Aggression

[kiesha09]

If a client came to me with a dog who didn't like to be touched about the face, and I sent them off to the vet and an abscess was discovered and treated, and the dog then had no problem with being touched about the face (within reason), I would say that dog no longer growled, snapped or otherwise tried to avoid having his face touched.

In the above example the cause of the aggression is cured. But what can we say about the aggression itself?

My dog is aggressive to a degree. He has skin allergies which created sores on his tail and his feet. Previous to this he was perfectly happy to have these two areas touched and groomed. The sores on his tail and feet became very sore and were infected so I took him to the vet. The vet was very rough and pulled him towards her with his tail whilst she was inspecting it as he tried to move away from her. He growled, she jumped away... bingo growl worked. She went back to inspecting it, he growled, she didn't move, he snapped, she jumped away... bingo snapping worked. Then the consult was over.

I then had a dog in pain who would snap at me when medicating his sores... it hurt I understand that and snapping worked for him in the past. I've since worked on this ALOT and through desensitization and counter conditioning can now touch and groom his tail, but I still see the stress singles - ears back, lip licking, tail down.

My dog is aggressive in this instance and would I ever trust a child to grab his tail.... never! Its now a behaviour I manage but certainly isn't cured.

I believe we can teach our dogs more appropriate ways of behaving than resorting to aggression but I guarantee if put in a situation that goes above their threshold they will resort back to it. Why? Because it was reinforcing and it has worked for them in the past!

I also just want to add that having a dog with aggression issues is hard work! And many other dog owners and the general public look apon it with such disdain, but really you don't need to be ashamed of it. It is a natural canine behaviour and if you work on it and get to a level that you and your dog are comfortable with then it really shouldn't be a big deal that it is something you manage in your every day life, rather than cure it.

[Diablo]

ETA I don't understand what "civil aggression" means as per the previous topic.

I'm not sure that there is a clear and universally agreed upon definition, but it is used in working circles to describe that the dog will show aggressive behaviour towards people. Again, aggressive behaviour could mean all sorts of things, so the context has to be taken into account, namely that these behaviours are useful for the purposes of the sport or job.

Looking at that, it's not hard to see why we often just say "aggression" but also why this means different things to different people.

Civil aggression in a working dog means a dog that will bite for real when pressured and will fight for it's own life and that of the handler if provoked. It's an aggression of sharpness driven by a nerve component which can often be misdiagnosed as fear aggression. Civil and fear aggression are similar in their characteristics to the inexperienced except that the body language of a civil and fear aggressive dog determines the difference. Civil aggression is a sought after trait for police and protection dogs. Civil aggression along with prey drive are instincts commonly bred in working line German Shepherds for example and is an aggression used for a purpose and unmanaged, will appear as a dog displaying high levels of stranger aggression usually surfacing in a puppy at around 4 months of age. Civil aggression is directed outside of the dogs family/pack.

Edited November 5, 2009 by Diablo

[Nekhbet]

remember a dog has a limited repertoire with which to communicate with us.

a dog that growls and snaps at you when very sore is NOT aggressive. It is warning you 'ouch I'm really sore don't touch!' I'm sure we've all snapped at people when sick and we're not all raging psychopaths

That is why I make the distinction between aggressive responses and what you would call an overall aggressive dog. A dog that barks and carries on at other dogs lets say may not be truely aggressive. He is showing an aggressive response to a stimulus, be it through weak nerve, poor breeding or a learned behavior accidentally made worst by the owners inexperience. These dogs want to change, and will change quite quickly to accepting when you teach that the behavior is not the right thing, lower the anxiety and show them that there is nothing really to be afraid of through desensitisation and conditioning.

On the other hand a truely aggressive dog will still want to keep going .. the training will keep a lid on the boiling pot but you see the intent in the eyes that always remains. They can be random in their attacks and the tenacity is beyond 'go away!', it usually looks like 'come on, I'll tear you to shreds and I dont want to stop'.

As an example my own dog used to find cars a trigger for prey drive, I don't remember actively working to supress it, maybe I did (well he wasn't allowed off leash), but gradually it moved to speedboats, then to the infamous skateboards. He is great around skateboards now, but would I trust him if I wasn't there no.

It is not hard to suppress prey drive. It would not take long with some conditioning, corrections and redirection of attention to get your dog to ignore them completely. If my high drive Malinois can doze next to the lawn mower, cars and bikes, anyone can

[~*Shell*~]

I feel the same - to me, a problem isn't "cured" unless the root of the problem has been addressed. If you have a dog displaying aggression for whatever reason and you address the agression to a point where the dog is displaying other signs of stress in the same situation, while you may have started addressing the problem, it's not until the dog is completely comfortable in that situation that the problem is "cured".

