Episode 13: Understanding Aggression in Dogs

Guest:
Michael Shikashio, CDBC with AggressiveDog.com

Michael is a world-renowned expert on aggression in dogs, sought after globally as a keynote speaker at conferences, universities, and other educational organizations and platforms. His expert insight and opinions have been tapped for interviews with local, national and international media including the New York Times, New York Post, Fox News, The List TV, Baltimore Sun, WebMD, Women’s Health Magazine, Real Simple Magazine, and SiriusXM Radio. He also hosts the popular podcast show “The Bitey End of the Dog” where he chats with the foremost experts on dog aggression.

Through Michael’s AggressiveDog.com, he offers the most comprehensive course for dog trainers and dog behavior consultants worldwide; and recently launched a comprehensive course for dog owners. His annual Aggression in Dogs Conference features leading experts and attracts professionals from across the globe.  

What you will learn by listening:

What IS aggression?
Can aggressive dogs be cured? 
Can aggressive behaviors be stopped through punishment?
What factors should be considered to break the cycle of aggression?
Understanding some common motivators for dog aggressive behaviors  

For more information on Michael Shikashio and his educational opportunities, please visit 
www.AggressiveDog.com

For more information on your Touched by Pets Podcast Host, Lisa Desatnik, please visit
www.SoMuchPETential.com.

If you found this episode valuable, please consider rating, following and/or sharing my podcast.    

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi. This is Live's Touch by Pets, a podcast for
those who love and are loved by pets.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm your host, Lisa de Sadek.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm a certified trainer with so much potential in Cincinnati, Ohio.
It is my goal that you will find personal, relatable
discussions and stories aim to inspire and educate. I'm really
glad that you're here.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Has your dog ever growd snapped, lunched, or bitten another
person or another dog? Maybe your dog hasn't, but you've
been on the other end of that behavior and you
know it is not fun. Well, this episode is worth
listening to. I'm so excited because joining me today is
my early dog training mentor, Michael Chicascio, who still very

(00:55):
much influences how and why I work on behavior cases today.
Mike travels the world as an internationally renowned expert on
aggression and dogs. He's a sought after keynote speaker and
presenter whose expertise has been shared through conferences, universities, educational organizations,

(01:16):
other platforms, and national and international media. Let's face it,
it's hard to talk about aggression without his name coming
into it. Mike offers the most comprehensive course for dog
trainers and dog behavior consultants, now offering a course for
companion dog owners. I can't wait to see him at

(01:38):
his annual Aggression and Dogs conference later this year. But first,
he's joining me today. And who better to deep dive
with me into a discussion about understanding aggression than Mike.
Are you ready to learn? Well, let's get started, Mike.

(01:58):
This is so exciting for me to have you here.
I feel like we've come so full circle. You were
the one who got me involved in dog training to
begin with, like O were ten years ago.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, I know, it's I'm really excited to be here.
First of all, thanks for having me on. And yeah
it was was it an APDT conference we met at, right?
Was there or was it an IAC thing? Was APDT
conference APDT?

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, you are volunteering for IAABC.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, I was running and.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I remember, yeah, yeah, I had been studying behavior, but
I did not have the confidence to do anything professionally.
And you kept coming up to me, Lisa, we really
need you to dog No, I don't think so. And
then eventually you wore me down and I said, well

(02:48):
if you would mentor me, and you said, of course.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah. Yeah, and here we are now one thing led
to or another. Yeah, it's been I think it was
more than ten years ago, which is scary to think
of how time flies so quickly.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah. Not only that, but you just were so encouraging
to me, and that's how you are to everybody now.
And and now you're you're specializing, and now you've gotten
me even interested in doing lots of behavior stuff. So
that's a lot of what I do now. And I
think you have a big reason for that.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
So I appreciate it, and I appreciate your trust in
me too.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
So ah, I just think you're wonderful.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
The whole world gets to benefit from you. You know.
So when I knew you, you I mean not when
I knew you, but when we first met you were
not a specialist in aggression back then. But did you
specialize in aggression?

Speaker 3 (03:55):
I think I just liked it a lot, you know,
I know it's it's not for everyone. I think you
have to have some you know, I guess stupidity, something
lack of lack of fear, you know, doing things that
sometimes you're working with dogs that it could be you know,
pretty pretty dangerous or or you know, you have to

(04:17):
be careful with but I actually enjoy helping the dogs
that you know are often misunderstood the most because of
their aggressive behavior. So you know, society places that label
on dogs, you know, aggressive dog or vicious dog or
kujo and those things, and I find that's terribly unfair

(04:37):
for most dogs because it's you know, they're often just
having a hard time, they're fearful of something or just
expressing basic needs and and you know, their aggressive behavior
is quite normal in those contexts. So I found that
many of those dogs that needed help are also misunderstood,
and I thought, what better way to help these dogs
to really learn about aggression and you know, take on

