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
What is Dominance Aggression in Dogs?
This episode unravels the mystery behind what many term 'dominance aggression' in our canine companions. I'm going to tell you what 'dominance aggression' is, and, what it isn't in this episode. Join me as we navigate the misconceptions surrounding this issue and offer clarity.
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Ep. 37 What is Dominance Aggression in Dogs?
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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.
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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.
You hear this term all the time dominance aggression when it comes to dogs. I'm going to tell you in this episode what it is and, more importantly, what it isn't. Stay tuned. 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 and it's my mission to help you better understand your dog's behavior. Before we start the episode today, I just want to remind you that the video version of this episode is on YouTube. I provide a link in the episode notes that will take you directly to the video at the Grumpy Dogs channel. You can also search for this at the Grumpy Dogs channel on YouTube.
Scott Sheaffer:All right, let's talk about dominance aggression in dogs. All right, let's talk about dominance aggression in dogs. It goes by a lot of names, including owner-directed aggression, social aggression, status-related aggression, hierarchical aggression and rank-related aggression and finally, control-related aggression is a term that we find commonly in technical writing on animal behavior, and it's my preferred term because it more accurately describes the issue involved. I'm going to be using predominantly the term dominance aggression in this episode simply because it's the more common term that you hear. So what does dominance aggression look like? Well, first of all, it is aggression. So the aggressive behaviors, which includes, of course, growling, barking, biting here's the key Directed primarily at family members or to those who frequently interact with the dog. So that would be family members, of course, or, let's say, a maid that comes over to your house, or a brother that comes and visits very, very frequently, or your mother who might live with you. This kind of thing People that regularly interact with the dog is where we're going to see this dominance aggression. And what does it look like? Well, it's guarding resources like food, toys or resting spots. In other words, if you get close to the food or close to their toys or close to the resting spots, they start to show aggression. We also see it during handling things like grooming, putting on a collar, combing, petting even. They don't like that either, and so they may get aggressive. These behaviors tend to look terrifying to owners, because they can get quite aggressive and it can really escalate into very serious and dangerous biting. It escalates over time. More on that in a minute. It's some of the most serious aggression I see, and it's one that I see frequently with first-time dog owners. In fact, it's one of my diagnostic questions is to ask the client is this your first dog as an adult? And if they answer yes, that inclines me to look a little bit more down the dominance aggression alley there. It's quite predictable and I think as we go on in this episode you'll see why.
Scott Sheaffer:Let's discuss what dominance aggression isn't. We've talked about what it is, what it looks like. We'll talk about causes in a minute, but let's talk about what it isn't. First of all, your dog doesn't think I just it's hard for me to say this with a straight face but your dog does not think you're a wolf and is wanting to run the pack. Your dog has never thought you're a wolf and is wanting to run the pack. Your dog has never thought you're a wolf, never will think you're a wolf, etc. So it's not this pack hierarchy thing that people want to think. It is Dogs. Don't think we're wolves.
Scott Sheaffer:Next, your dog isn't trying to take control of your home or financial assets, I promise. They're just telling you they want to eat when they want, sit on that piece of furniture, don't like being touched by you, etc. There's nothing bigger than that. They just don't like some of the things that the owner is doing. Your dog just simply does not have an elaborate plan of ruining your life. They're just wanting something right now. That's it. Dogs' behavioral needs are very primitive and primal. In fact, I heard something not too long ago and I just love how this is articulated what motivates dogs to minimize pain and maximize pleasure? And in dogs with dominus aggression, that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain thing has kind of gone out of control. Let's carry on Before we move on to talking about what causes this behavior.
Scott Sheaffer:Whether you're listening to this as a podcast or watching this on YouTube, would you please subscribe to the podcast or to the YouTube channel, thanks, would you please subscribe to the podcast or to the YouTube channel, thanks, okay, now back to what causes this behavior. What does cause that behavior? If I were to say in a nutshell, it's primarily caused by owners who are inconsistent in their handling of their dog, in other words, how they interact with the dog, and the owners require little to nothing of the dog in order to live with them. In other words, the dog kind of has their way with the owners. Another way to look at it is and I use this analogy all the time. It's kind of like a very young human child who gets everything they want by screaming, yelling and throwing temper tantrums. And the child keeps doing it. Why? Because it's working. Of course, the child also is not in a very good position to run the house because they're four right and that doesn't work out too well. The same is true with dogs.
Scott Sheaffer:More specific examples of what can cause dominant aggression would include this Let me just give you some specifics Changing rules, in other words, let's say that you have rules for the furniture, but some days you let them on the furniture, some days you don't. Yeah, this person has one rule, the other person has another rule. This can confuse the dog and it starts to get a little grumpy about this and starts to show aggression. When someone starts to randomly move it off, the dog just says no, not today, I'm just going to stay here. Another example would be giving the dog everything it wants, regardless if the owner is comfortable with it or not. Let's think about that as far as causes go Giving the dog everything it wants, whether the owner likes it that way or not. Examples might be toys. Toys are all over the house. The dog doesn't want to give them up Food. The owner just puts down food in that continuous feeding or free feeding type environment and the dog just starts to expect that Doors the dog blows through doors without being the least bit courteous hey, I'm just going to go through, I don't care about what you want.
Scott Sheaffer:And taking the dog on walks can be a real extravaganza, meaning the dog is just a mess when you're putting the leash on. When you come back, it's just very unruly. There's no rules. The owner, for example, chases the dog around the house trying to put the leash on. It's just a free-for-all with the dog, even though the owner doesn't like it. And the message to the dog, of course, is you just need to act unruly, even aggressive, just to get what you want and to control the environment.
