Case Study – Bentley – And Why Proper Diagnosis Is Important.

Aggression is a word thrown around all too often – and it’s a fear based ideology. All it serves to do is scare the owners into control and management. Aggression isn’t a diagnosis – it’s a symptom, the outcome of a problem. If you don’t understand what’s causing the problem, then no amount of “training” is going to fix it.

Bentley’s owner contacted me from a discussion on Facebook over her dogs aggressive behaviors. He’s nipped/bitten 4 people and she wants to get to the bottom of it. Upon meeting him, one quickly learns that he’s insecure, fearful, doesn’t trust anything. He puts on a good show at the gate, growling etc but that’s not the whole story.

I don’t care that he’s putting on an aggressive display, I need to understand why. When I open the gate, I’m simply showing him – here’s my intention, now show me yours. My intention is to invade the back yard – his intention is to run. In that moment, he played the only hand he has. I now know that he’s an insecure dog – he doesn’t want to bite. Bentley is carrying alot of mental stress, yes, dogs have mental health too. It looks like his brain is breaking in this video, he’s so unsure – but he wants to.

If Bentley was aggressive, I wouldn’t have gotten through the gate.

Bentley is scared – he doesn’t trust – and that can’t be trained. It’s not a trainable condition. I’m in his space, he’s not sure what to do, I’m making myself vulnerable to him. Squat down, if he decides to lunge, I doubt I can move fast enough. I’m showing him – I know you’re scared, I’m not a threat, and I’m trusting him not to attack. He’s not ready to trust me. When I head out to the car to get Monty, my back is turned and he comes down the stairs. Some insecure dogs will do a sneak attack when your back is turned. That’s why I turned around and said don’t even think about it.

Brought Monty in – it’s important to understand if Bentley is going to show any dog aggression. And he doesn’t. I have Monty in my arms, he’s protected by my elbow – but Bentley comes in for a bum sniff. Great, he’s still got dog social skills and the bum sniff is important. Monty isn’t showing any fear of him, so I put him down. Monty is confident – there is no aggression toward him. Dogs will trust another dog far faster than a human being – and I’m using Monty as a monkey in the middle. Monty brings Bentley to me. Monty is interesting. There are times when Bentley goes over his back to Monty’s neck – in a dog park, Monty would correct that because he doesn’t like it. In back yards through assessments, he won’t correct dogs. He’s not afraid – at one point, he’s whimpering at me for me to pick him up. He’s not scared, it’s cold out – he’s cold.

We head out for a quick walk around the block, now I have the leash and there is no aggression. But one can clearly see the fear and insecurity. When I squat down, I’m asking him to choose to come to me, choose to trust me. Everything is calm, nothing bad is happening, I’m not throwing treats at him or using any other tools. He needs to choose to overcome fear and come to me because he trusts me – it’s his choice, I can’t force it. It’s trust that conquers fear – they are polar opposites.

Bentley is showing that he wants to trust so badly, and it doesn’t take him long to choose to come to me at will for affection.

I turned the camera off when the owners came out, I don’t like recording owners for privacy sake. And I didn’t get the video. Once they both came out, Bentley showed his true colors – he got grumpy with me because the owners were nervous and he felt he needed to protect them. I don’t care at the moment, now I understand what is going on with him.

So that’s the diagnosis. Bentley is fearful – and fear is lack of trust. A dog showing aggression due to fear does not make for an aggressive dog. The owners don’t trust the dog. It’s not resource guard, Bentley need to learn to trust and that’s my job. I’m going to build trust with him, build a relationship with him – it’s not a training issue. Then I reflect that trust onto the owners – and they take it from there. They need to see him capable – they need to see that they can trust him again – and the assessment is the first step.

This is mostly what I see. Aggression and reactivity are not a diagnosis, they are symptoms – the outcome of a problem. And all you can do with symptoms is control and manage them. In order to fix these symptoms, one needs to step back and ask “why” is the dog acting like this – fix the why, and the symptoms disappear.

Yes, it’s that easy. When your dog trusts and respects you, they will be confident with you. They will feel secure with you, they know they can look to you in times of unsurety. People need to step back and ask themselves – do I have a healthy relationship with my dog? If the answer is no, then it’s not a training problem. You can do this yourself.

The hardest thing you’re going to do is learning to trust your dog. Getting their trust is easy. Giving it takes the dog learning through making choice. They need to show you that you can trust them – but in order to do that, they need real choices, not the illusion of choice.

True aggression is very rare – and even then there is a reason for it. Find the reason, understand it. Truly aggressive dogs don’t just happen overnight, it starts as reactivity and escalates from there. If this is true, then all aggression is based in fear. No?

I look forward to working with Bentley and his owners.