(05:00):
the cases first and foremost. But then it turned into
educating others about aggression and aggression and dogs. So it's
it's been quite the journey, but it really started with
the fostering. When I was fostering dogs, it was a
lot of dogs coming in to rescues and they would
ask the fosters, you know, maybeing a foster home at
the time, you start off with easy dogs. They usually

(05:21):
send you like, you know, you know, four year old
lab that's house trained, no problems at all, just happens
to be and rescue, and then you start getting the
more difficult ones, dogs that might bark a little more,
and then a little more difficult dogs barking, lunching on leash,
and then so next to you know, you got some
dogs that with a bite history, and you're you're really
just you know, it's a great way to learn though,

(05:41):
because they're living with you in your home, you know,
twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, with
your family and your other pets, and so it's not
only a great learning experience, it's extremely rewarding when you
can help a dog like that stay out of rescue
or stayed out of more unfortunate situations and watch them
get adopted because you know, you just give them time
and understanding they needed in a foster environment. So that's

(06:04):
how I got hooked and started just taking a deep
dive into training and then eventually just doing aggressions strictly
aggression cases.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
What do you think it takes probably you know, a
certain kind of person to to be able to to
see through that and to see the qualities and the dogs.
I know, it's.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah, you know, it's because it's like I don't know
it's kind of like you're you're in your neighborhood, everybody's
flipping you off or swearing at you, and you know,
so you can get sort of this false impression, and
so same thing a them with dogs. If you're if
you experienced a lot of dogs, you've been bitten by
a dog, or you've been attacked as a child, or
you know, it can there's sometimes really skewed lenses based

(06:49):
on our experiences. So you know, I find dogs need
to sometimes we need to look past our our perceptions
and what our opinions are and look at what the
dog is experiencing, just like we look at another person.
Rather than blaming them for maybe getting snippy with us
or yelling at us, we sometimes it can do better
if we just say, what is this person going through?

(07:09):
So I just apply the same to dogs, because once
you do that, that really can help you work with
the dogs without feeling insulted if they're growling at you
or barking at you or trying to bite you. I
think that's a very common thing we see, right when
somebody has a dog showing aggression towards them, they take
offense to it. So it's it's always better to start

(07:31):
from a place of understanding.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
A lot of big emotions when you've got a dog
with behavioral issue, whether it's embarrassment or fear, anger, restration.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Absolutely, especially if the dog is biting their guardian or
showing aggression towards their guardian. And because it goes back
to the you know, how dare that? How dare you
bite the hand that feeds you kind of mentality? I
give you all your toys and food and care of you,
and you show aggression towards me. How dare your kind
of mindset? But oftentimes, once we work to understand what

(08:06):
the dog is doing that for, it could be a
lot of times it's pain. That's in fact, that's one
of the most common reasons for aggression directed at guardians.
Their own guardian is pain or resource guardian, They're just
trying to keep something of value. Probably the top two
reasons if I had to put a number on or
kind of categorize which ones I see the most, So
that could be again, feel really difficult for the guardian saying,

(08:29):
you know, why is my dog coming after me? I'm
the one that gives it all the love and everything
it needs. But you know, again, something like pain, it's
very common or very understandable, I should say, reason for
a dog to display aggression, you know, just like people would.
If we're in pain, we're going to last out out.
It doesn't matter who touches us, So it's you know,
so yeah, again, understanding is a big part of it.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
One of my cases right now is pain related. We're
suspecting working with a vet and air behave imbrest with
her and the different instances, whether it's being touched or
just you know, moving very slowly, the pace that he's moving,
not jumping up on furniture, lots of different signs.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
That yeah us into that. Yeah, yeah, I think it's
for the listeners. If you're experiencing issues with your dog
showing aggression in especially if they're touched or you ask
them to move from a certain location or they're hesitating
to do something and you kind of try to physically
get them to do it, always look at underlying pain

(09:36):
or discomfort issues because it's so highly underdiagnosed in aggression cases,
and we think, what a tragic outcome when a dog's
just experiencing pain but nobody's noticing, and maybe people are
resorting to punishment or something else to try to get
the dog to do what they want. But the dog's
just trying to communicate, Hey, I'm hurting here, and you
keep making me hurt or doing things that cause me pain.

(10:00):
Even though I know you don't mean to, you're still
doing it. And that's my reason for showing aggression. So
always look for underlying pain issues in those cases.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Sure, yeah, absolutely. You know so many people I hear
they talk about, well, my aggressive dog, or oh it's
you know, just such an aggressive animal or doing really
aggressive things, or it's aggression. What are your thoughts on
those labels?

