Dog Behavior and Your Approach To New Dogs

If you don’t know a dog, you have to be careful on how to approach it. By understanding the right way it will ensure your safety and perhaps your children’s. Many dogs can be extremely well behaved in some instances but there only has to be a trigger, that you may not be aware, that can set that dog into another role, from being a well-behaved dog to a dog showing signs of aggression or biting.

You don’t want to be put into a situation where a dog may bite you. They normally bite for one of three reasons.

Indiscriminate Biting

Knowing which type of biter you are confronted with depends on the situation you are in at the time. For instance, if you are walking along the sidewalk in a residential street, minding your own business and a dog suddenly leaves its yard, runs directly at you and bites, this is indiscriminate biting or dog territorial aggression. This is a spoiled dog that is probably the dictator in its household. It is the type of dog that merely allows its family to co-exist with it in the house. It could be any breed, from a Toy Chihuahua to a Giant Schnauzer.

Fortunately, dogs that fall into this category are in the minority and are usually confined and restricted, because the owners are fully aware of the their bad behavior. Undoubtedly, they probably have been the recipients of occasional bites from their own dogs whenever the animals didn’t get their way.

Fear Biting

The fear biter falls into another category because its demeanor could be genetically inherited, or it could be a product of under-socialization with different types of people and situations when it was a puppy. It could be in a panic-stricken mind at the time of the bite.

A friendly but injured dog, could suddenly become a fear biter depending on the circumstances. If you stop on the highway to rescue a dog that has been struck by a car, the dog may think that you are the one who hit it, rather than understand that you are there to rescue it.

Protective Biting

Finally, a protective biter is one that’s unable to reason any farther than the fact that it feels the need to protect someone or something. Usually, the protective biter is in the group known as the working breeds. That is, dogs whose ancestors were originally bred to herd livestock or to protect properties and real estate. Most dogs have this protective instinct, but it seems to manifest more predominantly within the working group.

The main thing is to be aware that what may constitute for a well-behaved ‘looking’ pup, may not necessarily be the case.

What is Dog Territorial Aggression?

All dogs have one form of aggression or another and to some degree, it is perfectly natural. However, since our pets are domesticated then there is a certain level of calmness that we should expect from them. The most common aggression problem that dogs display is called “territorial aggression”. To sum up the definition of territorial aggression, it simply describes a dog that goes absolutely crazy whenever a stranger approaches their home.

What encourages a dog to display such aggressiveness?

It is natural for your dog to want to defend its home and make it known that the area is its territory. However, the following scenarios may cause your dog’s aggression over its territory to escalate:

1. Aggression is reinforced in a dog whenever, for example, a delivery person approaches the house and then after dropping off a package leaves the territory. Your dog actually thinks that it drove the stranger away and this in itself creates more aggression.

2. When riding in a car, a dog with extreme territorial aggression tends to bark incessantly at every person it sees and every moving thing outside the window. It is saying to them “stay away, this is my territory!” Of course nobody is going to approach the car, so your dog actually thinks it is “winning”, so will bark even lower to celebrate itsvictory.

3. Another very common reason why a dog may increase its levels of barking and aggression is whenever it is acting up and barking at the door (for whatever reason) and the owner starts to yell at it in order to shut it up. Most dog owners do not realize that yelling at their dog is doing nothing but creating more aggression. A dog will think that you are “supporting” its aggression towards the approaching stranger or delivery person.

4. A fourth reason why a dog may have heightened levels of territorial aggression is whenever it is isolated or locked up when there are guests and strangers inside the house. When you first think about it, it seems very reasonable to take your barking dog and lock it up in a room or crate whenever you have guests. However, during this time, your dog can smell the “intruders” and since it can do nothing about it, its aggression levels can rise dramatically, causing stress and anxiety, which of course leads to more behavioral problems.