And the problem is that whilst you might be able to get a dog comfortable in a certain situation, how do you know that another different situation that you have not yet encountered might provoke an aggressive response.

I find that with behaviour whilst outward patterns of execution might be the same, can be somewhat shifting as to triggers.

As an example my own dog used to find cars a trigger for prey drive, I don't remember actively working to supress it, maybe I did (well he wasn't allowed off leash), but gradually it moved to speedboats, then to the infamous skateboards. He is great around skateboards now, but would I trust him if I wasn't there no.

It's not exactly aggression in this case but when I got Zero he was very fearful - he no longer shows a fear response to anything except for lawnmowers. He is getting better about them but it's slow progress. He is constantly shown things that he had fearful responses to in the past and he has no problem with those things anymore. I would say that he's nearly completely cured of his problem fearfulness. Obviously he is going to have a fearful response to some things in the future (like if someone was to jump out at him, trying to scare him) but in the same way that I don't think you can ever call a dog who bites out of extreme pain aggressive, i don't think he would be called fearful for having those responses. I'm sure his fear of lawnmowers will fix itself over time. He can now sleep on the lawn while the lawnmower is going but he still won't walk past it if he can avoid it.

I hope Shell comes back cos I wanted to ask her about Zero who she has done great things with and we met her at K9 Force's Aggression Workshop hence me wanting to use her as an example as I don't have first hand knowledge of anyone else's dog.

I wanted to know if she thinks that Zero woudl exhibit aggression if he wasn't with her.

Come back Shell

Ask away!

I haven't put the theory to the test completely, but I've left him with quite a few people and he hasn't shown the slightest amount of aggression to other dogs with them. I have had a few people walk him around at shows and things like that where there have been a lot of other dogs around and he just acts like he would if I was there. He's also often walked by my family or taken different places by a friend of mine and while he will try other behaviours on with them (like climbing up onto the couch) that he wouldn't try with me, the aggression issue hasn't come up with any of them. I sent him to the groomers a couple of weeks ago and left him there and when I got back, he was playing with 2 standard poodles and a labrador that he'd never met before. You would have seen Zero get lunged at by the ridgeback at the workshop? That's pretty much what he's like now - even when dogs are having bad days (snofyre's gorgeous boy, Magnus was having one the other day) and don't want to have other dogs around them, they don't seem to mind him being around them. Magnus even had a bit of a whinge about Terranik's Jedi being near him.

That being said, all of the people I've left him with were "dog people" and know that Zero can be a right bossy little s*** sometimes - I'm not sure what he would be like should i give him to someone who was very insecure about dogs. Then again, someone who wasn't a dog person probably wouldn't take him anywhere.

I've found that most of Zero's extreme responses come out when he's been stimulus deprived. For example, if i get home from work late and don't have time to play with him before we go to obedience training and then leave him in his crate for an hour (I'm a trainee instructor so i help take a beginners class for the first hour) and then get him out of his crate for our training session, he tends to come out of his crate absolutely hyper (he makes a noise that's like a growl but it's actually the start of his wooooo noise at a low level - when you hear him "talk" you understand it but for someone who doesn't know how sibes sound, it can come out sounding a little like a growl) and wanting to jump on other dogs but it's not an aggressive move, just that he's suddenly over stimulated. A couple of commands and he calms down again, ready to work and stops paying attention to the other dogs around him.

What Nekhbet says about these dogs wanting to change is completely correct - Zero did a 180 in about 8 weeks - he's not an aggressive dog but he felt the need to be aggressive because he didn't know how else to act and aggression had got him somewhere in the past. Zero didn't have the usual upbringing though so it's understandable that he didn't know the right way to act.

[dee lee]

Corvus, I agree with what you are saying.

When the dog stops showing the aggression but shows all the evidence of avoidance and displacement behaviours, clearly not comfortable with the situation, this dog is not cured. In fact, I have seen dogs who's aggression has bounced back 10 fold after suppression.

I did a workshop many years ago (nothing to do with aggression) and one of the dogs in attendance, a gorgeous GSD, was dog aggressive. The owner told me that he had been working with a trainer and that the dog was doing really well. Yet when we were out on the field, the owner did keep his distance from the others and the dog was showing all the clear signs of stress and avoidance. It would not take any food from the owner which is almost always a good indicator of high stress levels. The dog's body language was very low and he was constantly turning his head and back and eating grass as a sign of avoidance. The dog was not showing aggression but it was far from cured. Given half an opportunity, this dog would have lunged and bitten the first dog it saw.

