Dealing With Dog Fear Aggression

Is your dog showing signs of fear and aggressive behavior at the same time? This behavior can be categorized as fear aggression. Fear is not uncommon in dogs and most aggressive behaviors derive from it. This behavior could be caused by a multitude of things, such as genetics, possible mistreatment or lack of socialization during the impressionable stages of the dog’s life (fear imprint period). Sometimes you may be dealing with a combination of these things, depending on the dog and situation.

What Causes Your Dog’s Fear?

First, you want to identify the source of your dog’s fear whether it’s strangers, other dogs or specific objects. Once you can identify the cause of your dog’s fear, you can work on the behavioral threshold (the distance where the dog is not reacting). This will help your dog learn to overcome and deal with the cause of his fear.

As someone who has owned a dog that suffers from fear aggression, I recommend working with a professional dog trainer who is experienced with this type of behavior. Dealing with fear aggression can be complex and a little overwhelming for a dog owner to deal with, so coupling up with a dog trainer will help your dog tremendously.

What You Can Expect and When

You’ll see your dog’s fear aggressive behavior become more intense around six months of age or at the beginning of the dog’s adolescence. The sooner you begin modifying this behavior, the better. As stated above, you might see your dog show signs of fear toward strangers, other animals and even inanimate objects.

Flight or Fight Response

Some dogs will show the flight response (running away) to the things they’re fearful of. This is generally categorized as being fearful. On the other hand, you might have a dog that shows the fight response (trying to move toward the object), which is considered fear aggression. The dog that shows the fight response is trying to scare the thing she is fearful of away.

Your Dog’s Body Posture

A dog suffering from fear aggression may bark, growl, show teeth, lunge and hug the ground within seconds, or have his hackles raised from the tail all the way to the shoulder blades trying to appear bigger than he is. His body posture may make him come off as indecisive. One minute he’s lunging and growling and the next he’s cowering and running behind you.

RELATED: Dog Aggression

How to Train a Dog With Fear Aggression

First and foremost I want to state that using any correction on a fearful dog can be detrimental to dog training. This will only cause a bigger negative association to what the dog is fearful to. The dog is scared. You can’t tell him to stop being scared. Building a positive association and teaching redirection with the use of positive reinforcement techniques will be ideal in a situation like this.

Select a High Value Reward

Begin by finding the highest value reward for your dog, such as steak, chicken or liver. A head collar is also a great tool to use in this training program, as it gives you much more control. Our goal is to have the dog become aware of the triggers and not react to them.

Treat Your Dog Around Triggers

As soon as your dog sees the trigger, feed your dog a treat one after another. Do not give the dog a chance to redirect onto the stimulus. While the dog is focusing on you and the reward, start moving the dog away from the stimulus where you know he won’t act aggressively. You will begin doing this for several weeks in small increments.

Move Closer

Once your dog is successful at seven feet from the stimulus, begin moving closer. For the next couple of weeks, work with your dog at a distance of five feet. As your dog’s confidence builds, then work with him at a closer distance.

Involve Strangers

When your dog is comfortable around strangers, start using them in your dog training. A great way to begin is to have strangers toss high value food rewards near your dog, as they walk by. Do not have strangers approach quickly or look at your dog–have them just toss a treat and move on.

If your dog doesn’t react to this, then you know you’re making great progress and can move forward. If your dog does show reaction to the stranger, take a couple of steps back and continue to build her behavioral threshold without additional stimulation from strangers.

Take It Slow

Remember to take these exercises very slowly. By going at a slower pace, you’ll be much more successful. It’s normal to want to push a little more when you see progress, but I wouldn’t recommend doing this, as you can overwhelm the dog and jeopardize your training.

I know this can be a frustrating situation, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. My Boxer Chanel began showing signs of fear aggression at five to six months old, which escalated quickly. She is now seven years old and lives with cats, a three-year-old child and another Boxer. There was a lot of training and emotions involved over the years, but I wouldn’t change it. She is my success story!

Sources:
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