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Video of the Week
I brought you the skateboarding dog,
the one that cycles
English springer spaniel becomes America's top
dog
ABC Action News - Tampa, FL -
2 hours ago
The 6-year-old certified therapy
dog with a preference for chicken-and-garlic treats won best
in show at the Westminster Kennel Club event Tuesday night,
...
Milwaukee Channel.com, WI -
22 minutes ago
Anni
Sheriffius said she was trying to wash off what she thought
was dirt on her dog Jasmine’s ear when the ear fell off.
Sheriffius rushed her dog to the ...
Ulster Herald (subscription), UK -
1 hour ago
Inspired by a series of dog
attacks late last year the amnesty was introduced to encourage
owners of dangerous breeds (Pitbull Terriers, Japanese Tosas
and ...
Lancaster Today, UK - 4
hours ago
A MYERSCOUGH College student was savaged by a
dangerous dog while on work experience at the RSPCA. ... More
». YOUNGSTERS at a Lancaster breakfast club have ...
Clitheroe Today, UK -
3 hours ago
The county's dog unit is being reduced from 35
to 21 handlers, with handlers re-deployed to more front-line
roles, it has been revealed. ...
Police News, CA - 2
hours ago
Just as divers were arriving at Hendre Lakes
to search the water, Mrs Hayes arrived at the police cordon to
explain that the blood came from her dog. ...
NBC4.TV, CA -
2 hours ago
LOS ANGELES -- TV's "dog whisperer" said
Thursday that he and his wife are establishing a nonprofit
foundation to support the rescue, rehabilitation and ...
Now for this
week's tips and advice
Why Does My
Dog Growl at Me?
Guarding is an instinctual behavior for dogs. It is useful to
us when they warn strangers who intrude on their (and our)
territory. One of the earliest benefits dog provided to man
was to serve as an early warning intruder alert system.
Territoriality is, simply stated, guarding space. It is the
dog’s way of saying “this space has value and it belongs to me
and my pack.” In fact, dogs guard all sorts of things, some
tangible, such as food, others intangible such as space.
When they guard these items from outsiders it can be helpful.
I leave my home knowing my dog will be alert to an
inappropriate intrusion. Dogs also guard tangibles and
intangibles from one another. You shouldn’t expect to see a
submissive dog take a bone or scrap from the alpha or dominant
dog. Should he try, he’ll face a swift correction. But that’s
rarely necessary because in the structure of the dog pack, it
is clearly understood who is entitled to what and when.
But what happens when that clear understanding is lacking
between a dog and members of his human pack? The results can
be a disaster…a dog who guards something against his very
owners.
In this article we’ll concentrate on space guarding behaviors.
In the dog pack, if the dominant dog wants to walk from point
A to point B, he will do it even if he has to nudge a lesser
dog out of his way. If the more submissive dog protests, what
he is actually doing is challenging the authority of his
leader by trying to guard the space he occupies.
The same event may transpire in our homes. Your dog helps
himself to a place on the sofa. You either sit down next to
him, or try to take his collar to pull him off. Your own dog
growls or snaps at you. He’s guarding space. Moreover, he’s
stating in dog language that he believes he is dominant to
you.
You need to open a cabinet and the dog is blocking your way.
You take his collar to move him, and he growls or bites. The
same thing may occur when you want to push the dog out a door,
pass him in a narrow hallway, or get too close to him laying
in his favorite spot.
In many households, the human occupants do not realize that
their dog is guarding space until the dog becomes completely
out of control. In fact, we excuse the behavior. That’s
because too often people apply human standards to canine
behavior. Among our species it is impolite to pull someone out
of a chair or shoulder them aside when you need something. So
if the dog growls when you sit by him on the couch, many
people wrongly think the dog is just being grumpy, or that he
was too comfortable to be disturbed.
I have actually seen adults chastise children for being
“impolite” to a dog for sitting next to him on furniture, or
for wanting to remove the dog from their place. People
subconsciously try to accept these problems as “quirks” of the
dog. Many owners try to just work around the issue by not
disturbing the dog under whatever circumstance causes the dog
to guard.
Unfortunately, this sends precisely the wrong message to the
dog. Humoring him confirms that he is dominant, and is,
therefore, entitled to guard more and more space. That’s why
guarding behavior escalates for many dogs. Often, I hear from
owners who’s dog began to growl at them under very limited
conditions, say when being pulled off the sofa. But eventually
the behavior escalates to the point where the dog growls when
they even get near him on the sofa.
The owner thinks the dog is getting worse. The dog simply
thinks he’s getting stronger. For some dogs, dominance is a
self-rewarding behavior. You want to remove him from the
couch. He growls. You back off. The behavior works. So
eventually he growls when you even look at him on the couch.
“They just don’t seem to get it,” the dog is thinking. “I’ll
have to warn them earlier.”
This can become very problematic for some pet owners,
particularly those with young children in the house. Kids
often don’t realize that they’re not “supposed to bother the
dog.” They just figure they have liberty to safely toddle
wherever their little legs will take them. And if you ask me,
they should have that right.
