Is aggression allowed in your pack?

I dont think your dog is a "time bomb" either for not to be able to growl (in an aggressive mode), he knows that the thing you dont want is the behavior behind the growl too

 
That's a good point, too, Spencer. From watching CM, I got way better at observing the initial signs of a launch that can escalate into aggressive behavior. I learned to redirect, sometimes, with just a command, at the first muscle flinch. This has not inhibited his ability to growl, howl, and bark. He will still do that when he sees fit in other circumstances but what it does mean is that I get better at getting obedience and redirecting or averting aggression that leads to a bad end. As has been pointed out elsewhere, sometimes exposing dogs to recurring stimulus that agitates them doesn't help. Well, I can help reduce that agitation by not allowing something to get out of control. By leading to a calmer, more obedient state, we can change the tone of a scene, what his reaction to it will be, and eventually, it will become a habit of him expecting me to expect him to listen to me, even if it means he can't go and rend someone else to bits or answer a challenge.

ORIGINAL: corvus

Hmmm, interesting, Angelique. I agree with you for the most part, but am still a little confused.

Do you reason that a dog is a dog first, so they express themselves first as dog, then as breed, then as line and so on? If the dog part is older, couldn't you reason that they would revert to that in times of stress rather than turning to expressing themselves in the ways they were bred to? Perhaps if you prevented them from expressing themselves as dog, they revert to expressing themselves as social carnivore, and so on backwards through evolution?

I tend to start with the "common" ground which applies to all dogs, first. Going to the top of my list is how I study any animal. The study of social animals helps me understand and compare the similarities and differences in other social animals.

When dealing with a individual dog, I could also add gender, age, and past experiences near the bottom the list.

I see a dog as a dog, before I see them as a breed because all dogs have certain things in common. I will study wolves to understand certain things about the dog - body language, the raising of young, interesting observations of the behavioral and social interactions of the dog's closest relative in the wild. But, the study of feral and semi-feral dogpacks, will give someone a better understanding of the family dog, than the study of wild or captive wolves.

A dog's breed or a specific line of that breed was bred for certain skills, and this should not be ignored. However, it should not be used as an excuse to say all dogs of that breed are a certain way and there's nothing in how we interact with that dog, lead that dog, train that dog, socialise that dog, and fulfill the dog's needs that will make any difference.

I had a neighbor's labs get in and chase my chickens. He just shrugged his shoulders and said "Oh well. They are labs. What do you expect?".

My lab did not chase my chickens, although she wanted to at first. I taught her not to.

My dog did not attack other female dogs, although she ended up in the shelter for ripping up another dog before I adopted her. I taught her not to.

A dog is first a dog. A dog as a breed has had certain skills, drive, and abilities bred into them. 
 
Someone may purchase a specific "breed", yet doesn't give that dog enough exercise and challenge, denies them leadership and boundaries, spoils them rotten and calls them "sweet" while they are climbing all over guests, creates an unstable and/or aggressive dog...and then they throw their hands up and say "it was written in the stars" and take no responsibility.

A breed's skills (which they were bred for) can surface, and may be where they vent their frustration, instability, and confusion...because their basic needs as a dog, were not met.

With 7 dogs living in my home, aggression is allowed in order to maintain pack stability.  Growls, and an occasionaly muzzle grab is ok, but I never allow the dogs to escalate beyond that.  I have never had a fight in my pack, so my way of handling aggression has worked well for me.
 

ORIGINAL: espencer

Great examples of aggression not to be tolarated in any form Jaime!! Thats what i always say, you are correcting behavior not only noise, the claims of  "if i correct growling my dog will go for the bite directly" are not true, you do it, you own pitbulls and according to you everything is fine []

Aggression will come only if the dog thinks there is something wrong in the enviroment or his/her needs are not being fulfilled, if you let your dog know that you are the one that controls the enviroment then he does not have to be aggressive, if you fulfill his/her needs then the aggression does not have to come out

Imagine if your let your dog growl "because if you don let him he will go for the bite directly" then you would be out of the show in a second, specially for being a pitbull

I dont think your dog is a "time bomb" either for not to be able to growl (in an aggressive mode), he knows that the thing you dont want is the behavior behind the growl too

Seeing as those were all my quotes disparaged, I guess I should reply.

Firstly, I didn't say repressing any dog's growl will mean they will go straight to the bite. I said I feared that if I repressed my dog's growls, she would go straight to snapping, which is different from biting. I still believe that, because I've always been loose with her and given her complete freedom to express herself. It was a long time ago and I was just a kid when she was a puppy, but I don't remember ever having to draw the line and insisting she not show aggression towards humans. She just never did. I believe it's entirely possible that if you take away a dog's warning system they'll go straight to snapping or biting. Whether they do or not may be a case by case thing, might almost never happen, but who am I to rule it out? Anything is possible with animals.