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, you know, and that's exactly what it is. Aggression
aggressive dog is a label. Even though again my business
name is aggressivedog dot com. You know, people search for
that because it's just been the label used for decades
when people see a dog barking, lunching. But we have
to differentiate that between behavior. So I always start to

(10:50):
steer my clients towards Okay, we think of aggression. We
don't think of the dog being aggressive. We look at
the behaviors the dog is displaying as aggressive behaviors there
be and I define aggression simply as behavior used to
increase distance from or eliminate a threatening or provocative stimulus.
So something that the dog just wants to go away,

(11:12):
just a fancy way of saying I need this thing
to get away from me because I'm threatened by it,
or I'm afraid of it, or it's threatening my resources
or you know. It's so when you think of it
that way, then we're not labeling the dog into one category.
You know, we don't say funny dog, right, or you
know we don't hear that label, but it would be
the same thing, you know, assigning a particular personality trait

(11:35):
is that no dog is aggressive one hundred percent of
the time. They're not showing aggression one hundred percent of time.
So and it's in fact most of them are very
far and few in between. So once we look at
the behaviors, then we can start to understand the dog
and look at the root causes. So for me, aggression
or aggressive behaviors, there's almost a real important root cause

(11:58):
we need to address in order to change the behaviors.
So if we don't, then you sometimes won't touch the behavior.
It's just like pain, right, If I don't address the pain,
that dog's going to respond almost reflexively in a lot
of cases when it's in pain. So if we don't
address the root cause, you want to actually ever fix
the issue, so you'll see those aggressive behaviors surface. So

(12:19):
the barking, lunge and growling, snarling, snapping or biting behaviors
surface because of those root causes. So that's why I
stress understanding not only just the observable behaviors and not
labeling the dog, but then really digging into the root cause.
Because when people are struggling with dog behavior problems like
pulling on leash or jumping up on visitors, sometimes we're

(12:43):
not so focused on the root cause because it's not
necessarily a negative, balanced emotion or something like you know,
dog jumping up on guests could be just a happy,
go lucky lab. We're not saying, okay, this dog is
fearful or where this dog is you know, in pain.
In most cases, oftentimes the dogs are just happy to
see grandma coming over, right, and that's why the dog

(13:03):
is jumping up. The dog is motivated if their motivation
is to say hello or to get that attention, and
then they get reinforced oftentimes by grandma up heading the
dog while it's jumping up right, So, but aggression is
much different. It's often fueled by some negative balanced emotion
or some negative association, so we have to address those
in order to change the behavior. Versus a dog that's

(13:26):
doing things like jumping up on the counter. Again, we're
not necessarily worried about some route cause other than dogs
just happy getting that turkey sandwich. So let's just teach
them to sit or four paws on the floor. We
can teach alternative behaviors much more commonly in those kind
of cases. So long winded answer to what aggression is
and the difference between you know why I don't use
the label aggressive dog with my clients. It's it's important

(13:50):
just to look at behaviors and then look at the
root cause for those behaviors.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, And what's so important, and what you've really really
taught me is that you know, there's the training piece,
and then there's a whole lot of other stuff that
goes into it too, looking at the environment, and you know,
are the dog's needs being met and all kinds of
other things that are impacting behavior too. So when I

(14:17):
hear people talk about online that they're looking for somebody
to train that out of their dog or to you know,
let's we've got to correct the dog because I want
my dog to be safe and he can't be doing this.
What would you say to the public who's listening to

(14:39):
this as far as kind of some of the fallout
of your thoughts and insight on those kinds of interpretations.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, and that's again a very normal human response in
kind of way of thinking of solving a problem we
wanted to stop. Is that word stop, I need my
dog to s stop biting. Well, that's a reasonable goal, certainly,
and in realistic you know thinking is we don't want
our dog biting anyway, but our mind goes to stopping behavior.

(15:08):
I want him to stop jumping up, I want him
to stop barking, I want them to stop pulling unleash
and all reasonable goals. However, that doesn't teach the dog
what to do instead. So oftentimes we've seen this history
of punishment with dogs where we try to say, Okay,
if I need to stop the dog from barking, I
can in the old days to be like get a
rolled up newspaper, or squirt the dog, or use a

(15:31):
shaker can full of pennies. Those kind of old ways
of doing those things. Sure, you might stop the barking
for a moment, and you might even stop it for
quite some time, because punishment does work. However, and this
is a big however, is that there's a risk of
a negative association being created, and so the dog can
start to learn, Okay, when I see somebody outside, let's

(15:55):
say the delivery driver, somebody dropping off packages, and I bark,
and then and somebody takes a rolled up newspaper towards me,
or they shake, if they throw a shaker can or
something like that. If you do that enough times, that
runs a high risk of the dog starting to associate.
Wait a minute, All delivery drivers predict this negative event,

(16:15):
and all the dog is trying to do is just say, hey,
there's somebody here. Things that we've selected for as humans
for many, many centuries, if not thousands of years of
saying hey, if there's an intruder on our territory here
or property, let me know. And so now we're saying,
don't do that anymore, through hundreds of years of genetics
and evolution, and we're saying, all right, don't bark anymore.

