May 7, 2024 • 13 mins
The Dog Professor, Robb Lust, from The Edgefield Animal Care Center, discusses what your dog's conflict triggers might be and how to control them.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
It is time for another episode ofThe Dog Professor podcast. Rob Luss from
the Edgefield Animal Care Center joining usagain today the Dog Professor, and today
we're going to talk about what triggersconflict in your dogs. And boy,
there's probably a long list, right, yeah, it's I mean the idea
with you know, everybody comes in, my dog's got in a fight yesterday,
(00:21):
or my dog and this dog wemet at the park, did this
and that and so forth and soon, and people are like trying to
figure out what what triggered the actualconflict, right, you know, and
it's pretty common a lot of timesat face value. There are certain things
that we can be aware of asdog owners that if we're aware of these
(00:45):
conflict triggers, we may be ableto avoid the conflict altogether. Now does
that solve I kind of equate it, like, Okay, the conflict triggers
we're going to talk about today arethe matches the actual can of gasoline has
not necessary barely been fixed yet,okay. And that that comes down to
a lot of times where your dogfeels his place is within the house and
(01:07):
in the hierarchy at home, andif he looks or she looks at you
as a leader or so forth andso on. That's the can of gasoline.
But these these triggers are basically thematches that can blow the thing up
or not absolutely. So, firstoff, if you know, a lot
of times we have people talk about, well, my dog's been perfectly fine,
and then probably the number one triggerspot we get all the time is,
(01:32):
well, my uh, he wassitting on my bed with my husband
and I had got up to goto the bathroom or something and came back
in and he was growling at mein the middle of the night. Or
I was sitting on the couch andhe was on my lap, and our
other dog walked up and he startedgrowling at the other dog and then they
had a big dog fight or whatever. Okay, so furniture. Furniture is
always a trigger. Why because inthe dog world, we've talked about this
(01:56):
before, the two big dog rules, the dog in fronts and in char
and the dog on tops in charge. So everything in their world is viewed
visually as being in a position ofhierarchy, and obviously highest points in your
house tend to be the couch,your lap, and the bed. Okay,
So a dog that feels they're entitledto those areas and they feel and
(02:21):
we don't do anything about it andlet them in those areas. They they
tend to get that dominant, dominantmentality that they run the place, or
you and them run the place.So when any of the surfs, for
lack of a better way to sayit's, come creeping in or try to
take a spot they're not supposed toin the bed or on the furniture or
or whatever. And that's that's basicallythat match in that gas can at that
(02:45):
point in time. And then thenwe're in trouble. So you have a
reactive dog that's shown that behavior before. Look at the situation, you know,
are they on the couch with youthe bed? The bed one gets
me every time, you know,because it's the first time a person tells
me that they get out of bedto go to the bathroom and then they
come back and the dog is growlingat them and protecting them from the from
(03:08):
what they could perceive to be athreat, and they don't make the dog
get out of the bed. Itjust if I had hair, it all
be pulled out by now. Itjust I just don't understand it one bit.
The bed becomes something that, yes, we like the closeness and everything
and of having the dog around,and and you know it's it's no situation
(03:32):
allows the dog to abuse their privilegesmore than the bed does, you know.
I mean not just for the factthat you picture yourself sleeping on the
edge of the bed because your doghas taken up the majority of the bed.
But then it turns into that entitlementmentidea. So it has to be
something I don't if you let themup, and we've talked about it before,
(03:53):
if you let them up on thatfurniture, then it has to be
something that they earn. Then youcan maintain some semblance of peace. Then
you're putting some water in the gasoline. Okay, and a couple of the
other things we're going to talk aboutas the same mentality. But the underlying,
the underlying issue is where your dogfeels they are ranked in that house.