To reiterate, I don't WANT a dog that relies on me to tell her when everything is good in her environment or not, or to make her environment somehow 'perfect'. It's unrealistic and I want a thinking animal, not a robot dependent on me. Dogs are well equipped to make judgements about their environment and I believe it is natural for them to do so. No wolf would last long in the wild if it wasn't able to judge for itself what was safe and what was dangerous. I encourage my dog to think for herself. It's one of the joys of living with animals. She's allowed to be afraid or anxious or uncertain when things bother her. She's allowed to be bothered, and she's allowed to tell me when she's bothered. Otherwise, how can I possibly maintain a trusting relationship with her? It's a two-way street because I'm not perfect and some things in our world, Penny knows more about than I do. Like talking to other dogs, and where is the most comfortable place for her to sleep. In short, my dog is allowed to say "hey dog, I don't like you in my space, get out of it quicksmart", just like kids are allowed to say "quit it!". My dog says that with a lifted lip or a growl or even a snap. Nothing has ever come of it.

Lastly, as I said before, I see growling behaviour as a different behaviour to snarling behaviour, which is different again to snapping or biting. If I told my dog no growling, she might understand that I don't approve of her expressing her distaste in that manner, but am I saying that I automatically don't want her to snarl or bite either? How does that follow? Snarling is used in a whole different circumstance, and snapping is used in a different situation to snarling. How does a dog know to make that generalisation that I don't approve of expressing dislike in an aggressive manner? How does the dog know what I consider aggressive? How does it know that suddenly growling, snarling, snapping and biting are all the same thing when they weren't before? You can redirect the dog so it never gets around to snapping or biting, but does it know that behaviour is forbidden?

ORIGINAL: Angelique

I tend to start with the "common" ground which applies to all dogs, first. Going to the top of my list is how I study any animal. The study of social animals helps me understand and compare the similarities and differences in other social animals.

A breed's skills (which they were bred for) can surface, and may be where they vent their frustration, instability, and confusion...because their basic needs as a dog, were not met.

I take a more holistic approach. For example, when I'm working on a bird species, I interpret the behaviour I see firstly by examining documents of the same behaviour in species that are closely related. If the behaviour doesn't follow the same pattern, then I look at similar behaviours found in unrelated bird species. If there is no pattern there, I go back to the fundamentals and ask myself "What do I know about the reproductive and survival strategies of this species? How can this particular behaviour offer an advantage to survival or reproductive output?". They're one and the same, but it helps to break it down sometimes. Anyway, I find my answer in evolutionary theory for the most part.

So to me, interpreting behaviour is not quite so linear. If I had to make it linear, I'd say I look first at the species, then the phylogenetic group, then back to the individual, then back to the species, and failing that, back to very beginnings as a living organism with an evolutionary history. I tend to find that species can behave quite strangely when compared to their nearest relatives. Even amongst the canine world. To me, dingoes act bizarrely and not much like a social carnivore. They're only loosely social, and a lot of dog breeds are the same.

It's interesting to see how other people go through the process of interpreting behaviour. To me, it changes case by case. Some dogs it's more important to consider the breed than the fact that they're a dog, and sometimes individuals aren't like breed or dog, so you have to start thinking of them as wild canines. Whatever the case, I find that it's difficult to have a formula. []

So it follows that writing off any behavioural problem as a breed trait is not right.

ORIGINAL: corvus

I believe it's entirely possible that if you take away a dog's warning system they'll go straight to snapping or biting. Whether they do or not may be a case by case thing, might almost never happen, but who am I to rule it out? Anything is possible with animals.

 
Well Jaime did and it seems that her pitbull is not snapping at anybody at the shows, i dont know if you read this already but when you correct a growling or snarl, etc you are correcting also  the behavior, is this situations you are thinking  a dog would react as a human when you do it, when you want a human to be quiet the human thinks you dont want her/him to be talking, screaming, singing, etc (sound) but the human thinks that you are not worried about the behavior too (hyper, nervous, etc), in the human world if you want to correct behavior then you have to talk about that point too, one for sound and one for behavior, in the dog's world is different, the dog does not think you are correcting the sound only, he/she knows you are also correcting the behavior behind that noise
 

ORIGINAL: corvus

To reiterate, I don't WANT a dog that relies on me to tell her when everything is good in her environment or not, or to make her environment somehow 'perfect'. It's unrealistic and I want a thinking animal, not a robot dependent on me. Dogs are well equipped to make judgements about their environment and I believe it is natural for them to do so. No wolf would last long in the wild if it wasn't able to judge for itself what was safe and what was dangerous. I encourage my dog to think for herself. It's one of the joys of living with animals. She's allowed to be afraid or anxious or uncertain when things bother her. She's allowed to be bothered, and she's allowed to tell me when she's bothered. Otherwise, how can I possibly maintain a trusting relationship with her?

