When to Do If Your Dog Acts Aggressive to Animals on TV

For this in home Omaha dog training session we worked with 3 year-old Border Collie /Heeler Mix Sadie; sharing the tips to help if your dog acts aggressive to animals on TV.

I had already done a session with Sadie and her roomie Leila, going over marker words, dog consent, the importance of celebrating and a number of other dog behavior fundamentals. Both dogs are rescues and have some confidence and socialization issues, but I used a number of dog behavior tricks to help them feel comfortable with me.

I always go through those fundamentals even if they dont seem directly related to the main issues people hire me to fix as they often have an impact on those behaviors too. Doesnt matter if your dog is fearful of strangers, jumps up or when your dog acts aggressive to animals on TV.

Often a dog’s overall confidence impacts their behavior, same as for humans. When a dog understands what we want, feels secure in their environment and has a regular schedule, they can anticipate things and get into a flow. While these things wont directly help if your dog acts aggressive to animals on TV, they will have an impact. Taking advantage of any advantage is important if your dog gets mad at dogs on TV.

You can always set your dog up for success by exercising them a bit (and giving 10 minutes of rest) before practicing this tip to stop dog reactivity. Other hacks for reactive dogs is to choose an environment that is suited to achieving your goals. Avoiding exterior stressors like a crying baby, leaf blower or other sounds and actions can help.

What to Do it Your Dog Acts Aggressive to Animals on TV

Speaking of setting dogs up for success, practicing a part of the stimulus can help many dogs with reactive behavior issues. I often lower the intensity or make it easier by slowing down the speed, turning down the volume, or increasing the distance. While the primary issue is Sadie is reactive to animals, practicing with animals on TV allows us to start, stop, pause or run the playback in slow motion.

So its not that this dog gets mad at dogs on TV, its that Sadie doesnt like dogs she doesnt know. So having a dog or animal suddenly appear in her living room without warning is shocking and a violation to Sadie. Just like us when we get caught off guard, its not unusual when a dog acts aggressive to animals on TV when surprised.

But in Sadie’s case, its more than that. She has a negative perception of dogs and animals on TV and acting out makes them go away as her humans turn off the tv. But that is just a temporary fix. I knew that in order to stop this behavior where the dog acts aggressive to animals on TV I had to change how Sadie felt about the animals.

I like to use a combination of desensitization and counter conditioning to stop reactivity like when a dog gets mad at dogs on TV. If your dog is reactive to things on TV, you should check out the free positive dog training video below.

Now the most important thing to accomplish when using this method is your dog doesnt react. As you saw in the video, Sadie reacted a few times due to this being the first time we went over this trick to use when a dog gets mad at dogs on TV. Increasing the distance or keeping the screen time shorter will help her humans practice without reacting.

Once they find the right distance and duration, they can really dial in. Once they get into the groove of it, they can start decreasing the distance. Eventually we want Sadie to be able to look at the TV from any distance fine. The days when their dog gets mad at dogs on TV are soon to come to an end.