So bed couches. Another one thatgets me all the time is people
(04:16):
are like, well, he hashis chair over there. He doesn't sit
on my chair. He sits onhis chair. It doesn't matter. Yeah,
Okay, the perception is still thekey here. So when you have
a dog that's reactive, start eliminatingthose things all together, all humans on
the furniture, all dogs on thefloor. That starts to assert that situation
(04:38):
doorways. Doorways is something that wetalk about a lot in training. Part
of learning to work with the heelcommand and the sit command and is to
actually be able to approach and walkthrough a doorway in the proper way according
to the dog rules. In thedog rules, the first one through the
(04:58):
doorway basically as the property on theother side of the doorway. That's why
a lot of dog fights, alot of dog bites occur in thresholds doorways
because one dog thinks, well,I'm going through first to day and know
you're not, and then boom theyou know, the match is lit and
the fight is on at the doorway. Meanwhile the owner is standing behind trying
(05:23):
to break the whole thing up.But if you think about your normal process
for most dog owners on letting yourdog out the door, every day we
walk to the door, we backout of their way, then we open
the door for them. That wedo everything short of laying down the red
carpet for them as they exit thehouse, you know, instead of and
and when a dog sees that,then we instantly position ourselves in a lower
(05:46):
position within the pack than them.Even if you're not going outside with your
dog, the rule should be youopen the door, you make them sit,
you step into the doorframe, andthen you allow them to pay through
the doorframe after you've already broke theseal on the doorframe. That's the proper
way to do it, to assertyourself to your dog that they will go
(06:10):
through this doorframe when you give thempermission to do that. So that's a
first step in cases where you haveaggression at the doors between dogs. And
the worst thing a lot of peopledo in cases like that is they try
to make it fair. They tryto go, well, i'm gonna let
the old dog go first, thenthe second dog, then the third dog,
so forth and so on. Andthe dogs are like, look,
(06:31):
he's the old dog, but he'snot in charge of this pack. And
the old dog's like, look,I'm not in charge of this pack.
I really don't want to go first. But we force them to go in
that order, and then we basicallycreate the dog fight that doesn't need to
be created. So doorways are anotherone in cases like that. We need
to think of fences and fence gates. All right, If your dog spends
(06:53):
a lot of time out in afenced yard, they're always tougher when they
have a fence between them and thestuff that they're barking at or want to
get aggressive with, which is onthe other side of the fence. So
fence gates tend to be a bigissue. Also, it's like, every
time your dog sees something and they'reon the other side of the fence,
it's like a spring, a springthat gets wound tighter and tighter and tighter,
(07:16):
and then when there's that opportunity toget through that fence, it's like
a bullet out of the gun,and conflict occurs before any we know anything
about it. So those gates areanother pressure point a lot of times in
cases like that. Human possessiveness orfood possessiveness, basically your dog's food,
(07:40):
your dog's toys. Imagine about atwo foot bubble around all of those things,
and if your dog is possessive ofthose things, when something else enters
into that bubble, that's when wehave a trigger point. Again. You
know, you might be sitting onthe couch and you say, well,
Rob said keep my dog on thefloor. So I put him on the
floor because last time when my grant'sand walked up here he was he growled
(08:01):
at my grandson. So they putthe dog on the floor. But now
the dog is on the floor,leaning on their leg, leaning on their
couch, sitting on their feet,something like that. The grandson grandson walks
up, they still get groued at, and everybody's like, well, whow
I put them on the floor.What's going on? Well, now your
dog is still possessive of you.Okay, you're nothing but a bone or
(08:22):
a treat to them or a toyto them at that point time. And
all they see when other people walkup or other dogs will walk up,
is a threat to their possession.Same way with their food bowl, same
way with everything else. So thosetend to be trigger points for conflict.
Also, so in cases like that, you have to basically eliminate your dog's
(08:43):
ability to touch something. Okay,we have it all the time. A
good example was, you know,last weekend, we were we were at
a brewery, okay, and somefolks walk in and their dogs pulling on
the leash, and the dog walksup to another dog and starts barking,
maybe a little bit of growling,a little bit over rambunctious type of greeting.
(09:07):
The problem was the leash was completelytight and the owners weren't worth in
the mindset that their dog is notgood with other dogs or meeting other dogs,
so they tighten up on that leadand instantly the dog's like, well,
what's going on? And then that'sthat's the match in the gas can
right there. Again. So there'sa lot of different trigger points, but
(09:28):
these are the main ones. Almostseventy percent of the cases when people come
in and go, you know,my dog is aggressive, my dog grout
up, my grandcut kids, mydog got in a fight with my other
dog. You know, my dogbit me whatever, Almost seventy to eighty
percent of these cases involve one ofthese trigger points. So being aware of
(09:50):
those trigger points is key, butsolving the problem is even more key,
and that comes down with training andeverything else. Are the trigger points different
per breed, not per breed,No, it's very much personality. Okay,
the higher your dog feels, themore dominant your dog feels that they're
in charge of the house, andthe touching and the furniture are are biggies
(10:13):
with that and the tight leash orbiggies with that, because your dog feels
so much more support from you inthose cases, you know, like like
I've used this analogy over and overand over again, but it's the it's
the guy at the bar being heldback by two of his buddies yelling at
the guy who's by himself at theother side of the bar. It's because
(10:35):
yeah, don't let me go.No, seriously, don't let me go.
But yeah, don't don't let meyou know, that type of thing.