 
Actually the best way to maintain a trusting relationship is when she looks up at you to see whats your reaction, she trusts that you would have the best reaction, she will trust that you will take care of the situation in case is needed, she  will trust that she wont have to be aggressive towards anybody because you are there to step up and handle the situation, just when somebody walks around with a bodyguard, that person feels safer, the dog knows the enviroment is not perfect, the dog knows that there is danger in the world but the dog will also know that you are going to be there to handle it
 
Why the dog should be anxious or bothered in the first place? if another member is getting the other dog's toys whay not the owner let know to the dog that she/he cant touch other dog's toys? why just be there as spectator hoping a snarl will solve the sitiuation? just like letting your kids fight for the toys and "work it out" themselves, the dogs trust that you will set those boundries and limitations from the beginning
 
IMO if my dog is anxious or bothered then she is actually far from trusting me, she knows that i'm not reliable enough to handle the situation, and no my dog is not a robot, actually i think she enjoys more the fact that she is free to be calm and relax 24/7 because she can trust i will take care of any negative situation
 

ORIGINAL: corvus

Lastly, as I said before, I see growling behaviour as a different behaviour to snarling behaviour, which is different again to snapping or biting.
 
How does the dog know what I consider aggressive? How does it know that suddenly growling, snarling, snapping and biting are all the same thing when they weren't before?
 
You can redirect the dog so it never gets around to snapping or biting, but does it know that behaviour is forbidden?

 
Yes, they know what behavior is the forbidden one; all of them are related to some kind of aggression, growling behavior in not different behavior from snarling behaviour, they are different displays indeed but they are aggression behavior at the end, some of them in a higher level some of them in a lower level, it does not matter if it is sound or physical, the dog knows you are correcting the behavior behind that action, you are correcting the "root" that evolves in those different signs, the dogs does not think "oh she does not like me to growl so i would look for something else to show my aggression like a snarl or a nip" actually the dog thinks like "ok my owner does not like me to growl therefore she does not like me to be aggressive,  my owner does not like me to snarl therefore she does not like me to be aggressive, nipping and biting are also realted to aggression then i wont do any of those either"
 
The dog knows that if he/her is dispalying playful growling he/her wont be corrected because the behavior behind of that is different
 
The dogs are more simple than humans
 
 

Well put espencer. The common sence in your post brings light to darkness.

ORIGINAL: Awsomedog

Well put espencer. The common sence in your post brings light to darkness.

 
Yes indeed! []

Thanks, it toke me a while thinking about the easiest way to put it []

Espencer, it's not that I don't understand where you're coming from, just that I don't think it's as simple as telling the dog you don't like aggressive growling and the dog will learn that aggressive displays are not on.

I do set the boundaries with my dog. Even the top dog isn't allowed to steal food or toys from the bottom dog. Doesn't stop the top dog from trying, just means he'll do it when he thinks no one is looking. Even the bottom dog will try to steal from the top dog if she thinks he's not looking. My feeling is that that's how dogs are wired.

Let me relate an incident to you to help me get my point across. When Penny started snarling at Pyry, our top dog, when she was finished her meal and he wasn't, I stepped in because it's the kind of situation that can easily errupt into violence. Don't want violence. So I stepped between the dogs and backed Penny away from Pyry. Pyry was frustrated because he felt Penny's move was a challenge and he should deal with it, but I was between them so he could not. That gave Penny more confidence because she was safe behind me, so she growled back at him, which made him more irritated, and all that noise got Jill over, so we had to keep her out of it all as well because often Pyry will take out his frustration on her because she's the beta. If we'd been outside with plenty of room, I'd have said to Penny "your funeral" and let Pyry deal with her challenge. There would have been no frustration, no escalation of tension and it all would have been over before Jill got there. Pyry would have chased Penny away and made it clear that was not on without hurting her and Penny would not have tried the following night to snarl at Pyry when he was still eating again. I drew the line. I said Penny, no stealing, Pyry, no fighting in the house. I averted potential disaster in the form of violence, but I made the situation more tense and prolonged. They obeyed me, but I still had to be super on the ball the next time they ate together, and as it turned out, Jill got in the way and we had a fight on our hands in cramped quarters anyway.

