USA Dog Behavior Podcast
Are you struggling with a dog that is anxious, fearful, or aggressive? You’re at the right place. In this audio podcast series, Scott Sheaffer will explore insights and strategies to guide dog owners, veterinary practices, and dog trainers in overcoming these issues using scientific and humane methods.
USA Dog Behavior Podcast
A Checklist: Can Your Dog's Fear and Aggression Be Fixed?
Can we ever truly "fix" fear and aggression in dogs, or is striving for improvement the best we can do? Join me, Scott Sheaffer, as we navigate the intricate nature of canine aggression and fear issues, dissecting the factors that impact the probable outcome of behavior modification in your dog. I'll unpack the seven crucial elements that can determine the course of your dog's progress, from the commitment of the owner to the challenges that come with the dog's age and history of fear and aggression.
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Did you know there are 7 major types of dog aggression?
6 Types of Dog Bites
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About Scott Sheaffer
Scott Sheaffer, CCBC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA, is a certified dog behavior consultant who has worked with thousands of dog owners and their aggressive dogs. Scott specializes in the assessment and treatment of fear, anxiety, aggression, and phobias in dogs six months and older. For more information about Scott, see USADogBehavior.com.
Disclaimer
If your dog is aggressive toward humans, consult an experienced, certified canine behavior consultant immediately and ensure your dog cannot harm anyone. This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace professional guidance. Scott Sheaffer and USA Dog Behavior, LLC, are not liable for outcomes resulting from the advice provided.
Can a dog's aggression be fixed? It's a fair question and one that I'll address in today's episode. I'm going to provide you a checklist of things to consider in answering that question for your own dog. Are you struggling with a dog that is anxious or aggressive? You're at the right place because in this podcast series we educate dog owners, veterinary practices and dog trainers on how to overcome dog fear and aggression using humane methods. My name is Scott Sheaffer and it's my mission to help you better understand your dog's behavior.
Scott Sheaffer:Can your dog's aggression be fixed? Before I provide you the checklist I talked about earlier, let's talk about the term fixed. Let's define fixed by that. I think we all know that means completely remedied, no more problems, completely resolved. Let me just give you a heads up. I don't mean to be a spoiler here, but we're never going to really 100% fix your dog's aggression or fear issues. That would be extremely rare. What we do instead, through behavior modification, is that we improve the situation. I never use the word fixed with clients. I always use the word improve. That's really important. If we can get the dog's fear and aggression issues improved enough, the dog becomes substantially more functional in the home environment around other people, other dogs, other triggers. Improved is a good thing, but I never like to use the word fixed. If you get a behavior consultant who is saying I can fix it, or a dog trainer who is saying I can fix it and means like completely resolved, I'd be a little concerned. I would be very concerned. I'm not being really honest with you. It's never really completely eliminated. All right, let me go ahead and take you through a quick checklist of seven things to look for that will affect how successful behavior modification will be with your dog behavior modification and the management of your dog's aggression and fear issues. I'm going to present these in no particular order, as they say. Before I start the list, I just want to remind everyone that you can send me a voicemail or a written message with any questions or comments you have by going to usadogbehaviorcom slash podcast. All right, now for the seven items that will affect the prognosis or the probable outcome of your dog's aggression.
Scott Sheaffer:Number one commitment of the owner, that's, you and the owner's family. I always ask new clients what their commitment level is on a one to 10 scale, one being and this is how I like to say it with clients one being, gee, if you can't fix this in the next seven days, we're not interested. 10 being, we'll do whatever is necessary. We'll sell our internal organs and our home and do whatever we need to do. Obviously, neither one is probably one that we actually see in practice, but you get the idea. I'm just trying to get a feel. For where are they on their commitment level?
Scott Sheaffer:There's no wrong or right answer, by the way, and I always like to tell people that If you have had it with your dog and it's just not working for you and it's ruining your life, which means your dog is really unhappy, I get it. On the other hand, on that extreme end sometimes, I think the eight, nine and 10s I think people can be a little unrealistic about what's going to probably really happen. Even if they do all these things, I like to know where they are. I don't like to work with one, two and threes because there's probably not going to have the commitment to make it work. Again, there's not a right or wrong answer. That answer just tells us how we're going to proceed. All right.
Scott Sheaffer:Number two of seven the age of the dog. Simply stated, and I think everyone understands this, it's the same with humans, really. The younger the better. The sooner these behaviors are addressed fear and aggression issues in the dog's life the better the prognosis. If a dog has been dealing with significant fear and aggression issues it's whole life and the dog is now, let's say, more than five years old, these are really some embedded behaviors and obviously are going to be a lot more resistant to change. Doesn't mean we can't work on it. It doesn't mean I don't have clients like this all the time, but it's just going to be a little bit bigger hill to climb. Is how I like to say it.
Scott Sheaffer:Now let's move on to number three. This is one that's a little touchy, a little uncomfortable I have to be honest with you, I don't really talk about it very much with clients directly and that being the physical abilities of the owner. This is extremely important because most behavior modification exercises that we do for fear and aggression not all of them, but many, if not most, are done on the leash and require at least some modest leash skills. These skills are absolutely necessary. If you can't moderately or marginally control the dog in a humane and calm way, doing these exercises is going to be very difficult. Even some of the exercises that we do off leash, for these things do require a significant amount of movement and physical ability from the owner. It's really hard for me. I just can't even begin to tell you. It breaks my heart. I get a few of these every year when someone comes in let me just use this as an example a very elderly person comes in and they have well, I'll just give you an actual example.