Scott Sheaffer:Another reason we see this is that the dog came from rescue and never learned how to properly interact with humans. In other words, when they're out, let's say, astray, or even in a rescue center, it's every dog for themselves, and so they learn how to use aggression to get what they want and they carry that on into the home. Are certain breeds predisposed to this? Maybe and I'm saying a big maybe, because I see this in every breed, every breed, from toy poodles to large Rottweilers. I just don't see a preponderance of certain breeds. I absolutely don't. I really don't, from the small breeds to the very large breeds. In fact, of all the diagnoses that I make, there's about 15 common ones with dog behavior. I would say this one is probably the most equally spread across breeds.
Scott Sheaffer:Of all of the types of aggression, this aggression almost always escalates over time. Why is that? Why does it keep getting worse? Because it's reinforced, because it works for the dog. For example, one of the causes we talked earlier about the dog is on the sofa. It's confusing. Sometimes the rules are to get on, sometimes they can't get on. The rules keep changing, confuses the dog. So the dog starts to get aggressive and starts to enforce what it wants. And if you're approaching the dog on the sofa to move it off and he shows you some teeth and a growl, you're unlikely to keep moving forward because you don't want to get bitten, which is common sense. And the dog learns what? Wow, when I do this aggressive stuff, I get my way and I am going to keep doing that and they start to escalate that and I'm going to tell you, I have seen some very extreme cases where the dog and quite a few actually, where the dog starts to resource guard random areas in the house, random areas like oh I think I like this foyer, I'm going to own this now and it can get pretty vicious. And, of course, with larger dogs it's even more concerning.
Scott Sheaffer:So how is this treated? How do we treat dominance, aggression? Simply stated, we treat it by asking the dog to say may I, may I in relation to the certain desirable things it wants. So we control a lot of these things in our lives and one of the ways to get their attention is just to make them ask for them instead of just doling it out all the time, especially when they're being aggressive.
Scott Sheaffer:For example a simple example the dog has to wait in a sit while the food is being presented and the dog is not to approach the food until they are given a release cue. So it looks something like this. It's just one example of how this works. So let me show you how that, or just talk through a little bit. The owner puts the right amount of food in the bowl, is holding it up and in the beginning stages, the dog sits. And once the dog sits, the owner puts the bowl on the floor. The dog is looking at the owner. This is very relevant. The owner gives a release cue, which is something like free, and the dog then can eat. You want to get to the point where when the dog sees the bowl with food in it, it just automatically sits and waits without being cued, which is called an implied cue. Put the food bowl down, the dog is looking at you, you release it and it starts to eat. This is a great and perfect example of how this works.
Scott Sheaffer:Owner relevancy is being taught in this exercise and other exercises the may I exercise. The dog learns that they need to cooperatively work with the human to get what they want. The human is there to give them what they want and all they have to do is just do the may I, which is commonly just getting the dog to do a sit. Some other ways that we treat this in addition to the may I exercises and there's a lot of those that I teach my clients is general obedience, sit, stay, down, come. So those are pretty simple things, but dogs that have dominance aggression typically aren't so great at it, and so we just start to really work on those just a couple of minutes here and there throughout the day and make it a very rewarding thing. So the dog loves doing these things. Everybody wins. See how this is going. It's kind of cool. And there are, of course, many other things that can be done. I'm just giving you some of the low hanging fruit for how we do this.
Scott Sheaffer:Treating dominus aggression really important point here, please remember this With punishment of the dog is absolutely not recommended. Why? Dogs are animals and when they're being aggressive to get their way, if we escalate and we get aggressive with them, hit them, yell at them, even strike them, the dog is naturally going to escalate the aggression. So we're going to escalate the aggression with even more aggression. You're losing the battle here and you know what? We're smarter than a dog and I like to say this all the time.
Scott Sheaffer:Have you ever seen those TV shows where there's a home and they got a couple of screaming kids, like the spoiled kids I was talking about earlier, and the parents are screaming at the kids. The kids are screaming, the house is a mess, it's a disaster. Then they bring in this 70-year-old. I don't know why. This is always the case, but it's an English. They're always English nannies. I don't know why they bring on this 70-year-old English nanny. She is so calm and the kids just don't know what to do with her because she says, hey, that's fine, but I control all these resources and I'm just going to give you things when you behave in a way that I like. Then I'll be happy to give you those things, but I'm going to be very calm and I'm going to do lots of may eyes. But if you'll notice that these English nannies that are the superstars of these TV shows never uses aggression or loses control Very common. That's so important to do the same thing with these kind of dogs.
Scott Sheaffer:I rarely suggest behavioral medication for these cases. They just almost always can be resolved without doing that and when properly treated like not using aggression, for example I found that the prognosis on these cases is always pretty good. Of the major types of aggressions about seven this one to me has the best prognosis, at least in my experience. By getting ahead of it, this kind of aggression can be kept from starting in the first place. I prefer control-related aggression as the name versus dominance, simply because it better describes what it is. Dominance aggression as a name is kind of old school and I think it actually creates more problems than it fixes. The term dominance aggression seems to hint to the owner that we should use punishment so they're not dominant and, as I just said, responding with aggression frequently makes the aggression escalate. Like I said, we're smarter than the dog. The nanny the English nanny is smarter than the kids. We don't have to resort to aggression against aggression.
Scott Sheaffer:So to wrap things up, in this episode I defined what dominance or control-related aggression is, what causes it, some of the causes, and I also briefly covered some treatment options. If your dog is showing any of the symptoms we discussed, please find some help, a canine behavior consultant who can help you with your dog. This is especially true if you're a first-time dog owner. These behaviors can frequently be successfully addressed, as I mentioned, and can be avoided altogether with the right approach. Thanks for listening and you can contact me directly with your comments and suggestions at grumpydogspodcastcom. We can find my social media links as well. 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.
