to discipline" people by biting because your dog believes it is the leader of your home
put their dogs in situations where the dog feels it must defend itself is by biting
do not teach their children how to behave in a safe & respectful way around dogs
B - Dog to Dog Aggression
These 2 categories of dog to dog aggression are the most common & usually manageable with training & constant precautions:
1 - Multiple Dog Households
Multiple dogs living together will form a hierarchy based on personality traits of dominancy & submissiveness.
Sometimes they will disagree over which dog has first right to toys, food, you.
Dog fights can erupt when you least expect them.
While scary, most of these dog fights rarely have serious bites from one dog to another.
Often it is dog owners trying to break up a dog fight that are the ones that get bitten.
Household dogs getting into scraps & outright fights can be signs that:
your dogs may have similar dominant personalities
your dogs do not respect you as their pack leader & are taking on that role
some dogs are just born with more aggressive tendencies
Training plus dog owner management skills can usually create a peace treaty.
2 - Reactive Dogs
There are dogs that have fear reactive personalities, a hereditary pre-disposition.
When these dogs are stressed, they have a very strong fear reaction to what they are perceiving as stressful.
They can find common situations stressful such as house guests, children playing loudly, a trip to their veterinary’s waiting room, a leash walk in the neighborhood, etc.
If they cannot avoid or escape the situation that triggers their fear, their fear builds to anxiety until the dog reacts with increasing aggressive behavior towards what they feel fear towards.
These behaviors often start with glaring, growling, out of control barking, lunging on leash, chasing and trying to bite at what they fear.
Even though the reactive dog’s aggression is directed at what it fears, many dog owners get bitten as they try to control their dog in these reactive situations.
Since reactive dogs are often extremely devoted, loving & are often overly dependent on their owners, most reactive dog owners are quite shocked when they themselves are bitten.
Because these dogs often seem to response quickly to training because they usually have a strong desire to please their owners, I must remind the owners of reactive dogs that since the reactiveness is a genetic part of their personality, these dogs will always have a tendency to be reactive.
My long & extensive experience with reactive dogs is that their fears can be greatly reduced & successfully managed in the majority of reactive dogs with on going training & safety precautions.
Aggressive Dog Program Training Fees:
Required:
Initial Aggressive Dog Evaluation with Owner Safety Training: $150
Before I decide whether I am willing to work with you & your dog concerning any aggression issues, I must take extensive information from you and then personally evaluate your dog as well as your ability to manage your aggressive dog.
* Safety for your and your family is my main agenda.
As time permits, very basic foundation training for your dog with an introduction to safe owner leadership skills will be covered.
Aggressive Dog Training is a long term commitment
Managing and working with any dog's aggression issue is a major commitment that a dog owner must be willing to take seriously, perhaps for the rest of the dog's life.
*I will not continue to work with any aggressive dog and their owner without the owner’s commitment of pre-purchasing a minimum additional 12-Session package.
Whether inherited or learned (and most likely, probably both), your dog’s aggressiveness is not going to just disappear after only a few sessions.
Your expectation should be to see improvements in your dog’s behavior with some setbacks.
Progressive follow up training is needed to maintain those improvements.
A long term plan is needed for:
safety management,
recognizing, understanding, and preventing the triggers of your dog’s aggression,
positive reinforcement foundation training for your dog.
Positive reinforcement training enables you to rebuild the old unwanted relationship you have with your dog while progressively changing your dog's aggressive attitude into tolerance, cooperation and trust.
Positive reinforcement training takes consistent repetition over long periods of time to be most effective.
Pre-Paid Aggressive Dog Package:
(*This package is in addition to the initial dog evaluation with owner management training.)
I require 1 weekly training session for 12 weeks of training for aggressive dogs.
As long as dog owners are consistent with the lessons and practicing their homework training, most dogs improve remarkably with manageable control, and often with dramatic changes in aggressive responses.