Sure, And that's what your dogfeels when you're holding them in your
lap, or you're or they're touchingyou or touching the furniture, or they're
feel a tight lead, or evenwhen you even worse, when you reach
down to grab their collar to getthem under control. It causes even a
(10:56):
more of an of an issue,and that idea that they're they have support,
so they turn the dial up ofaggression that much more towards what they're
targeted on. So breed wise isnot at all what it is is,
you know, obviously owner wise morethan anything, as far as we got
to get this idea that I'm incontrol one so the dog knows what the
(11:20):
hierarchy is in the house. Buttwo, as an owner, when I
am in those situations, I'm notgoing to hope that nothing bad happens,
right, I'm going to give thevibe that you better hope that nothing bad
happen. I mean, for lackof a better way to say it,
that's that's the vibe a dominant doghas, okay. And when you have
that vibe, then your dog feelssomething different. Okay, Then they're like,
(11:43):
well, you know, I don'twant to deal with the boss here,
so maybe I'm not going to lightthat light that fire, you know,
with this dog that walks up,with that little toddler that walks in
or anything like that. So thatwe try to teach more than anything else
in training, and that, likewe've said before, or the commands in
training are a foundation for so manyother things. One, it's a foundation
(12:05):
of learning to give your dog tasksand help them build confidence and give them
direction as to what they can doto be successful within this pack. Two,
it gives you confidence that in alot of those situations you felt were
beyond your control, now you arelearning how to control them. And the
confidence that you feel actually exudes toyour dog and helps you maintain your position
(12:30):
better like that. When you havethat, then these trigger points are basically
non existent and you don't have topay attention to them at all. But
these are big things to always beaware of. If you're in new situations
or you're just unsure, be awareof the trigger points. Try to avoid
the trigger points and you'll have somepeace, some good stuff. Tell everybody
(12:52):
how they could reach out to theEdgefield Animal Care centerbody Edgefield Animal Care Center.
We're located in Central Ohio and Marion, full service veterinary hospital, boarding,
grooming, training, all of that. Easiest way to find all our
information is to go on our website. You can find out everything about our
services, find all the back podcastsfor the Dog Professor podcast. Everything you
(13:15):
need to find and know about usis on our website Edgefieldanimalcare dot com.
And of course if you just findingthis, make sure you hit follow wherever
you're receiving it to get notifications righton your phone when we post a new one
It is time for another episode ofThe Dog Professor podcast. Rob Luss from
the Edgefield Animal Care Center joining usagain today the Dog Professor, and today
we're going to talk about what triggersconflict in your dogs. And boy,
there's probably a long list, right, yeah, it's I mean the idea
with you know, everybody comes in, my dog's got in a fight yesterday,
(00:21):
or my dog and this dog wemet at the park, did this
and that and so forth and soon, and people are like trying to
figure out what what triggered the actualconflict, right, you know, and
it's pretty common a lot of timesat face value. There are certain things
that we can be aware of asdog owners that if we're aware of these
(00:45):
conflict triggers, we may be ableto avoid the conflict altogether. Now does
that solve I kind of equate it, like, Okay, the conflict triggers
we're going to talk about today arethe matches the actual can of gasoline has
not necessary barely been fixed yet,okay. And that that comes down to
a lot of times where your dogfeels his place is within the house and
(01:07):
in the hierarchy at home, andif he looks or she looks at you
as a leader or so forth andso on. That's the can of gasoline.
But these these triggers are basically thematches that can blow the thing up
or not absolutely. So, firstoff, if you know, a lot
of times we have people talk about, well, my dog's been perfectly fine,
and then probably the number one triggerspot we get all the time is,
(01:32):
well, my uh, he wassitting on my bed with my husband
and I had got up to goto the bathroom or something and came back
in and he was growling at mein the middle of the night. Or
I was sitting on the couch andhe was on my lap, and our
other dog walked up and he startedgrowling at the other dog and then they
had a big dog fight or whatever. Okay, so furniture. Furniture is
always a trigger. Why because inthe dog world, we've talked about this
(01:56):
before, the two big dog rules, the dog in fronts and in char
and the dog on tops in charge. So everything in their world is viewed
visually as being in a position ofhierarchy, and obviously highest points in your
house tend to be the couch,your lap, and the bed. Okay,
So a dog that feels they're entitledto those areas and they feel and
(02:21):
we don't do anything about it andlet them in those areas. They they
tend to get that dominant, dominantmentality that they run the place, or
you and them run the place.So when any of the surfs, for
lack of a better way to sayit's, come creeping in or try to
take a spot they're not supposed toin the bed or on the furniture or
or whatever. And that's that's basicallythat match in that gas can at that
(02:45):
point in time. And then thenwe're in trouble. So you have a
reactive dog that's shown that behavior before. Look at the situation, you know,
are they on the couch with youthe bed? The bed one gets
me every time, you know,because it's the first time a person tells
me that they get out of bedto go to the bathroom and then they
come back and the dog is growlingat them and protecting them from the from
(03:08):
what they could perceive to be athreat, and they don't make the dog
get out of the bed. Itjust if I had hair, it all
be pulled out by now. Itjust I just don't understand it one bit.