(16:37):
And it's so it's totally unfair for the dog to
say don't bark, or also going to punish you. But
the risk is all right. Now the dog's saying, all right,
all UPS drivers are terrible. So next time I see
a UPS driver, I'm going to let somebody know that
he's got to go. And it can turn into biting
or even redirected aggression towards the guardian in some cases
because the dog's saying, all right, I needed this person

(16:57):
to go. I really hate when the UPS people come
over because then I hit with a newspaper and I'm
going to try to stop that, but I can't because
this guy's outside my front door. So now I'm super frustrated,
so I'm going to take it out on you as
the guardian. And so those are a lot of the
fallouts or side effects we can see, and I see
it quite often when people resort to punishment to stop
a behavior. So the goal really is again not only

(17:21):
addressing the root cause, but teaching the dog what you
want them to do instead. So we let's say it
is that pain based case, right, so we have the
guardian getting bidden. We have to address that pain first
and foremost. But let's say we've got the dog on
the couch and we want them. You know you've got well,
let's say it's an armchair and you have one seat
and the dog's taking it up. But the dog's taking

(17:42):
it up because it's very comfortable. It's like this fancy
new temperpedic recliner eat out or something, and so the
dog's like, this is amazing, it's very it helps my arthritis.
But then the guardian's like, no, you got to move.
You need to stop being on this furniture. So there's
that stop word again, right, yeah, but what the goal
is not only to you address that pain, but we

(18:03):
have to teach an alternative behavior. Well, hey, there's a
here's another temper of pede at fancy dog bet I
just got you, and we're gonna put it right next
to my recliner. And that's the alternative behavior. Just go
here and we'll meet your needs of a comfany space.
We'll teach you an alternative place, and we're not going
to pair any negative associations because I'm going to teach
you using positive reinforcement. And so it's a win win

(18:23):
win situation because the person gets their chair back, the
dog has a place to rest, and there's no negative
associations created, and in fact, there's a positive association being
created dogs like I love this new dog Beck because
I get also treats here and so it really just
is it can it can. It's really important to break
that cycle of punishment because of the risks, because there's

(18:44):
so few risks when you use positive reinforcements. There's just
so many, many, many more risks when you use punishment
to stop behaviors.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
And I love the teaching of alternative behaviors. There's another
client comes to mind at Pretty Complicated, hated one, a
big shepherd mix, and among his different triggers and issues
were you know, in the kitchen, hoarding around other people
and you know, then getting and potentially dangerous situations. So

(19:15):
we're teaching him to go and station on a bed
when when people are in the kitchen, and he was
loving it, having a lot of fun because it's fun
on that bed. Good stuff happens on that bed. So yeah,
I love that approach. The other thing that brings to
mind is something that some people may not be familiar with,

(19:36):
and that's the term of flooding. And so when you
think that you're really helping, like for example, you make
your dog sit when scary stuff goes around, and then
the dog eventually stops reacting. Is the dog really feeling
better or is the dog going into a different state.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Exactly. Yeah, that's also very common, especially dogs that are fearful.
You know, they're put into environments where it's just too much.
The analogy I use with my clients all the time
is just the swimming pool analogy. Especially somebody that's afraid
of water. So let's say they had an issue, they
got scared when they were kids, so they're now they're
really afraid of water, and I take them to swimming pool,

(20:23):
one side typical like Olympic swimming, and one side like
shadow well a typical in ground pool. Let's say one
side shallow, one side is really deep and flooding. Is
the equivalent of just shoving them into the deep end
and saying, okay, go for it. Let's see if you
can swim or not, and it's not really on you.
And that's the equivalent of doing the same thing with dogs.
If we put them in environments they're not ready for yet,

(20:43):
so we have to start out on that shallow end
and it may just be like tipping a toe in
that water so that person feels comfortable. Really important aspect,
because we can make things a lot worse. You know
something called sensitization, which is when the dog is hyper
aware of their environment now and everything really affects them.
And it can look like it works because the dog

(21:05):
sometimes just shuts down and saying, all right, I'm just
going to freeze air and hope for the best. Just
like maybe a person in the deep end of the
pool they don't know what to do and they stop
actually trying to swim. They just you know, sink because
they have no other mechanism, no other choice. So the
same thing can have for dogs that they just stop showing,

(21:26):
you know, the negative behaviors that we were trying to address,
and it looks like it works for us because like, oh,
now the dog's not barking on lunching, but they miss
like the dog's ears a pin back, the dog's mouth,
his clothes really tight, they're you know, have dilated pupils,
and they're just having a really tough time. So it
can look like it works. And the same thing that

(21:46):
would happened with punishment, by the way, is that it stops. Yeah, sure,
we can suppress the behavior, but it doesn't mean that
the dog's feeling any better. And that's all we have
to recognize is yeah, we can stop behavior. We can,
we can take a big enough hammer to that now, right,
but it's not going to make the dog feel better.
And after all, we want our dogs to feel great.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, quality of life is where it's at. Sure, Yeah, absolutely, Well,
when we talk about, you know, kind of a breaking
the aggression cycle, and a big thing is the management
piece to this, talk about the importance of management. Why
that's absolutely critical piece of helping to overturn this aggression cycle.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, So when when we look at behavior, it's really
important to think about reinforcement and how reinforcement works. So
if there's a good outcome for the dog and it
makes something go away, that is highly reinforcing. Because safety
is more important than food and water and sleep. You know,
a dog needs people too. Safety is first and foremost.

