Sadly some unfortunate dogs have developed unhealthy levels of fear. The fear that they are feeling is so strong,  that they may actually respond to their fear with aggressive behavior. The source of the fear is usually something traumatic that happened to them in the past, such as severe neglect or some kind of abuse. On other occasions some dogs have what seems to be an irrational fear of things such as very loud noises-perhaps the loud sounds of  a thunderstorm or gunshots sets them off.

You can easily recognize the body language of a dog with fear aggression issues. It is very likely that you have seen this type of aggression before-it is not a pretty picture. Obvious signs shown by a dog suffering from fear aggression include a slinking and cringing body posture, that is quite distinct from a merely submissive type of body language. A dog with fear aggression will tuck his tail between his legs and up against his belly but also have his teeth displayed in a nasty snarl, while he moans whines and growls. It is easy to see the poor dog is feeling tormented.

If your dog is suffering from fear aggression or you encounter another dog that is displaying the fearful body language above, do not try to comfort or pet the dog to help it with its fear problem. Sometimes a dog going through fear aggression will lash out at anything that is near him-whether it is whatever he is actually so afraid of, or a person nearby. When a dog’s aggression is turned on something different than the original stimulus for the fear it is called redirected aggression-be sure you are not a victim of this by staying away from a dog with fear aggression problems.

You must figure out what reason your dog has for his fear aggression prior to picking the right method to correct the problem. What was the original source of yor dog’s problem? If you have had the dog since it was a puppy you probably know what happened to traumatize your dog-whether another person or dog abused it or if it has always been terrified by lightning. If your puppy arrived to you after growing up somewhere else, he could have already been traumatized by abuse from a human or another dog. You can figure out the cause of his fear by paying attention to when it first begins-note whether it is triggered by  another dog or person or a loud noise. If your dog begins to act very fearful and becomes aggressive at the approach or another dog or a particular person, you can start to get a pretty clear idea of what is going on inside his poor head. Some types of fear triggers are prety obvious-such as a dog being terrified of gun fired. But there are other times when the reasons that caused the fear aggression are not so obvious and may seem downright irrational.

Professional veterinarian dog behaviorists can help you diagnose the problem if it proves elusive for you. Remember, in order to correct the fear aggresion problem, you need to figure out what originally brought it about.

Once the fear’s cause has been established, the method to correct your dog’s fear aggression is to attempt to gradually desensitize your dog’s reaction to the fear stimulus. For a dog that is frightened when around other dogs, you can start his training by exposing your dog to other, friendly dogs in frequent short sessions until he finds he can relax around other dogs without being attacked. Be sure to have him on a leash to control his movement. If your dog is known to lunge when fearful, you may want to also use a muzzle to prevent him accidentally biting you during the training.

You should only be using positive techniques when tryin to correct your dog’s fear aggression problem. If you hit him or yell at him you are just reinforcing his fearful condition. The problem of  fear aggression must be corrected through patience and understanding of what your dog is going through. The problem of fear aggression is curable, but you will have to make sure to take the effort and the time needed to remove the trauma’s effects from your dog’s psyche.  You will consider your time and efforts well spent if you can correct your poor dog’s fear aggression and turn him into a happy and confident dog.

I sure hope you have a better understanding of fear aggression so you can get to correcting this problem if your dog has it.

I have many more helpful articles about dog aggression and other dog behavior problems and on dog obedience training techniques for you to read at: www.BehaveDoggy.com.

Please click here to read my full review of the best on line dog training program.

Related posts:

1. Six Most Common Reasons Why Dogs Are Aggressive
2. Stop Dog Aggression Towards People
3. Ways to Stop Dog Aggression
4. Understanding & stopping Aggression in Dogs.
5. Stopping Dog Aggression to Other Dogs

Tags: dog fear aggression problems, how to stop dog fear aggression, stopping dog fear aggression

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 9:07 pm and is filed under Dog Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.