Cosmolo, I have heard that too. Brenda Aloff made a similar statement when she came out earlier this year. She stated (not verbatim), that aggression is never cured, rather it's either badly or well managed.

A dog can learn to cope around the situations which triggered the aggression and show no stress signals as well as be taught to give different behaviours to that which he previously believed worked for him, but I most certainly don't think that you can ever cure it. Once behaviour is part of a dog's repertoire it stays with the dog forever, although we can add to his database of behaviours and encourage him to make the correct choices.

Desensitiation is also a very important part in the rehab process since lessening that which the dog is fearful of, assists with the dog's rehab.

If a dog is ever fully cured, then the aggression was either learned or mimicked and it did not come from a deep rooted problem.

Kelpie-i, this post resonates enormously with me and my experiences. ;)

Overall, this thread is extremely interesting and informative!

[Aidan]

a dog that growls and snaps at you when very sore is NOT aggressive. It is warning you 'ouch I'm really sore don't touch!' I'm sure we've all snapped at people when sick and we're not all raging psychopaths

That is why I think it is better to describe the behaviour, or use a definition for the sort of aggression we are talking about. On my dog's medical record in big letters across the top it says "Caution, can be aggressive when handled (better with owner present)", which I would assume (it doesn't say specifically) refers to the growls and rare air snaps she has given when manipulating a torn ligament, palpating a distended belly during a bloating episode, and that sort of thing.

You might not describe the dog (in this case) as being "aggressive", but at least one vet did. It means something different to both of you.

There is always a reason (or reasons) for aggressive behaviour, it always serves a function. Avoiding physical pain is obvious, and we would expect the aggression to go away once the physical pain went away (unless it has become learned through the episode). The "overall aggressive dog" might have a brain chemistry problem, which can sometimes be corrected through diet or medication (for e.g)

They are all wired up a bit differently, but there is always a cause. Some are wired up to respond to more causes than others, or at different points.

The frequency of the aggression, or the likelihood of it occurring due to the dog's temperament, environment and internal chemistry is somewhere on a continuum. I don't think there is a universally accepted arbitrary cut-off point where we can say "any dog over this point is aggressive, any dog under this point is not" - nor should there be, aggression is not the disease, it is the symptom.

Just my 2c.

It is not hard to suppress prey drive. It would not take long with some conditioning, corrections and redirection of attention to get your dog to ignore them completely. If my high drive Malinois can doze next to the lawn mower, cars and bikes, anyone can

I once ran a class for dogs who chased bikes. We very, very quickly had the dogs to a point where they were reliable off-leash with bikes. We then moved on to skateboards, much more difficult!

Interestingly, despite all the dogs being herding or terrier breeds, prey drive had very little to do with these particular dogs chasing bikes (although it is often a factor).

Edited November 6, 2009 by Aidan

[corvus]

The frequency of the aggression, or the likelihood of it occurring due to the dog's temperament, environment and internal chemistry is somewhere on a continuum. I don't think there is a universally accepted arbitrary cut-off point where we can say "any dog over this point is aggressive, any dog under this point is not" - nor should there be, aggression is not the disease, it is the symptom.

I agree, but there is another way to use the word that I think is also totally legitimate and that is in a generally descriptive sense. For example, the puppy my mother had that met anything new with aggressive behaviour. He wasn't aggressive all the time, but he was so habitually aggressive and had such a low bite threshold that I think it's fair to have called him an aggressive dog in the same sense that you would call someone who repeatedly got hit with assault charges an aggressive person.

There were definitely a variety of reasons for his aggression and we don't look back on it all shaking our heads and saying he was a bad dog. He wasn't. He just wasn't very suited to the society he was born into.

[m-j]

Interestingly, despite all the dogs being herding or terrier breeds, prey drive had very little to do with these particular dogs chasing bikes (although it is often a factor).

Why did these dogs want to chase? Did they display other behaviours with the chasing?

cheers

M-J

[Aidan]

Interestingly, despite all the dogs being herding or terrier breeds, prey drive had very little to do with these particular dogs chasing bikes (although it is often a factor).

Why did these dogs want to chase? Did they display other behaviours with the chasing?

cheers

M-J

One of the dogs was sound sensitive, he didn't like the sound of the bikes on gravel (the owner lived near popular mountain bike tracks), he was afraid of other sounds too. He was fine if the bikes were on concrete or grass.