(22:54):
So that people can understand this when you know, I say, oh,
I've got a I've got a million dollars ariefcase for you.
You want it, and I'll give it right to you now,
And most people well, sure, but you know, if you're
falling out of an airplane with no parachute. And then
I try to hand you that briefcase, You're not going
to be very interested in it anymore because safety comes first.
So you would you rather have the million dollars in

(23:16):
a briefcase or the parachute in my other hand. So
the same thing for dogs. Safety is really the most
crucial aspect. Now when we think about reinforcement history, when
a dog makes something scary go away, barking, luncheon, growling, biting,
that is highly reinforcing for the dog. So it's most
likely it takes just one time. The dog's like, I

(23:39):
remember that work to keep me safe, so I'm just
going to keep doing that, just like the person's like,
I'm going to make sure I put a parachute on
before I go off right. And so when we think
about management, it's prevention of rehearsal of the behavior so
the dog doesn't get reinforced for practicing those undesirable behaviors
to us humans, which is barking, lungeon, growling, stopping, or

(24:00):
biting in most cases. And if we don't prevent that,
then the dog's going to keep going right back to
what worked. And the other thing to think about is
that we really don't ever make it go away, Like
we don't say, all right, it's fixed. The dog's never
going to show an aggressive response again, because just like
a human's like, all right, when you're in enough pain,
I don't want you to do anything ever again because

(24:22):
I've taught you something else, or I've suppressed it or
whatever it's, it's going to come out naturally, you know.
So aggression there's going to in many context is very
normal behavior for it to surface. So I tell my
clients we never fix it. We never turn off aggression.
We just make it much less likely for it to
happen because we've prevented rehearsal through management, we've helped the

(24:42):
dog feel better around whatever it is, we've addressed the
root cause, and we've taught alternative behaviors. In that context,
the dog can still go back to showing the aggressive behavior,
but we've made it much less likely because of all
those other things we did. So that's where management comes
into place. Just we have to really be careful about
a allowing the dog to display those behaviors because we've

(25:03):
set them up in the wrong stage, so to speak.
So and I know that's difficult some listeners are probably like, oh,
what if I live in the city and I've got
a dog that's reactive on leash and barking at everything.
I get it. It's difficult to control. But we can
be creative as much as possible to significantly reduce the
exposures to those triggers. And when we do that, we're

(25:25):
going to that's good management, and the better management we
can get, the less likely is we're going to continue
reinforcing it. And we're also reducing the cumulative stress that
can happen when management isn't good.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Just kind of point that out.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah, yeah, So lots of stressors and chronic stress we
know now is very detrimental for dogs, both their learning
capabilities as well as their health. So when I see
some clients, they're just struggling, and environments with the dog
is constantly getting you know, they're barking out the window,
they're barking at every little noise. They don't get any
time to process things, to de stress, so to speak.

(26:02):
That actually creates more of a vicious cycle and just
you know, the not the dog's more stressed and now
they're barking more and the client's yelling at them. More
and they're barking more and the clients. So yeah, and
that's where again management can really reduce the amount of
stress that the dog is experiencing. So yeah, management is
the first step I take in my cases when I'm
starting to offer suggestions, Let's look at management first, then

(26:25):
we'll get into the behavior change strategies too.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Love that you on that, and I so many times
I see that when we put a really good management
into play and we're giving a stressifaication. A couple of
weeks later and I go back, we see some major
changes in the dog just because of those changes that
they've made, and that is pretty incredible. Gives us a

(26:51):
brain that we can work with.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
And you just you know, when you take a dog
or a human and put them change their environments. You know,
they say behaviors in them environment right, and behaviors contextual.
But also I think not just behavior, it's the welfare
is very environment dependent. So it's the same thing for people.
You might see behaviors change simply by reducing the stress

(27:16):
and increasing the human or dogs enrichment needs as well
as you know, changing the environment, so we we're less
likely to see the problem behavior. So sometimes because people
think about training like, oh, sit down, stay, come, We've
got to teach a dog this and that, And yes,
those can be those are important in many cases, but
really for aggression cases, so much more has to do

(27:38):
with the other things we're talking about. Addressing the health,
making sure we're the dogs living in a good quality of life,
low stress, lots of enrichment, choice of control, an agency
in the environment. Those things matter, you know, relationship with
the guardian often so much more than let's teach his
dog to go station on a mat instead of barking

(27:58):
at the front door. Yes, that can work, but if
you again don't look to take a step back and
look at the big picture, sometimes we can miss something
really important.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, agreed. Let's you know what, you talked several times
about resource guarding and that being a major factor with
some aggression cases and many aggression cases. So talk to
our audience about how common that is for resource guarding
and when should somebody be concerned about resource guarding.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, so let me define resource guarding first. It's a
dog using behavior. Doesn't have to be always the classic
mungeon growling biting behavior, just dog using behavior to maintain
access to an item or what it's called a resource
that it doesn't want to lose. So it could be food, toys, bones,

(28:51):
resting spots, it could be people. I include territory as
sort of under that umbrella resource guarding as well. It's
just a dog protecting something of value and using behavior
to do so. So that is my definition of resource guarding,
and when you think about it, it is normal behavior.
It is abnormal for me not to see some resource

(29:14):
guarding in dogs to some degree. So it's not always
just the growling sort of those behaviors. It may be
just the dog eating faster, or the dog putting their
body in front of something a little bit more when
they see something approaching, so doesn't it's not always overt
And that's important to remember because again it is normal behavior.

