How to Deal With Dog Growling
It is no surprise that people are distraught and perplexed when their otherwise lovely dogs behave in ways they deem egregious, specifically when they growl at or bite people.
A gentleman with a 3 year-old Jack Russell Terrier, Lido, contacted me regarding his dog's tendency to growl at him.
He explained that this happened only in the evening.
After a bit of investigating it became clear that Lido's night time growling had more to do with the fact that the evenings were when he was most likely to be in the situation that seemed to trigger these incidents.
Lido's growling was limited, for now, to those times when he was resting on the bed and his owner came in to go to sleep.
Guarding people, places and things is normal for dogs and growling is a dog's way of giving a warning and may be a precursor to snapping and biting.
However, not all normal dog behaviors are acceptable for a pet dog.
Growling (at any time of the day!) and what it might lead to are clearly unacceptable.
This is a serious issue and requires the personal attention of a professional trainer.
Like many dogs, Lido was a little confused about his place in the world.
Growling at his people, or any other person for that matter, is sort of like me screaming at one of my clients.
Making my clients happy is how I run a successful business, pay my rent, utilities and food bills.
It is how I survive.
Likewise, if Lido clearly understood that his people are the key to his survival (as they provide the food, water, toys, attention, etc.
) then it would be highly unlikely that he would risk upsetting them by behaving aggressively towards them.
The old fashioned way of dealing with this problem would be to fight fire with fire.
That is, to physically and verbally punish Lido when he growled.
While this may work sometimes, more often than not this makes the problem worse.
It may become a battle of human hands and voice against dog teeth! A fight that is clearly favored towards the dog and to the failure of the canine/human relationship.
It is much smarter to simply use your brain rather than brawn to train.
Rather than give Lido free access to all the things he wants in life (food, toys, your attention, access to furniture, going for walks, etc.
) I set a plan for his family to teach him a few behaviors (we started with sit, down and hand targeting) and to ask him to do one of those before he gets anything.
This is a vital part of teaching Lido to have a respectful, compliant and enriching relationship with his people by reminding him how important they are and therefore how silly it would be to be anything but super sweet to them! I addition, I asked them to keep Lido on a leash at all times when they are home and supervising him.
This way they can manage him safely and effectively.
Specifically, by keeping him off the bed except for those times when they are working on teaching him to wait to get on the bed until given permission and then to get off the bed when requested.
We taught Lido by waiting for him to sit next to the bed, marking that moment by saying 'yes' and then patting the bed for him to jump up.
He is developing a wonderfully rapid and reliable response to being asked to get off the bed as a result of lots of 3-5 minute on leash training sessions where we ask him to get off and then reward him by tossing a piece of his dry food on the ground as a reward.
Getting control of Lido's issue with guarding the bed is well under way and as an added benefit all of the effort will help decrease the chances that Lido's tendency to guard will generalize to other things.
A gentleman with a 3 year-old Jack Russell Terrier, Lido, contacted me regarding his dog's tendency to growl at him.
He explained that this happened only in the evening.
After a bit of investigating it became clear that Lido's night time growling had more to do with the fact that the evenings were when he was most likely to be in the situation that seemed to trigger these incidents.
Lido's growling was limited, for now, to those times when he was resting on the bed and his owner came in to go to sleep.
Guarding people, places and things is normal for dogs and growling is a dog's way of giving a warning and may be a precursor to snapping and biting.
However, not all normal dog behaviors are acceptable for a pet dog.
Growling (at any time of the day!) and what it might lead to are clearly unacceptable.
This is a serious issue and requires the personal attention of a professional trainer.
Like many dogs, Lido was a little confused about his place in the world.
Growling at his people, or any other person for that matter, is sort of like me screaming at one of my clients.
Making my clients happy is how I run a successful business, pay my rent, utilities and food bills.
It is how I survive.
Likewise, if Lido clearly understood that his people are the key to his survival (as they provide the food, water, toys, attention, etc.
) then it would be highly unlikely that he would risk upsetting them by behaving aggressively towards them.
The old fashioned way of dealing with this problem would be to fight fire with fire.
That is, to physically and verbally punish Lido when he growled.
While this may work sometimes, more often than not this makes the problem worse.
It may become a battle of human hands and voice against dog teeth! A fight that is clearly favored towards the dog and to the failure of the canine/human relationship.
It is much smarter to simply use your brain rather than brawn to train.
Rather than give Lido free access to all the things he wants in life (food, toys, your attention, access to furniture, going for walks, etc.
) I set a plan for his family to teach him a few behaviors (we started with sit, down and hand targeting) and to ask him to do one of those before he gets anything.
This is a vital part of teaching Lido to have a respectful, compliant and enriching relationship with his people by reminding him how important they are and therefore how silly it would be to be anything but super sweet to them! I addition, I asked them to keep Lido on a leash at all times when they are home and supervising him.
This way they can manage him safely and effectively.
Specifically, by keeping him off the bed except for those times when they are working on teaching him to wait to get on the bed until given permission and then to get off the bed when requested.
We taught Lido by waiting for him to sit next to the bed, marking that moment by saying 'yes' and then patting the bed for him to jump up.
He is developing a wonderfully rapid and reliable response to being asked to get off the bed as a result of lots of 3-5 minute on leash training sessions where we ask him to get off and then reward him by tossing a piece of his dry food on the ground as a reward.
Getting control of Lido's issue with guarding the bed is well under way and as an added benefit all of the effort will help decrease the chances that Lido's tendency to guard will generalize to other things.
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