Scott Sheaffer:This is a few years ago had a gorgeous, very young bull, mast, probably about a year old, just a beautiful dog. The man was well into his 80s and had some physical issues. This dog was fairly aggressive, big dog. He could barely, I mean, he just had trouble walking down the pavement and stuff like this. How are we going to get him to get control of this dog, to manage the dog to do these exercises? Of course, compounding the problem is he, of course, really loved this dog. That really puts me in a tough, tough situation. My heart breaks for the dog, my heart breaks for the owner and I guess maybe the lesson here is, if you have some physical limitations, really be careful about getting a dog and really be careful about ensuring, especially if it's a rescue, that we don't have any of these kinds of issues. Lots of people, lots of people 80s, 90s, beyond have dogs and do so successfully. These kinds of dogs can be really tough and put the behavior consultant in kind of a tough situation.
Scott Sheaffer:Let's move on to number four of our seven point checklist for how addressable your dog's aggression and fear issues are. What is the likely outcome? Number four is broken into two quick pieces. One is Money. They both have to do with resources, but the first one is the money resource. Yes, a competent, experienced and Credentialed animal behavior consultant can be expensive. There's not a lot of them out there. But let me say if your aggression or fear issues are significant enough and long-standing, you're gonna probably need their help. So there is a money and a resource issue there. Point B for B, that's would be time. This is even more important.
Scott Sheaffer:I always tell clients and and they really, as these sessions move forward, begin to see this I Tell them that actually coming to the sessions with me with their dog and going through these exercises is actually kind of fun. I mean, I certainly enjoy it and I think a lot of my clients the majority for sure Enjoy the activity and the dog gets into it. It's kind of fun for the dog. We're moving and grooving and make of things happen, watching these behavior changes and and how they affect the dog, but when they leave here, they've got to do these exercises at home. That's what's going to provoke the change in the dog. And let me tell you and I say this 10,000 times a day it feels like of course I don't, but it feels that way. This stuff's kind of boring. There's nothing sexy or exciting about these exercises. You have to give the dog Some time in. My rule of thumb and this is a little bit loosey-goosey is 30 minutes. We need to have 30 minutes with you and your dog every day doing some type of exercise. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more. Yes, you can skip a day, but that's a good rule of thumb. Most people think well, that's going to be super easy. For me Is it? Is it 30 minutes per day commitments pretty significant. So think about that. Okay, that will affect the outcome of any kind of behavior modification Program for your fearful and aggressive dog.
Scott Sheaffer:Number five Fearity of the aggression. This applies to fear issues, to Aggression, and fear issues almost always move in a hockey stick fashion, especially Aggression issues. It gets worse over time at kind of an increasing rate, especially in the younger years, especially, I'm gonna say nine months and four years. All I'm saying is the worst. These issues are, the harder they are going to be to effectively treat. And let me tell you that a, a behavior consultant, can help you assess the severity of the aggression and fear issues. They have some tools that will Objectively give them the ability to tell you where your dog is. As far as the severity issues. Alright, let's move on to number six, which is the type of aggression.
Scott Sheaffer:For those of you who regularly listen to this podcast, you know that there are Seven major types. There's a lot more than that, but there are seven major types of aggression that dogs can have. Certain types of aggression have a better prognosis than others. For example, I find that control related aggression tends to have a better outlook or outcome than some of the other six major types of canine aggression. I have an article on the seven major types of aggression that might be helpful to you. I'll provide a link in the episode notes. I also have a prior episode that covers this and I'll provide a link to that as well.
Scott Sheaffer:And lastly, number seven the types of bites. This one is really extremely important in assessing or diagnosing the situation. How the dog is biting says a lot. There are six levels of dog bites and it really helps us assess where this dog is and what the prognosis is. For example, these bites are called levels, level one through six. So, for example, a level two bite raises significant yellow flags, but we're not panicking by any means. I start to get a little concerned with level three biting, which, by the way, is the most common level of biting when I have aggressive dogs that come into me and that level three bite, just as an aside, here would be a slight tooth penetration like half the length of the canines into the subject, ie a human. So it's just a little pinhole. Look, it's like a little hole, is what it looks like. So that would be a level three bite and the prognosis deteriorates significantly beyond the level three. So four, five, six, the prognosis gets to be quite poor. I also have an article on the six types of dog bites that I'll link in in the episode notes, as well as a prior episode on the same subject, and I'll link that in.
Scott Sheaffer:I guess I should state that if your dog has not bitten anyone yet and is, in other words is, not biting, that's the ultimate thing. We want that that's a level zero. We want that the prognosis is so much better if a dog has never bitten anyone, even just a mild little teeth to skin, but no punctured type of bite, no aggressive biting whatsoever, is really what we're looking for. We want to jump in and do behavior modification before we get to that point. Behavior modification and management. I'm telling you, when I have a new client come in with a dog that's presenting with aggression and may tell me there are no biting incidents, no bite history, I jump for joy. But that's a really good thing. We like that, because once that dog starts to bite in a sentence let me explain what happens they figure out that it works really well for them and then they start to repeat that behavior.
Scott Sheaffer:As we begin to wrap up this episode, let me just state a couple of things. First of all, none of the seven variables I just mentioned and there are others will 100% accurately predict your dog's outcome. But they are good indicators and you have to look at all seven of them. Starting in my very next episode, I'm going to take you through the process of how you might address the most common types of aggression in your dog. This will be a series of short and focused episodes.
Scott Sheaffer:Let me summarize our podcast today by saying this one sentence You're unlikely to 100% fix your dog's fear and aggression issues, but being committed to using proper techniques, you can almost always improve things significantly, making your dog's life better and making you and your family's life better. Before we go, I just want to remind you that we have some free and premium videos that address various dog behavior issues on USADogBehaviorcom website. If you'd like to learn more, just go to USADogBehaviorcom slash videos for more information. Thanks for listening. Thank you for joining me today. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with other dog lovers. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll continue our dive into the world of dog behavior.
