ORIGINAL: probe1957
You are correct Shel. While an aggressive dog wouldn't be right for me, I certainly don't mean to imply that an aggressive dog might not be right for someone.
I guess my thought on this is that even if someone thinks that the aggressive dog - and, remember we are talking truly aggressive, not "just" fear aggressive (as if the teeth do any less damage when they bite for a different reason) - but, is the dog right for that person's family, friends, neighborhood, or universe? The problem is that management of such dogs is a real problem unless you are a hermit. Quite frequently, the news gets broadcast about the aggressive dog, usually a Pit (because if it was a Lab it wouldn't make the news) escaping from it's pen and attacking someone. Dogs escape, the manage to scrape their muzzles off, someone accidentally opens the wrong door, there's an accident and the car door springs open...etc. So, this isn't a responsibility anyone should take lightly. But, the question is also how to manage such dogs from a behavioral standpoint. Billy's suggestion is extreme, but humane euthanasia is certainly an option, and I don't begrudge any owner the heartrending decision to take that route. After all, no one gets bitten, no child is harmed, and the dog doesn't spend its life caged, muzzled or isolated. Most dogs in Billy's scenario never make it into a normal JQP family if shelters, breeders, and rescues are doing their jobs, but sometimes a dog fools even the best, with its true personality coming out only after it has been in a situation for a while.
People forget that aggression is normal canine behavior and that any dog can be aggressive, given the right set of circumstances (what trainers often refer to as "triggers"), but there are some dogs who aggress with a nip that doesn't break skin, and others who take multiple bites and consume flesh. Big difference. If a trainer thinks that by physically punishing such a dog he will gain its compliance, bully for him, because it just might work. For him. But, what about his 90 pound aunt from two states away, who hasn't seen the family in six years, then comes to the door to surprise him? Not. It's equally as possible that the dog will not tolerate such discipline and will retaliate, and perhaps only after several episodes. Better have your bite suit on when that happens, buddy.
Much has been made of fear aggression somehow being less dangerous than "true" aggression (whatever that is - aggression is aggression, it just occurs on some kind of continuum). But, the fear aggressive dog is the likeliest to bite statistically. It was fear aggression that made that Viszla that CM pulled from under the chair bite him. He simply set off the right set of triggers. Frightened dog, in hiding, being yanked out of his hiding place by a stranger and pulled toward something he was afraid of. If you think about it, it's a good thing it
was CM, not some five year old kid. Watching that episode, you would think the dog had been rehabilitated by "flooding". And, for that particular scary thing, quite possible (ron2 can cite the study on flooding) that he was.
But, others, myself included, would contend that the dog is still a fearful sort, and that he easily could bite again given a set of circumstances that push him over his "bite threshold". So, I prefer to think of aggressive dogs, whatever the type, as either managed well or not managed well. Able to be managed, or not. That way, no one is lulled into a false sense of security, and they take precautions to avoid triggering a bite while they continue to work on training and behavior modification. One reason that positive techniques are successful is that they build trust between dog and handler. Very valuable if you want the dog's default behavior, when frightened, to be "look to the handler for guidance". Even a severely aggressive dog, if it trusts its handler, may be more manageable than one that does not (exception might be in the case of territorial aggression, which, by definition suggests an inability on the part of even a normally compliant dog to pay attention to handler commands).
I think the one thing that bothers me about a lot of the macho trainers in my area is that I seldom hear them suggest anything but a "vet visit" to clients with aggressive dogs. They don't get specific about thyroid panel testing, for example, even when dealing with breeds that have a predisposition to hypothyroidism, and don't seem to know that most vets don't do the whole panel unless the owner asks. That would be the first thing most positive trainers would suggest if your Rottweiler or Golden Retriever was aggressive... And, they are too tied to the notion of "showing the dog who's alpha". That kind of behavior is not leadership, it's bullying.