It upsets me to no end to see these dogs be declared “aggressive”. Freddie is not an aggressive dog, he’s displaying aggression due to fear AKA insecurity. Fear is lack of trust, and he doesn’t trust anyone – he has been given no reason to. He belongs to a pack of 4 dogs, the father and 3 littermates and they all have insecurity issues to varying degrees. Nobody has been in this back yard other than family in over a year. Here are a few of his best shots.
Aggression is a symptom, the outcome of a problem – always. There is something causing it and that something needs to be understood. We are going to focus on that “something” – fix the “something” and the symptoms disappear. This is the reason why so many people are trying to “control and manage it” – that’s all you can do with symptoms. We are dealing with a dog, not diabetes. People are quick to blame genetics, but trust me, there is a whole list of possible reasons for a dog to show aggression – and genetics is at the very bottom of that list.
What is Freddie’s issue? He is extremely fragile – very insecure. He’s scared, doesn’t trust anything. So, how do we tackle this?
First of all, one cannot be afraid of dogs to work with dogs like Freddie. Ever hear the phrase “man fears that which he does not understand – if he can’t control it, he destroys it”? Yeah, that’s where dog training is heading. If you fear dogs, then you don’t understand them. If you’re a trainer that fears dogs, that’s bad – and that’s the very reason why dogs like Freddie won’t be given a chance.
I’m going to take the time to let him learn to trust me. That takes patience, time and fearlessness. He knows I’m not afraid of him, and like Bear – he’s doing everything to drive me away which isn’t going to work short of tearing my leg off. He doesn’t want to bite, and through the hour and a half yesterday, he showed that he wants to trust. A dog that doesn’t trust has zero reason to choose to follow – and I need him to choose to trust me. That can’t be forced.
I’ll update with progress as we go.