Pre-Pay $1,500 for 12-Initial Training Sessions (discounted value of $125/session)
After completion of the 12 Training Session package:
if additional follow up sessions are occasionally needed,
clients can pay $150 for each additional session,
or, client can purchase a Follow up Package of 3-Sessions for $300 (discounted value of $100 / session)
* PLEASE NOTE:
Although many fear reactive and aggressive dogs can seem to be "cured" of their reactive or aggressive tendencies fairly quickly, owners must remain diligent in maintaining and supporting their new relationship with their dog for the remainder of their dog's life to help prevent any recurrence of their dog's innate reactiveness and learned aggressive tendencies.
Reactive Dog Program Training Fees
Before I decide whether I am willing to work with you & your dog concerning any aggression issues, I must take extensive information from you and then personally evaluate your dog.
Required:
Reactive Dog Evaluation with Owner Management Training: $150
Almost all Reactive Dogs can be trained to be less reactive and you can be trained to have the skills needed to prevent, manage & handle your dog's reactions with safe techniques.
Reactive Dog Prepaid Package:
Pre-Pay $1500 for 12-Session Training Package (discounted value of $125/ session)
(*This 12-Session Training Package is in addition to the initial dog evaluation with owner management training.)
After a few weeks of training, many Reactive Dogs can seem “cured” & no longer reactive.
* I can tell you from decades of experience, that Reactive Dogs and especially their owner handlers need at least 3 months of training to have consistent manageable control.
I recommend a weekly training session for the first 8 weeks of training.
Then, 4 training sessions every 2 weeks until the dog's owner becomes skilled in preventing their dog from reacting and getting their dog quickly under control when their dog does react.
After completion of the 12 Training Session package:
if additional follow up sessions are occasionally needed,
clients can pay $150 for each additional session,
or, client can purchase a Follow up Package of 3-Sessions for $300 (discounted value of $100 / session)
* PLEASE NOTE:
Dog owners need to aware that ALL Reactive Dogs will always tend to be fear reactive in new or stressful situations because it is in their genetic makeup.
Although many fear reactive and aggressive dogs can seem to be "cured" of their reactive or aggressive tendencies fairly quickly, owners must remain diligent in maintaining and supporting their new relationship with their dog for the remainder of their dog's life to help prevent any recurrence of their dog's innate reactiveness and learned aggressive tendencies.
There Are Truly "Bad" Dogs
Sadly, there are some dogs that born with highly aggressive natures and they will become repeat bite offenders:
Some with extremely high fear reactive personalities that can be lessened with continuous training, not cured, & sometimes can be successfully managed.
Some that are born very dominant and constantly challenge any authority, sometimes these dogs can be successfully managed with strict guidelines as well as continuous reinforcement training.
This depends on their inclination to bite and the dog's size.
Some dogs have little to no inhibition to “snap” bite impulsively.
This is often referred to as "sharpness" and is a hereditary trait, making it difficult to modify with retraining.
Some dogs puncture bite in which their teeth breaks through the skin and punctures into muscle.
Puncture bites can easily and seriously tear human flesh.
Some dogs bite quickly and release their bite while others clamp down with a puncture bite.
Puncture biting is often a hereditary trait making it difficult to modify.
Any dog that has bitten and broken human skin should be considered extremely dangerous, (like having a loaded gun laying on your coffee table….)
Some dogs are born with a hereditary neurological disorder called "Rage Syndrome" (considered a type of seizure) that is absolutely not curable or trainable.
Euthanizing these dogs can be very difficult for many owners because most of these dogs actually have "nice", even “sweet” dispositions - until they "rage" & start mindlessly and uncontrollably biting repeatedly.
They usually seriously hurt their adult owners or their children.
Unfortunately the "rages" are completely unpredictable.
This makes these dogs always a very serious bite injury risk.
These are all signs of a very dangerous dog:
any dog with a history of repeated bites (even "minor" bites),
any dog whose bite tears human flesh,
any dog that puncture bites into human muscle,
any dog that bites and grip holds onto any human body part.
I strongly recommend that such dogs be euthanized.
Unfortunately, every dog that I have ever sadly recommended over the past 30 years be euthanized and the owners choose not to euthanize their dog, eventually each of these dogs seriously harmed & maimed a human (usually several), resulting in the dog being euthanized in spite of the owner’s guilt delay.