Another dog had a human bite history (person wasn't on a bike though), didn't like other dogs, other people, kids or anything really (had been severely abused in previous home). His owner started with bikes because that was all I was doing at that time (this one had a very happy ending, his owner took what she had learned and applied it to all those things with great success and even decided to have a baby which she had been putting off because of the dog).

Another would bark deeply, but would only chase the bikes "away", no further.

One dog was prey driven, a herder, and a bit of social butterfly also.

Some very basic functional analysis was done from the start, so I had a pretty good picture even without observing attendant behaviours.

[Nekhbet]

You might not describe the dog (in this case) as being "aggressive", but at least one vet did. It means something different to both of you.

A vet is not a behaviorist and is doing their duty in saying that your dog may cause harm to staff in plain language. It has nothing to do with the overall dog, and my comment is for a good dog that snaps or growls because it's really in pain. Your dog may be overall aggressive or it may not be I dont know.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Nekhbet

[m-j]

Thanks Aidan.

Long story short the reason I was curious as I was wondering if defense coupled perhaps with territory or "personal space" can be a catalyst for the chasing which in the case of a bike coming and going is very self rewarding, for some dogs.

cheers

M-J

[Diablo]

Seeing as no one else seems to want to start a new topic to avoid derailing the formal heel on the right side topic, I'll do it.

The only thing of relevence is simply if the dog exhibits a particular behaviour or it doesn't.

I think that this attitude is a bit of a dangerous one. I believe that once a behaviour is in an animal's repertoire, it's always in an animal's repitoire. If it never crops up ever again, then maybe you were lucky, maybe you addressed the root of the problem so well that it's no longer a problem, or maybe you are really good at management and have always erred on the side of caution. You'll probably never know. Suppression is all well and good as long as it works, but you have to consider whether you've addressed the root of the problem or not. If you haven't, then you're pinning everything on your power to suppress the expression of whatever emotion caused the aggression in the first place. Whereas if you address the root of the problem by changing the very response to whatever first caused aggression, then you don't have to pin everything on whether you can intimidate your animal sufficiently or not. Assuming that suppression can only be achieved through intimidation - someone jump in if I'm wrong - and continues to rely on intimidation.

You have the choice to suppress the symptoms or address the root of the problem. You may be lucky to have the exact same results whichever you choose to do, but to say that it doesn't matter what method you chose as long as the aggression isn't displayed is over-simplifying it. For myself, what is even more relevant than whether the dog exhibits aggression or not is the risk of it exhibiting aggression in the future or not. Behaviour modification in general is very much about assessing likelihoods. I don't want to sound rude or derogatory, but to ignore that I think would be like jumping into the surf and trying to bob over every wave with the reasoning that a wave is only relevant when it dumps you. Sooner or later you'll get dumped. Unless you swim in a bay. :D

Corvus, it depends upon the type of aggression you are dealing with and what needs to be achieved. Civil and social aggression in a working dog for example the GSD, is not a problem behaviour or fault in the dog, it's an instinctive trait to protect and defend against perceived threats and is the reason why GSD's are sucessfully worked in protection/security roles. The problem in society is that unmanaged, the aggressive behaviour escalates as the dog perceives everything and anyone outside of it's family/pack as a threat creating a dangerous uncontrollable dog of extreme high risk liability.

This type of aggression is reliable and predictable that the dog wants to attack and bite anyone outside of it's family/pack and the correction of this aggression is teaching the dog that an aggressive reaction is not tolorated and not necessary achieved by focus redirection, correction and praise. The dog learns to relax in training and enjoy that not needing to aggress is a more pleasant experience. Considering aggression is in the dog's repertiore, re-introducing aggression provides a clear direction in training for the dog to learn when to aggress, when not to and can be switched on and off on command. The dog isn't cured of aggressive instinct, it's cured of exhibiting aggression unless commanded to do so. In fact, these type of dogs when trained to aggress on command are more stable in their ability to resist an unwanted aggressive reaction with good reliability, but is a training process that needs to begin early in the dog's life at the initial signs of aggression and far more difficult to correct in adulthood.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Diablo

[Aidan]

Thanks Aidan.

Long story short the reason I was curious as I was wondering if defense coupled perhaps with territory or "personal space" can be a catalyst for the chasing which in the case of a bike coming and going is very self rewarding, for some dogs.

cheers

M-J

Yes, definitely. There are two basic mechanisms, the chase itself is reinforcing (distance decreasing behaviour, prey) or sending the bike away is reinforcing (distance increasing behaviour, defensive).

