Aggressive dogs: breed, training or environment?

By Jennifer Williamson

What do you consider to be an aggressive dog? One that bites is obviously aggressive, but what about one who growls when you approach his food or his toy? What about a dog who patrols his fence obsessively, almost coming through it when something or someone crosses that invisible line he has drawn in the sand?

Aggression can manifest itself in a dog in many ways, and all of them are the owner's responsibility to identify, manage and change. Our responsibility as citizens is to keep our dogs safe by not letting aggression feed upon itself and certainly by not training the dog to be aggressive. Any dog can be provoked to bite. If a dog has a tendency to be aggressive by guarding food, people or territory, we need to learn how to deal with that aggression. Aggression can also manifest when a dog runs in the street to chase a car. Should that car wreck from swerving to miss hitting your dog, it is because you did not address the dog's aggression issues.

All too often when we hear of a dog bite or a dog attack, certain breeds come to mind as being the culprits: pit bulls, Rottweilers, Great Danes or St. Bernards. But did you know that small dogs register more bites in the United States than larger dogs? In fact, small dogs are the culprit 9 out of 10 times, says Victoria Collins, who handles obedience training for the Animal Hospital of Pensacola, Fla. Unfortunately, the media seems to focus heavily on the breed of the dog as being "a biter," not the individual dog himself, the situation of the bite or the fact that someone may have trained that particular dog to be aggressive. Any dog - small, medium, or large - can be made to be aggressive. So it isn't always the pit bull living next door that you should fear will bite; it may be the poodle or the cocker spaniel instead. Owners of small dogs tend to think that because the dog is small, no matter how aggressive, it isn't an issue simply because even if the dog did bite he couldn't cause any real damage. However, if a small dog bites a small child, the bite can be serious and may make that child scared of dogs for a long time.

Did you know that tethering or tying up a dog could cause a dog to have aggressive tendencies? Living on a length of rope (or chain or cable) can be very frustrating to a dog. "Living on a rope" means exactly that; the dog has little if any interaction with his people (the rest of his pack) because he is not allowed inside the house to sleep or eat. It is not the same as securing your dog for a few hours so that you can get chores done.

Anyone coming within the boundary of the rope is fair game. Ever watch a dog who is tied up pace back and forth and pant? Does his body language tell that you he is happy and can't wait for you to approach him? (Not usually.) Dogs must eat, sleep, urinate and defecate in this area in which their pacing also results in their overturned food and water bowls. The constant pulling that the dog does often causes rope burns and cuts to his neck; sometimes the collar will get embedded in the dog's neck. The Humane Society of the United States has a fact sheet describing the issues with tying dogs. Check it out at www.hsus.org.

Jennifer Williamson, a Churchill County resident, is president of CAPS.