“Why is my dog aggressive?” You may be asking yourself this, and for good reason, if your dog lunges, barks, growls, snaps, or bites. Identifying the root cause(s) of your dog’s aggression is the critical first step to successfully reducing and resolving it.
what is aggression?
what is aggression?
Before we go too far down the proverbial rabbit hole, lets establish a working definition for aggression. In Aggressive Behaviour in Dogs: A Comprehensive Technical Manual for Professionals, James O’Heare summed up aggression as “an attack, a deliberate attack, or a threat of an attack on another individual”. (O’Heare, 2017). Building on this definition, aggression encompasses a range of communication signals including:
- tail up
- tail rigid
- quick, rapid wags of the tail or no wagging
- forward stance
- wide stance
- ears alert and forward
- direct stare
- charging
- hair raised on the back
- lunging
- growling
- growl-barking
- curled lips
- a v-shaped nose
- mouth in the shape of a U
- snarling
- barking
- biting
- standing over individual
- holding individual’s throat
- not yielding to displays of submission by the other individual
- stillness
- creeping
- stalking
the kaleidoscope of aggression
So now that we have a working explanation for aggression along with some of the communication signals connected with aggression in dogs, let’s take a look at what I like to call “the kaleidoscope of aggression”.
If you’re not familiar with a kaleidoscope, it’s a cylindrical tube that, when rotated, reveals a variety of shapes and forms (behaviours). While each rotation generates a unique set of colors and patterns, the forms share certain characteristics (a topic for a future blog post!) and there should be consistency and harmony across rotations. If the kaleidoscope’s lens is scratched or clouded, the shapes and forms become distorted (problem behaviours!). We must rotate your dog’s unique kaleidoscope and investigate the problem from multiple angles to determine if there are any scratches and, if so, where they are located.
With this in mind, let’s rotate our kaleidoscope of aggression and look at some key areas where there may be “scratches”.
Development
The first thing we’ll need to consider is development:
- Is the aggression related to any early development issues, such as trauma, resource shortages, etc.
- Is the aggression related to any developmental changes, such as the dog entering adolescence?
- Is the aggression related to deficits in the development of the dog’s sensory and sensory-motor abilities as a result of neo-natal disturbances?
instinct
Moving on, we must check for any scratches in instinctive or innate motor patterns:
- Is the aggression not actually aggression, but rather the expression of some form of intrinsic motor pattern, such as a herding dog nipping at a child’s heels in the same way they would nip at the heels of livestock
- Is the aggression due to the suppression of instincts, i.e. the dog has a strong prey “drive” but has been discouraged from accessing these behaviours, and the frustration of being unable to hunt is now manifesting as “aggression”?
caregiving
Our next rotation will focus on behaviours and patterns associated with caregiving from the human side of the leash:
- Is the aggression a result of the guardian not recognizing and responding to a basic need i.e. the dog is jumping up on the guardian in an attempt to get protection, reassurance, or direction, but the guardian addresses the jumping up rather than the underlying need?
- Is the aggression caused by a caregiver’s lack of guidance and direction, or by micromanagement?
individual factors
Our next rotation will look at individual variables that can result in aggressive behavior or patterns of behaviour:
- Is the aggression caused by an underlying medical condition, such as undetected pain, an endocrine problem, or a dietary problem (these would warrant a trip to your vet!)
- Is the aggression due to issues with the dog’s physical home environment and day-to-day routines, such as the dog being overtired and lacking a peaceful area to rest in a busy home environment?
learning
Our next rotation will focus on learning, bearing in mind that learning is occurring 24/7.
- Is the aggression being learnt socially from another dog or perhaps another family member, i.e., the other household dog lunges and barks at strangers on walks and the dog in question mimics this behaviour?
- Is the dog’s aggression the result of unintentional learning, such as when the dog spends the entire day sitting at the front window barking at dogs and strangers passing by and has discovered that barking at them makes them go away?
resilience
Now let’s look at resilience. Is the dog’s aggressive behaviour related to its inability to adapt to its continually changing environment?
- Is the aggression actually more “reactivity” than aggression arising from flight or fight responses?
- Is the dog’s aggression due to stress and a lack of capacity to cope with the volume of stressors in its physical, social, and physiological environment?
relationships
Let’s move on to social relationships. When it comes to aggressive behaviour and behavioural patterns in dogs, this is frequently a minefield.
- Is the dog’s aggression the product of communication breakdown, insecurities, or instability in past or current relationships?
- Is the dog’s aggression caused by challenges with social communication? (this links back to the development section)
- Is the dog’s aggressive behaviour caused by an insecure attachment with the primary caretaker (this links back to the caregiver section)?
- Is the dog’s aggression simply part of adaptive social communication, which involves ritualized threat behaviours in order to avoid actual confrontation?
- Is the dog’s aggressive behaviour a result of not being “heard” by the guardian or other social animals?
principles and values
Our final rotation will take us to human-side concepts and values. We are concerned with the guardian’s values and the prism through which they see the world, including their dog’s behaviour. Think of this as the “filter” on the kaleidoscope of aggression’s lens.
- Is the dog’s aggression the result of a clash between the guardian’s ideals and who the dog is? For example, the guardian may admire courage, but the dog may be more cautious.
- Is the dog’s aggression caused by the guardian’s misconceptions about the dog’s behaviour, e.g., the guardian believes their dog “would never bite” and continually places them in situations that are too stressful for the dog to handle (this would link to resilience on the dog’s end of the leash) leading to aggression?
putting it all together
As you can see, a dog’s aggressive behaviour and behavioural patterns can be influenced by a number of different factors. While we have looked at each of the perspectives separately, it is important to note that they are all interconnected and that aggression is typically multi-factorial. By identifying the source of the scratches (the causes of the aggression), we can have a better understanding of why the dog in front of us is displaying this behaviour and, more importantly, we can develop solutions that correlate to the appropriate rotation(s), bringing harmony to all of the rotations in our kaleidoscope.
Please be sure to check out our Feisty Fido class if your dog struggles with aggression or reactivity and you reside in Calgary, Alberta.
works cited
Harper Douglas, “Etymology of kaleidoscope,” Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed February 7, 2023, https://www.etymonline.com/word/kaleidoscope.
O’Heare J. Aggressive Behavior in Dogs: A comprehensive Technical Manual for Professionals. 3rd ed. BehaveTech Publishing; Ottawa, ON, Canada: 2017. pp. 1–248.