Older children must be taught to respect dogs. And younger
children must be observed very carefully when they interact
with a dog, to be sure they do not accidentally pinch him for
example. But no one can expect a two year old child to
understand she should avoid Rover when he’s laying on the
sofa.
Willy is a three year old German Short Hair Pointer. His
owner, Lisa, called me very concerned. Willy had been growling
at her baby every time the child approached him in his dog
bed. Sometimes Willy would climb on the couch, and he would
also growl at the baby on those occasions. Apparently this
behavior had been going on for over a month. And just
recently, the dog had growled at Lisa when she sat near him on
the couch. Lisa was very confused because this entire set of
behaviors was only about a month old, but it was getting worse
fast.
“Did your baby start walking about a month ago?” I asked her.
The answer was yes. That made it all clear to me. Willy always
felt Lisa was dominant to him. So he never growled at her
before. But when the baby started walking, this impudent
little human would intrude on his space, and Willy did believe
himself dominant to the baby.
Not understanding the behavior, Lisa had spent an entire month
showing Willy how dominant he was by not correcting him and
not letting the baby disturb him when he was comfortable. The
unintended message to Willy was that he was more dominant than
he had originally thought. That’s why he began to guard space
from Lisa too.
While not all dogs progress from growling to snapping, or from
air snapping to contact biting, that does happen with some
dogs. And it’s tragic because it usually doesn’t need to reach
that point. Left untreated, most dogs who effectively guard
space will eventually scare or hurt their owners enough to be
removed from their homes, or be put down.
Willy became a client of the Chicagoland Boarding School for
Dogs. In the time he spent with us, we used our Forcefree
Method to show him that space was not a resource he should
guard from his human family.
We taught Willy a series of exercises using a vibrating
training collar delivering a series of low level taps. The
vibration, while not at all painful, was attention getting.
(Before we put the collar on Willy, we let Lisa feel the the
collar on her hand so she understood they were not painful.
Lisa described the feeling as a mild tickle.) During the
initial phase of training, our goal was to teach Willy that
when he felt the taps, he could stop them by altering a
behavior.
We started out with leash pulling, showing him that pulling on
a tight leash turned on the tapping sensation, and that
walking nicely on a loose leash turned them off. Then we went
to the sit stay. We showed Willy that getting up when he was
supposed to be sitting turned on taps that he could turn off
instantly by re-sitting himself.
The reason we didn’t go right to the space guarding issue was
simple. We didn’t want to overwhelm the dog by immediately
training for the most difficult behavior first. Also the
guarding behaviors are very specific to the family. They might
be tough to reproduce without his sofa, his baby, and his
owner.
But once Willy understood that he could stop collar taps by
altering a behavior, we were ready to confront the real issue,
the guarding of space. By this point in the training, we had
established a bond of trust and affection with Willy. That was
critical because now we were teaching him to yield his
personal space to us under the pressure of the taps.
In short, by sometimes invading Willy’s personal space, while
tapping, we showed him that he could turn off the tapping, as
usual, by giving us a desired behavior…in this case, moving
out of the way. Starting on leash, we held the dog close to
our body, literally turning into him, and tapped as we moved
through his space. Using a combination of leash pressure and
body movement, we moved Willy out of the way. The second he
began to yield his space, the taps stopped.
Willy began to understand very quickly. Space wasn’t worth
guarding anymore. In fact, each time we asked him to give up
space, he became very willing to do so at once. After all, as
far as he knew, any space we asked him for became slightly
annoying anyway.
We brought this dog home at the conclusion of our ten day
program, reoriented him to his family and his environment,
transferred the behavior modification techniques to his owner
over the course of two hours. Then we left.
Lisa called two days later. She reported that Willy was
leaving his dog bed as soon as the baby approached. We were
happy with this report, but Lisa was concerned. She wanted the
dog and the baby to be friends and she was worried that the
dog was now “fleeing” from the baby.
We explained that this was progress given that the dog had
modified a major behavior and was now yielding space, rather
than guarding it. We advised her to give it some more time to
see if the dog would eventually find pleasure in sharing
space, time and bonding with the baby in his new submissive
role. We did warn Lisa that not all dogs bond with all people,
but that it was still a distinct possibility.
Two weeks later Lisa called again, and she was very happy. She
found Willy and the baby curled up together in the dog’s bed.
Apparently, Willy had calmed down enough to realize that while
he was no longer able to guard space, there was a wonderful
pleasure in sharing it.
Trust is something that grows over time, and with experience.
Every day that passes as Willy continues to show the right
reaction is one more day in which the trust between he and his
family grows. Willy has been home for several months now, and
all the reports are good news.
Here is a dog who was at severe risk for re-homing and
possibly might have injured a child, curled up in bed with his
little master.
About The Author
Marc Goldberg is a dog trainer specializing in the
rehabilitation of difficult dogs and improving
relationships. He is Vice President of the International
Association of Canine Professionals (IACP) and Editor of
SafeHands Journal. The author also educates professional dog
trainers in his techniques. Visit him on the web at
www.chicagodogtrainer.com or www.dogtraininginchicago.com.
