Archives : Dog Aggression

A Good Walk is Hard to Beat

There are fewer joys in life greater than a good walk; add a well behaved dog to that equation and in my opinion you have pure perfection!  I have the great honor of training and walking 5 Weimaraners twice a week.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are full of exhilaration and exercise, I tell my friends I am Weimar-running or doing Weimar-obics.  Although it is a job for me (thank goodness for wonderful clients who rescue dogs) it is an opportunity for me to get outside, enjoy the weather and beat some of my stress.

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Training Away Your Dogs Aggression

Regardless of the size of your dog, it’s critical to take steps in the beginning to prevent dog aggression.  There’s nothing worse than having your dog bite someone.  It’s embarrassing, it’s frightening and it can cause your dog to be taken away from you and lose its life.  Why deal with that kind of angst when the solution is actually quite simple.

There are different types of aggression but many of them stem from the same thing, a lack of socialization and preparedness.

Fear aggression while it can stem from trauma often comes from a dog not knowing how to deal with a situation.  Dominance aggression comes from a dog who is confused about his relationship with the family and preparation aggression comes from a dog that is quite simply not prepared for what life has to offer.

Basic training like sit, stay, and heel are a good foundation to truly protect your dog from aggressive behavior consider undergoing a toddler training regimen.

Jeff Kinsley of SoundAnimals.com says, “Toddler training is where we do behaviors that maybe don’t have a medical or grooming purpose and they may not even seem like they are all that enjoyable for the dog.  However, toddlers especially may be more apt to do them like yanking on the tail, pulling on an ear, pulling on the fur, grabbing on the dog, charging up to the dog which again some adults even will do these things with dogs they don’t know.”

He uses food as a source of pleasure for the animal thus making the dog both accustomed to having hands on them as well as associating the handling with pleasant experiences like cheese or hot dogs.  While it may seem like a good idea to have children in on the training process, with toddler training how you approach it depends largely on the age, size and temperament of your dog.

“If the dog is older,” says Tinsley, “and is objecting to some of these things, you’re definitely going to want to leave the kids out of the process at the beginning until the dog will allow people to do all these things without any objection and that we start slowly back with children.”

Kinsley also recommends making training into a game.  “With younger dogs that are just going through this toddler training process for the first time, I definitely encourage people, especially if they have young kids to play games with the dog.  Simon Says is a great game.  Simon would be one of the adults holding a handful of high value treats, like again chicken or cheese or something.

“They’re Simon and they tell the kid Simon Says pull the dog’s tail.  And when they pull the dog’s tail, the dog gets chicken.  They go through a little process, obviously with the understanding that we’re not going to be hurting the dog and that we’re just going to be getting the dog used to these kinds of behaviors.

Socialization plays an important role in raising calm and non-aggressive dogs.  Whether you have small dogs or larger ones it’s important to expose your dog to a wealth of experiences.  Take them to the park, take them to the city, take them to the dog park, to visit your family.  Take your dog to the dog daycare, let other people walk them, feed them and so on.  Let your dog become accustomed to as many sights, sounds, situations and experiences as possible.

The more prepared they are the less likely they’ll be to attack out of fear, lack of social preparation or even dominance.  Training, toddler training, and basic dog obedience training will go a long way toward raising a well adjusted dog who can handle just about anything.

We want to thank Jeff for that valuable information!

Dealing With Dog Aggression Interview – Jeff Tinsley

If you have a dog who’s starting to show signs of aggression you’re going to love my most recent interview with Dog Training expert, Jeff Tinsley.

In this interview Jeff and I talk about how to handle dealing with dog’s who get aggressive when certain parts of their body are touched. This should be helpful for people who’s dog’s are showing signs of aggression when going in for Vet checkups where the Vet has to handle the dog.

Plus we also get into what causes different types of aggression and how to solve them.

All you have to do to is right click here to download the audio file to your computer, then just use your favorite mp3 player to listen in. It’s an hour long interview so it might take you a while to download… but be patient, it’s worth waiting for

Enjoy!

Chet Womach

P.S. I’m really making it a priority to deliver some great free information for you, and I’d appreciate it if you’d leave your comments on what you got out of this interview in the comments section of this post… Thanks.