How To Stop Sudden Aggression In A Dog

It is natural for dogs to be aggressive. The aggressive nature is usually brought about by a combination of factors like fear, tension, and anxiety. Even though this is natural, the side effects of such aggressions may at times get overboard. That is why it pays for you to learn how to tame your dogs and keep them civil.

In our discussions that follow, we look into the various ways and means through which you may prevent your dog from turning wild. They also go beyond that to enable you to tame your dogs if and when the same unfortunately become too wild all of a sudden.

Below are some of the steps you may take to discourage sudden aggression in your dog:

1: Discourage dominant behaviors

Prevention is always better than cure. As the first line of defense, you should train your dog to avoid dominant behaviors that tend to lord it over other dogs or household pets. These could include bossy tendencies and excessively barking.

Instead, teach your dog to be kind and humble to everyone it may come across or ruffle feathers with. That will go a long way in enhancing its own tolerance and responsiveness towards external stimuli. Doing this may require some patience from you as such characters are never generated overnight.

2: Be on the lookout for signs of resource guarding

Resource guarding is a common cause of aggressiveness. In this case, the dog becomes aggressive to safeguard a given treasure it has found. This could be a toy, bone, some food, or anything that may be disputed with other dogs.

While this for a large part is normal and widely expected, it should never boil overboard. Be on the lookout for signs that point for this. Then, train your dog also to care and share with the others around it. If possible, keep it far away from anything that it might have to fight for.

3: Take note of its socialization tendencies

Dogs, like humans and other pets, do have their own personalities. It is important to learn the personality of your dog to find out how it reacts to the various triggers and sources of dangers. While at it, notice how the dog fairs on with other pets and strangers.

After learning the character of your dog, develop some counter-strategies to cope with each. If you can find ways of permanently calming these effects, by all means go for them. That will render the issues permanently incapable of posing any dire dangers.

4: Utilize Positive Reinforcement Training

Positive reinforcement refers to the issuance of rewards for good behaviors and punishments for bad behaviors. In this sense, consider giving the dog rewards for non-aggressive behaviors while at the same time denying them some privileges when they behave badly.

Through this approach, the dog will generally prefer to do well. They will often shun taking negative actions as that may land them in trouble. It is subsequently an ingenious way of suppressing aggressiveness and encouraging kindness throughout. Only be consistent and patient with it to be able to yield better outcomes.

5: Train it to Co-exist Peacefully with others

Many a time, the dogs get aggressive when in the company of other pets like cats. To stem these aggressive tendencies, you should also train the dog to co-exist peacefully with those other pets and household animals. This may require that you put in place a training regime.

Then, take your time to note the behavior of the dog towards those impulses and members of your households. Put in place all measures that may calm the pet and assure it that it will not sustain any harm if it mingles with the other creatures in your home.

6: Check its Health periodically

Some aggressive tendencies are largely brought about by some underlying health issues. You can never hope to reverse those tendencies without you dealing with the root-cause that is the health problem. For this to happen, you will obviously have to bring in a veterinarian.

Let him inspect your dog and find out whether there be any issues that require appropriate rectification. Needless to say, you have to tackle these issues if and when they are discovered. Do this periodically to ensure that the health is upheld all the while.

7: Keep it away from all possible irritants

Other than the underlying medical issues, the dogs may also develop these aggressive tendencies as a result of external triggers, commonly called, irritants. Most of these external irritants are other pets particularly those of the feline nature. If you cannot inculcate co-existence in your pet, then get the irritants away.

That is the only guarantee that the pet will not have to get too angry or hostile unnecessarily. For this to happen, you have to take time to study your dog to find out its likes and dislikes. That may take quite some time and requires a keen eye of attention.

8: Train it to appreciate strangers

Many households keep dogs as a way of beefing up their own security. Though this is a noble undertaking, sometimes the dogs themselves overstep certain boundaries. It is not uncommon for the dogs to treat all strangers in a hostile manner.

To stem this tide, you should teach your dog to differentiate between threats and friendliness. Not every stranger is potentially threatening to a home. After your dog has learned that, it will hardly develop too hostile attitudes to just about any other stranger.

9: Steer Clear of Triggers

Triggers are inanimate sources of aggression and threats. They may include spates of anxiety, sudden changes in the overall state of the area you live in, and so on. It is important that you steer clear of these triggers as they too do cause the dogs to develop aggressive tendencies.

Depending on how potentially aggressive your dog could be, you may usually have to take drastic measures to suppress them. Some of these measures may include you encaging the dogs to limit the movements and separating your dogs from those of your visitors when they check on you.

10: Seek the intervention of a professional dog trainer

As you may see, training your dog forms a substantial chunk of the efforts that are aimed at preventing these aggressive tendencies. Chances are that you do not have the expertise or experience necessary to do the job. You can never gamble with the quality of the outcome though.

For this reason, you have to bring in a professional dog trainer. This is the person who has the necessary skill, expertise, and know-how needed to train your dog well. He may cost more but he will surely deliver lasting impacts.

11: Seek professional veterinary services

If the tendency to be aggressive persists even after you putting in place all of the above measures, we recommend that you seek professional veterinary services. Like the professional dog trainers above, these people also have the equipment and the expertise needed to reverse any adverse issues.

They make use of sophisticated pieces of equipment to scan and find out the underlying problems. Some of these are X-ray diagnostics and blood examinations. Then again, they have all the medications you might want to restore the dog’s health to the perfect condition.

Conclusion

Keeping your dog civil and tame is very critical especially if you live in a crowded locale. By not taming them, you make them easier to run into the children who play in the neighborhoods. What may follow next are bites and injuries which are often accompanied by court cases.

The insights we have revealed and displayed above are truly able to generate the necessary outcomes. You just have to create a favorable regime to implement the same. We wish you all the best in your subsequent endeavors.