The bed becomes something that, yes, we like the closeness and everything
and of having the dog around,and and you know it's it's no situation
(03:32):
allows the dog to abuse their privilegesmore than the bed does, you know.
I mean not just for the factthat you picture yourself sleeping on the
edge of the bed because your doghas taken up the majority of the bed.
But then it turns into that entitlementmentidea. So it has to be
something I don't if you let themup, and we've talked about it before,
(03:53):
if you let them up on thatfurniture, then it has to be
something that they earn. Then youcan maintain some semblance of peace. Then
you're putting some water in the gasoline. Okay, and a couple of the
other things we're going to talk aboutas the same mentality. But the underlying,
the underlying issue is where your dogfeels they are ranked in that house.
So bed couches. Another one thatgets me all the time is people
(04:16):
are like, well, he hashis chair over there. He doesn't sit
on my chair. He sits onhis chair. It doesn't matter. Yeah,
Okay, the perception is still thekey here. So when you have
a dog that's reactive, start eliminatingthose things all together, all humans on
the furniture, all dogs on thefloor. That starts to assert that situation
(04:38):
doorways. Doorways is something that wetalk about a lot in training. Part
of learning to work with the heelcommand and the sit command and is to
actually be able to approach and walkthrough a doorway in the proper way according
to the dog rules. In thedog rules, the first one through the
(04:58):
doorway basically as the property on theother side of the doorway. That's why
a lot of dog fights, alot of dog bites occur in thresholds doorways
because one dog thinks, well,I'm going through first to day and know
you're not, and then boom theyou know, the match is lit and
the fight is on at the doorway. Meanwhile the owner is standing behind trying
(05:23):
to break the whole thing up.But if you think about your normal process
for most dog owners on letting yourdog out the door, every day we
walk to the door, we backout of their way, then we open
the door for them. That wedo everything short of laying down the red
carpet for them as they exit thehouse, you know, instead of and
and when a dog sees that,then we instantly position ourselves in a lower
(05:46):
position within the pack than them.Even if you're not going outside with your
dog, the rule should be youopen the door, you make them sit,
you step into the doorframe, andthen you allow them to pay through
the doorframe after you've already broke theseal on the doorframe. That's the proper
way to do it, to assertyourself to your dog that they will go
(06:10):
through this doorframe when you give thempermission to do that. So that's a
first step in cases where you haveaggression at the doors between dogs. And
the worst thing a lot of peopledo in cases like that is they try
to make it fair. They tryto go, well, i'm gonna let
the old dog go first, thenthe second dog, then the third dog,
so forth and so on. Andthe dogs are like, look,
(06:31):
he's the old dog, but he'snot in charge of this pack. And
the old dog's like, look,I'm not in charge of this pack.
I really don't want to go first. But we force them to go in
that order, and then we basicallycreate the dog fight that doesn't need to
be created. So doorways are anotherone in cases like that. We need
to think of fences and fence gates. All right, If your dog spends
(06:53):
a lot of time out in afenced yard, they're always tougher when they
have a fence between them and thestuff that they're barking at or want to
get aggressive with, which is onthe other side of the fence. So
fence gates tend to be a bigissue. Also, it's like, every
time your dog sees something and they'reon the other side of the fence,
it's like a spring, a springthat gets wound tighter and tighter and tighter,
(07:16):
and then when there's that opportunity toget through that fence, it's like
a bullet out of the gun,and conflict occurs before any we know anything
about it. So those gates areanother pressure point a lot of times in
cases like that. Human possessiveness orfood possessiveness, basically your dog's food,
(07:40):
your dog's toys. Imagine about atwo foot bubble around all of those things,
and if your dog is possessive ofthose things, when something else enters
into that bubble, that's when wehave a trigger point. Again. You
know, you might be sitting onthe couch and you say, well,
Rob said keep my dog on thefloor. So I put him on the
floor because last time when my grant'sand walked up here he was he growled
(08:01):
at my grandson. So they putthe dog on the floor. But now
the dog is on the floor,leaning on their leg, leaning on their
couch, sitting on their feet,something like that. The grandson grandson walks
up, they still get groued at, and everybody's like, well, whow
I put them on the floor.What's going on? Well, now your
dog is still possessive of you.Okay, you're nothing but a bone or
(08:22):
a treat to them or a toyto them at that point time. And
all they see when other people walkup or other dogs will walk up,
is a threat to their possession.Same way with their food bowl, same
way with everything else. So thosetend to be trigger points for conflict.