(29:36):
And when we go back to the human analogy and
we think about how humans behave this equivalent of the
dog maybe just putting their body closer to the item
or putting it in between whoever's coming closer to them
and the item is the equivalent of somebody locking their
door at nights. How many people do that? I think
most of the listeners, or maybe something you're walking down

(29:57):
a place where there's potential pickpockets, or there's it's a
dark alley. What are we going to do with our
wallet or our purse. We're gonna maybe hold it a
little closer to us, or just check through the do
the little pocket tap for that to check the walls.
Walls there yet there, Let me just make sure it's
nice and snug here, you know. So that is that's
that's resource guarding, right. Uh. A resource competition can happen too.

(30:21):
So we saw during the pandemic, everybody's scrambling and fighting
over hand sanitizer and toilet paper, right and it and it.
Dogs would probably look as like, are you guys crazy?
What do you like? What are you competing over? Like
this thing that's about like alcohol? Terrible? Like well, that's
that's the point. So we have to think about like
for dogs, some things are important to them that may
not be to us. You know, it could be another

(30:42):
animal's poop and enough to fight over with another animal.
And we're as humans were like, oh, that's so disgusting.
For dogs, they're like, this is gold here. So so
so that is what resource guarding is, just keeping access
to things and and the vast majority of dogs do
it to some extent, to some small degree, and we

(31:03):
may not notice, and they may be doing it right
in front of us. So very important to recognize that
if a dog's garding said, there's no need to punish
them at all. They're just a vast majority of times
I'm thanking them thanks for growling. For as I walk
by this, I don't know animal carcass that I find disgusting,

(31:23):
but you find absolutely delightful. You growl and you let
me know that that's valuable to you. Well, thank you
instead of biting me. Right, I'll take all those things.
I'll take growling, snarling, lunging or whatever. Thank you for
letting me know you're uncomfortable to me because you've got
something of super high value. Just like if I had
a dog that tends to chew on paper and I've
just got to stack one hundred dollars bills or something

(31:45):
next to me, what am I going to do? Right,
same exact thing. So yeah, it's uh, you know, and
I understand when it can be concerning obviously, if dogs
that bite are start to go towards use aggression to
or it's other household or animals and houm or people
and the home kids especially, that can of course be

(32:06):
problematic and dangerous in some cases. So what do we do.
We go to management, right, there's that keyword of management,
and then addressing and changing the association for the dog.
We make positive associations when that person approaches or when
that child happens to be in the same room, and
we just pair there. Oftentimes very straightforward. We're just pairing

(32:28):
a positive association with that trigger in the environment. You know, hey,
good things happen. A handful of treats come flying at you,
really high value treats. Anytime this person shows up and
you just get rinsing and repeating that as soon as
you know. It's just like the person that's showing up
at your front step when you've locked your door because
you're getting tired of the solicitors. But that person just

(32:49):
keeps trying and ringing, and then next thing you know,
you open the door of the hair handing you a
bundle one hundred dollar bills. Next thing you know, you're
gonna be like, ah, there they go again. You know,
maybe a rain camera goes off. You're going to go
running to that door to open it, be like, what
do you got for me? Today. So that's how we
change the associations. Same thing for dogs as this we
could do for people.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
So you see the dog growling, you see thank you,
and then you give them space.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Give them space. Yeah know that next step, Oh, I
have to manage this because I recognize that, Hey, I'm
cooking in the kitchen, I'm busy, and I'm feeding my
dog in the kitchen. I just have to walk by
and they growled at me. So what's the management step. Well,
we can maybe feed them further outside the kitchen or
in another location so they don't feel threatened just because
I'm trying to cook dinner for myself in the kitchen
or something like that. And then we could take it

(33:36):
a step further. We can take some of what we're
cooking in the kitchen and bring it over to the
dog while they're eating in the other space, and they
start working on the behavior change strategy. And next thing
you know, the dog's like, this is great. I love
when you coming near me now when I'm eating because
it always predicts good things. So again, it's usually a
very straightforward, simple way or a type of behavior issue

(33:59):
to treat and to work with. It's again just understanding
we don't need to. We have to avoid the punishment
because that when you think about it, think about that
analogy is that if that person coming over to your
front door when you've just locked it does the opposite.
You don't answer the door, they start banging hard, or
they bang the door down and say give me that
it's a mine. You know I'm the boss or you

(34:21):
know I'm the dominant one, or something like that. That's
going to make a real negative association for you. So
what do you think you're going to do next? As
that homeowner? They can escalate very quickly. So that's why
I want to really avoid it, and especially in resource
guarding cases, because it's terrible to punish a dog or something.
That's like punishing a dog for breathing.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
That's a great analogy. So in our household conflict, is
it okay for people to let the dogs sort it
out on their own?