All this would never have happened at all if Penny hadn't a) wanted Pyry's dinner enough to risk getting beaten up and b) figured there would be no serious consequences to her challenge because fighting wasn't allowed in the house. To Penny, more dinner is a high enough reward to ignore my rousing on her and sending her away, but not a high enough reward to keep her coming back after Pyry's beaten her up. So, what has she learnt? Melissa doesn't like me trying to steal from Pyry, but the worst that will happen if I try to steal in front of her is that I'll be roused on because she won't let Pyry attack me in the house. I still might manage to steal some food. She'll yell at me and send me to bed, but that's okay because I got bonus food. Then when Pyry gets away from us and does deal with Penny's insubordination with aggression, she learns: DON'T TRY TO STEAL PYRY'S FOOD IN FRONT OF HIM. She's never tried it since. So the way I see it, I can whale on my dog's ass when she tries to steal food and scare the bejesus out of her, or I can let Pyry do the same thing. Nothing short of that is going to make much impression on her. When she respects Pyry's wrath more than mine, she doesn't put Pyry above me; she just tries harder not to annoy him, which reduces aggression in the pack.

So, to conclude, to deal with this problem your way, I would have had to go ballistic at my dog. I'm not the type to go ballistic. Can't be what I'm not. Then I would have had to go ballistic at Pyry so he understood his (understandable) outrage wasn't to be tolerated either. Maybe that would have got the message across, maybe it would have made both of them think I had gone crazy because I never freak out at them. Whatever it would have done, I wouldn't have felt good about doing it. Better for the peace of the pack that Penny doesn't think of my rules as protection from violence if she's obnoxious.

I'm not saying this is how it goes in all packs with all dogs, because all individual dogs are different, let alone breeds. I'm just saying my dog is a normal dog and normal dogs challenge each other sometimes, and challenged normal dogs benefit from being given the freedom to deal with those challenges personally, because it's a personal affront to them. Pyry responds to challenges immediately and with fury, but if you step in and don't let him deal with the challenge, it's ten minutes before you can let him go and much longer before you feel you can leave him unsupervised. Typically, if the lower two members of the pack have a scrap, Pyry observes from the sidelines. I figure, if he's not bothered, why should I interfere with personal arguments as long as they're all noise? Our favourite local behaviourist tells us the best thing to do with dog fights is to ignore them if you can, and failing that, watch impassively to make sure it doesn't get serious.

As for anxiety in dogs.... interestingly, Penny is a lot less anxious walking by that monster next door that throws herself against the fence barking when one of the other dogs retaliates with a growly "ruff!" of their own. I barely notice that dog most of the time and Penny still gets worked up about it, but a little returned aggression from one of the others and she seems to think the problem is at least being taken care of and relaxes. It makes me think aggression has a natural and important place in a dog's life. I can't be there all the time, so Penny has to be able to cope on her own with things. She often looks to me to see how I react and it often calms her, but sometimes she doesn't look to me because she KNOWS damn well how she feels about it and doesn't get why I'm not worried, and sometimes I'm not there for her to take a lead from.

We'll just have to agree to disagree about the behaviour side of it. You believe all aggression is the same behaviour, I don't. For a while I worked with an academic that studied fighting in animals. She always broke fighting down into various stages and weighed risks and potential gains against each other. She taught me a lot about fighting, and I have to say that if I were doing a PhD on dog fights, I'd list growling and snarling and snapping and biting all as different behaviours. That's how you study behaviour. By breaking it down into the smallest possible discrete values and then working out how they relate to each other. I think it's dangerous to assume a bunch of signals are the same behaviour, because otherwise why are there different signals?

No wolf would last long in the wild if it wasn't able to judge for itself what was safe and what was dangerous

 
Some trainers say dogs are not wolves.
 

My dog is wolf enough to know that snakes are dangerous, poo and rotting carcases are good to eat, and a lifted lip is a serious warning best heeded.

Sorry, double post.

ORIGINAL: ron2



Some trainers say dogs are not wolves.

And they would be correct, they not wolves, they're decedents of them.

If I recall Cesar's pack is composed of many breeds bred to fight...it IS different with them...because they often enjoy fighting and some are probably reformed fighters that....like alcoholics were broken of their addiction to the feeling fighting gives them. You cannot ask an recovering addict to sit near someone doing that and not partake...and you should protect them from themselves as much as possible. IMO that means protecting them from the triggers that will lead them to backslide

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

This post is from a while back but I could not resist. Being a recovering Alcohlic. I would like to state that I sure can sit next to someone drinking and not partake. And that no human on this earth can stop me from getting a drink if I really want one. The people that try to "protect" alcoholics are called co-dependents.
You see the disease of Alcoholism is driven by a physical craving, coupled with a mental craving. That has been relieved, I am allotted a daily reprieve from this, so long as I do certain things. And Addiction and Alcoholism is same thing. drug of choice is just a bit different.