Understanding Canine Aggression

Understanding aggressive behaviour

As with any undesired behaviour, the most important aspect of treating aggressive behaviour in the domestic dog is understanding why the aggression is occurring. In the past, literature has defined aggressive behaviour in a number of ways, for example by the context in which it occurs (e.g. ‘territorial’), the target for the aggression (e.g. ‘intraspecific aggression’), or the postulated motivation for the behaviour(e.g. ‘predatory aggression’). However, all of these definitions create problems, as none fully or adequately describe the response of an individual dog is such a way to enable an appropriate treatment programme.

The other problem which has created problems in understanding and appropriately treating aggressive behaviour are strongly held but outdated misconceptions about the reason for aggressive responses – the most common being that dogs show aggression to achieve ‘social status’ or ‘dominance’, so it is worth spending some time discussing why this is a misconception, and also why this approach can actually create aggressive responses in dogs. […]