Speaker 3 (34:56):
That's an interesting question because that was a very common myth.
You know, you know, if two dogs have to shoes,
let them mark it out on their own, and that
when we think about it, really it doesn't make any
sense because if we were just gonna let them work
it out on their own, then we wouldn't have to
actually think about letting them work it out on their own,

(35:19):
right because they would have already worked it out on
their own. They would have had that opportunon. It usually
gets to the point of fighting, so there is no
it's there is no working on. It has already gone
to the point of oftentimes damaging kind of conflicts. So
that being said, there, you know, we there is a
gray area because we have to say it's normal canine communication.
So for instance, you have a new puppy and you

(35:41):
have an adult dog, and that adult dogs chewing on
their their bone or eating their food, and that adult
dog growls at the at the puppy when the puppy approaches,
and the puppies like, oh, I'm sorry, I don't mean
to do that, and then you never see it happen again.
That's normal communication. So that in a sense is a
way of letting the dogs work it out, but it's

(36:03):
not planned to do that. I mean, we're not saying okay,
we're just it's a free for all fight club here.
It is. You know, there is normal communications between dogs
that we can recognize, and the way to tell if
the communication is going well between the animals is to
see a less frequency of those behaviors that we find problematic.

(36:24):
Is that if we see an escalation and our frequency
of the growling behavior, then we know we're not going
in the right direction. Or if we see it escalate
to growling and air snapping and we don't see it
change over time to less frequency and less intensity, then
we know we need to intervene into the case. And
it's usually even before that. My recommendation is not to

(36:45):
suppress all communication between the animals, but also be a
referee sometimes we need to help sometimes say Okay, I
see you guys are giving each other a stink eye
over this bone or whatever. So let me intervene. Let
me manage things so you guys can feel safe here
and it becomes predictable for you and there's less anxiety
when things become predictable. So yeah, there's it's a I

(37:09):
think it's a question that as we say, it depends,
it depends on the on what the dogs you're doing already.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, yeah, it depends a lot. As someone who I
do a lot of work with young kids and do
education classes with kids around dogs and also a licensed
family pause educator, So this is a big one for me.

(37:38):
When we're talking about households with young kids, the management
becomes even more critical, how much you know. I also
hear a lot of parents saying, we want to teach
our kids what to do and what not to do,
but we can't really rely just on the kids, can't

(37:59):
we want? Do you want to talk about that?

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah? Management is the key word when you have kids,
especially much younger children that aren't going to be consistent
in listening to your directions or what you want them
to do. Management is going to be an absolute necessity
because if not, the dog might practice the most undesirable behavior,

(38:22):
the same as the children. And so it's our job
as the adults to really be managing things while refereeing well,
being observant and also cognizant of when it can be problematic.
You know, there's let's say not a lot of management,
or you know, ten kids in a home with ten
dogs or something that could be really difficult to manage.

(38:43):
So I would say with kids, I'm really careful with
you know, if there's any kind of history of aggression,
I have to see really good management from the client
to continue moving because I want to make sure i'm
taking into account the welfare of the child. Course, so
you know, management can't stress it enough. If we don't

(39:07):
see it enough, then then there potentially will be a problem.
So that's first and foremost. And then oftentimes it's just
time the dogs like, all right, you've got my back.
You're keeping me safe. Here. This little bobble headed kid
that's running around the house tripping on things and falling
over on top of me now can no longer do that,
at least for the most part. So now I feel

(39:29):
much safer. My anxiety's gone down, my stress has gone down,
and I trust this kid more. But I trust you
too as the parents, to be able to help manage this.
So yeah, that's a I think the most important part.
And then yes, you can help dogs feel better about children,
just like we can help children learn what to do

(39:49):
around dogs. But you can't rely on either of those
parties to be one hundred percent reliable in that aspect.
That's where again good parenting and good outs is still
crucial for those kind of cases.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, yeah, okay, so I've got just another thing. So
people talk about, first of all, problems with strangers coming
onto the property. And also I hear a lot of
my dog's just trying to protect me, And that can
be too when they're outside and somebody comes up, My

(40:27):
dog is trying to protect me, and that's what's going on.
I want to talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
I hear that a lot. I will say that I
think he's just trying to protect me when they're on
a leash with their dog and the dogs sparking at strangers,
and that can be true, but in rare cases, so
I'll often have to break through, well, it's nice that
he might be trying to protect you. However, he's probably
trying to just protect himself at that point, you know so,

(40:57):
and that's you have to kind of break that news
to some clients that you know they think it's because
it's endearing, it feels nice that dog's trying to protect them,
But many times it's just the dog afraid for their
own safety. It's not to say they wouldn't be protective
of their person in some cases. Is that vast majority
of times they're just worried about whatever's approaching them. And
much of the reason outside the home is because the

(41:19):
dog is on leash, so they're restricted in how much
they can escape from that thing, So the beach prevents
them from that escape option, which then which is technically
the flight option, right, and we've all heard that fight flight,
So if you remove that flight option, then we're often
left with fight or freeze or fidget. But it's often fight.

