Canine Aggression

[contentuser]

There are three general types of aggressive behavior in dogs: dominance aggression, fearful aggression, and protective (territorial) aggression. The most common type is dominance aggression.


Dominance Aggression Dominance aggression is a manifestation of inappropriate responses to specific situations related to control. It usually develops in dogs at social maturity, between 18 and 36 months of age.

Dogs with dominance aggression are dangerous because the problem is caused by a stru...Read the full article

[merrymaryallegra]

I think our dog is both fearful AND protective aggressive. When we walk her, she's usually fine, unless another dog is approaching or across the street. She'll notice, then the fur goes up, ears back...then often she'll lunge and bark. IF she's startled or it's dark and she didn't see the other dog until it's upon us, then she'll just lunge and bark. We keep moving and are working on getting her to disengage by refocusing her attention on us, saying "Watch me," as we learned in our initial dog training several years ago. Our dog, Molly, is a shelter dog who we adopted when she was about 3 years old. She's about 7 now. We had lived in a house when we got her and she had a nice big yard. Then we moved and lived near a farm where she was able to be off leash a lot and hike often. Now we live in the city in a condo, she's less than thrilled about it...as are we. But, she's trying and so are we. If anyone has any advice for how to make her 4+ walks a day less worrisome (will she have an outburst?)...please let me know. Thank you!