Fear Aggressive

Why do dogs become fear aggressive?

The root of most aggressive behaviour is fear. Combine fear with a situation where a dog has not been raised and trained humanely and the result is often a disastrous cocktail of fear aggression. This is frequently made even worse by owners and trainers who employ punishment-based techniques on the fear aggressive dog. Another common root cause of fear aggression is a lack of appropriate socialisation during the dog's development. If a dog has not received adequate socialisation, she will find it hard to cope with new things she encounters in her environment such as other dogs, animals or people.

H O W D O I K N O W I F M Y D O G I S F E A R A G G R E S S I V E ? 

Dogs that are fear aggressive will often adopt body postures that signal fear while retreating, such as cowering, lip licking and baring teeth.

If your dog is cornered or has nowhere to run, she might growl, lunge, snap or bite to get the threat to move away. Some will retreat if someone approaches, but can then turn and nip at the person as they walk away.Fearful dogs often inflict shallow, rapid bites designed to remove the threat rather than doing serious physical harm.

Fearful dogs who bite usually start off with a “snap and retreat” type of bite. They’re trying to get the thing, person, or dog away rather than trying to inflict damage. However, once that behaviour achieves the result they want – the source of fear goes away. They can escalate to much more aggressive and damaging bites because they’ve learned that it works or, if it doesn’t work, they try harder. This can make it more difficult to treat the behaviour. 

Whenever possible, it’s best to start addressing fear aggression when it first starts out with growling, lip licking and snarling, before it progresses to actual biting.