(41:39):
Dog's gonna start barking on lunching at something that it
wouldn't maybe necessarily off leash. So it's so with dogs
that it looks like they're protecting the person. Always assessed like,
how does this dog do with another person? How does
the dog do in the same context if there's not
no guardian around, it's just strangers, and you know, you
can test that, but usually they will tell you all

(42:00):
of that. You don't have to set the dog up
for failure or anything like that. And oftentimes you can
even see that during your training sessions. You can start
to see the dog. Is it truly protecting the person?
You'll know because you'll start to see those little signatures
come up. It can look like the dog body blocking,
meaning the dog getting in front of the oncoming trigger

(42:23):
or person. It can be the how the dog's body
language looks so high flagging tail, ears forward, hard stare, agonistic, pucker,
sometimes all these which is like the lips of the
mouth going into a C shape and showing the teeth,
those can sometimes be more indicative of a dog truly
protecting their person, but it's rare, again, and it's usually

(42:47):
only certain breeds of dogs. Now, any dog could move
towards I'm going to truly protect my person from a threat. Sure,
I'll protect myself, but I'm more worried about protecting my person.
Any dog can fall into that category, but you're going
to see it more prevalently in certain breeds that have
been selected for that over again many generations. So it
could be your Doberman's or your German shepherds, your Belgian Malinois,

(43:10):
you know, so dog's selected for working that task. You
probably will see more likelihood of the dog truly protecting
the person. But you know, if you assess for it,
most of the time you're going to find out this
dog also does this when the dog walkers walking them,
or Uncle Bob is walking, or you're walking them as
the trainer or somebody else's or you know, and and

(43:32):
so that's true owner guarding or protection the others technically
a former fresource guarding. And then I think you mentioned territory, right,
so I should probably talk about strangers on property. That
can be borne out of a lot of different reasons. Again,
it's all about grood assessment. So for instance, a dog
might look like it's protecting the property, but maybe they're

(43:54):
just fearful of people, and maybe the dog is more
likely to do it on property because they've practiced it
there much more and they feel maybe a little bit
more confident to do that versus when they're off property,
so you see less prevalence of it. But it's the
dog just still afraid of people, so that may be it.
Sometimes it is the dog protecting the property, the dog

(44:16):
saying this is my territory. I wants you to go away.
So it could be that. It could be the dog
protecting other resources on the property. It's like, all right,
now you're coming into my home and now you're near
my stuffts near the front door. It could be protection
of the people, it could be protection of other pets
in there. There's a lot of different reasons for to

(44:36):
happen on property, and again one way to do is
just get a good assessment, look at the history and
you'll see a history of all right, the dog only
does it on property, no matter who's around, no matter
what resources around, and that'll give you the answer. Versus
a dog who might do it off property, on property
around certain people. The dog shows ears pulled back and

(44:58):
tail tucked. That's probably much more driven by the emotion
of fear and ig just afraid of whatever it is.
So yeah, it's it's kind of easy to miss. I
don't want to say diagnose, determine the cast. It's kind
of easier to make mistakes determining the cause if you

(45:20):
don't make a really look at the history and make
a proper assessment. Because if we if we don't have
the right cause and we start addressing it like it's
something else, we're going to go in the wrong direction.
In some cases, we might give the wrong behavior plan.
So that's why I keep going back to just to
really try to figure out the cause. Why is the dog,
what's the function of the behavior? As they say, yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Oh, this has been so helpful. I'm sure for a
lot of people. We covered a lot of ground today.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
Yeah, lots of great topics, lots of good questions too.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, I'm so glad we could do this. Really really
appreciate your time. I know you were just and that's
pretty valuable these days. You're all over the world on
any given day.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yeah, this is a good time of year for me.
I've been off. I've got about a month and a
half off from travel, so yeah what. I am on
the road at least twice a month most of the year,
so yeah, it's good to be home and be able
to chat and catch up on some things too.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
So I can't wait to see you in person in
September Aggression and Dogs Conference. That's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, thank you so very very much for
being here and sharing all this wonderful information for people.
I hope it's going to be a help for tons
of people out there.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
My pleasure. Thanks so much, Lisa, Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to my podcast,
come back often, and tell your friends. If I can
be of any help to you and your pet. Please
reach out.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
To me via my website www dot somuchpotential dot com
and for a lot more information, fun and videos. Please
follow me so Much Potential on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
See you soon.