Also, so in cases like that, you have to basically eliminate your dog's
(08:43):
ability to touch something. Okay,we have it all the time. A
good example was, you know,last weekend, we were we were at
a brewery, okay, and somefolks walk in and their dogs pulling on
the leash, and the dog walksup to another dog and starts barking,
maybe a little bit of growling,a little bit over rambunctious type of greeting.
(09:07):
The problem was the leash was completelytight and the owners weren't worth in
the mindset that their dog is notgood with other dogs or meeting other dogs,
so they tighten up on that leadand instantly the dog's like, well,
what's going on? And then that'sthat's the match in the gas can
right there. Again. So there'sa lot of different trigger points, but
(09:28):
these are the main ones. Almostseventy percent of the cases when people come
in and go, you know,my dog is aggressive, my dog grout
up, my grandcut kids, mydog got in a fight with my other
dog. You know, my dogbit me whatever, Almost seventy to eighty
percent of these cases involve one ofthese trigger points. So being aware of
(09:50):
those trigger points is key, butsolving the problem is even more key,
and that comes down with training andeverything else. Are the trigger points different
per breed, not per breed,No, it's very much personality. Okay,
the higher your dog feels, themore dominant your dog feels that they're
in charge of the house, andthe touching and the furniture are are biggies
(10:13):
with that and the tight leash orbiggies with that, because your dog feels
so much more support from you inthose cases, you know, like like
I've used this analogy over and overand over again, but it's the it's
the guy at the bar being heldback by two of his buddies yelling at
the guy who's by himself at theother side of the bar. It's because
(10:35):
yeah, don't let me go.No, seriously, don't let me go.
But yeah, don't don't let meyou know, that type of thing.
Sure, And that's what your dogfeels when you're holding them in your
lap, or you're or they're touchingyou or touching the furniture, or they're
feel a tight lead, or evenwhen you even worse, when you reach
down to grab their collar to getthem under control. It causes even a
(10:56):
more of an of an issue,and that idea that they're they have support,
so they turn the dial up ofaggression that much more towards what they're
targeted on. So breed wise isnot at all what it is is,
you know, obviously owner wise morethan anything, as far as we got
to get this idea that I'm incontrol one so the dog knows what the
(11:20):
hierarchy is in the house. Buttwo, as an owner, when I
am in those situations, I'm notgoing to hope that nothing bad happens,
right, I'm going to give thevibe that you better hope that nothing bad
happen. I mean, for lackof a better way to say it,
that's that's the vibe a dominant doghas, okay. And when you have
that vibe, then your dog feelssomething different. Okay, Then they're like,
(11:43):
well, you know, I don'twant to deal with the boss here,
so maybe I'm not going to lightthat light that fire, you know,
with this dog that walks up,with that little toddler that walks in
or anything like that. So thatwe try to teach more than anything else
in training, and that, likewe've said before, or the commands in
training are a foundation for so manyother things. One, it's a foundation
(12:05):
of learning to give your dog tasksand help them build confidence and give them
direction as to what they can doto be successful within this pack. Two,
it gives you confidence that in alot of those situations you felt were
beyond your control, now you arelearning how to control them. And the
confidence that you feel actually exudes toyour dog and helps you maintain your position
(12:30):
better like that. When you havethat, then these trigger points are basically
non existent and you don't have topay attention to them at all. But
these are big things to always beaware of. If you're in new situations
or you're just unsure, be awareof the trigger points. Try to avoid
the trigger points and you'll have somepeace, some good stuff. Tell everybody
(12:52):
how they could reach out to theEdgefield Animal Care centerbody Edgefield Animal Care Center.
We're located in Central Ohio and Marion, full service veterinary hospital, boarding,
grooming, training, all of that. Easiest way to find all our
information is to go on our website. You can find out everything about our
services, find all the back podcastsfor the Dog Professor podcast. Everything you
(13:15):
need to find and know about usis on our website Edgefieldanimalcare dot com.
And of course if you just findingthis, make sure you hit follow wherever
you're receiving it to get notifications righton your phone when we post a new one
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