[corvus]

Corvus, it depends upon the type of aggression you are dealing with and what needs to be achieved. Civil and social aggression in a working dog for example the GSD, is not a problem behaviour or fault in the dog, it's an instinctive trait to protect and defend against perceived threats and is the reason why GSD's are sucessfully worked in protection/security roles. The problem in society is that unmanaged, the aggressive behaviour escalates as the dog perceives everything and anyone outside of it's family/pack as a threat creating a dangerous uncontrollable dog of extreme high risk liability.

This type of aggression is reliable and predictable that the dog wants to attack and bite anyone outside of it's family/pack and the correction of this aggression is teaching the dog that an aggressive reaction is not tolorated and not necessary achieved by focus redirection, correction and praise. The dog learns to relax in training and enjoy that not needing to aggress is a more pleasant experience. Considering aggression is in the dog's repertiore, re-introducing aggression provides a clear direction in training for the dog to learn when to aggress, when not to and can be switched on and off on command. The dog isn't cured of aggressive instinct, it's cured of exhibiting aggression unless commanded to do so. In fact, these type of dogs when trained to aggress on command are more stable in their ability to resist an unwanted aggressive reaction with good reliability, but is a training process that needs to begin early in the dog's life at the initial signs of aggression and far more difficult to correct in adulthood.

No, I don't think it really does depend on the type of aggression you are dealing with and what needs to be achieved. You made a very broad statement and I disagree with it. My reasons for disagreeing are valid whether you believe the risk of inappropriate aggression in future is negligible or not. To believe a dog is not going to aggress inappropriately, you are still making a risk assessment. You just judge the risk on whether the behaviour is occurring or not. I would judge it on other things as well, such as the body language of the dog when it was in a stressful situation that would have previously triggered it. And that would hold regardless of the breed and the nature of the original problem, and the overall aim, because I think the more information the better.

[Diablo]

Corvus, it depends upon the type of aggression you are dealing with and what needs to be achieved. Civil and social aggression in a working dog for example the GSD, is not a problem behaviour or fault in the dog, it's an instinctive trait to protect and defend against perceived threats and is the reason why GSD's are sucessfully worked in protection/security roles. The problem in society is that unmanaged, the aggressive behaviour escalates as the dog perceives everything and anyone outside of it's family/pack as a threat creating a dangerous uncontrollable dog of extreme high risk liability.

This type of aggression is reliable and predictable that the dog wants to attack and bite anyone outside of it's family/pack and the correction of this aggression is teaching the dog that an aggressive reaction is not tolorated and not necessary achieved by focus redirection, correction and praise. The dog learns to relax in training and enjoy that not needing to aggress is a more pleasant experience. Considering aggression is in the dog's repertiore, re-introducing aggression provides a clear direction in training for the dog to learn when to aggress, when not to and can be switched on and off on command. The dog isn't cured of aggressive instinct, it's cured of exhibiting aggression unless commanded to do so. In fact, these type of dogs when trained to aggress on command are more stable in their ability to resist an unwanted aggressive reaction with good reliability, but is a training process that needs to begin early in the dog's life at the initial signs of aggression and far more difficult to correct in adulthood.

No, I don't think it really does depend on the type of aggression you are dealing with and what needs to be achieved. You made a very broad statement and I disagree with it. My reasons for disagreeing are valid whether you believe the risk of inappropriate aggression in future is negligible or not. To believe a dog is not going to aggress inappropriately, you are still making a risk assessment. You just judge the risk on whether the behaviour is occurring or not. I would judge it on other things as well, such as the body language of the dog when it was in a stressful situation that would have previously triggered it. And that would hold regardless of the breed and the nature of the original problem, and the overall aim, because I think the more information the better.

Working dog aggression is completely different to aggression caused by instability and stress as the aggression is reliable. Working dogs are not unstable when trained by any means, but unless you have owned and worked these type of dogs it would be difficult to imagine how they do react. The safety net when trained is the ability to out the dog in a full blown attack as these dogs are not anger driven, but prey and defence driven in confidence, more of a game than loosing their temper and flying off the handle as in some aggressive behaviour exhibited in other types of dogs.

[corvus]

Then maybe you should have stipulated that you were talking strictly about working dog aggression when you made that very broad statement, Diablo?

As far as I'm concerned you do every bit as much risk assessment as I would, you just judge it based on different experiences.