Tips to Help a Dog Aggressive Dog Stop Acting Out
By: David Codr
Published Date: January 30, 2025
For this LA dog training session we worked with 8 year-old Belgian Maliois Ellie, sharing tips to help a dog aggressive dog.
We started out the session with the number of basics, introducing a marker word, then using hand targeting so that the humans could practice their timing. I recommended each guardian load the marker with 12 to 20 treats while walking around the home in the next 2 days so that Ellie knows the marker works everywhere.
Next we went over celebrating and how this simple exercise can help increase basic obedience, deepen Ellie’s respect for her humans, teach her manners and boost her confidence. This is the easiest dog training tip I share with my clients, but also sadly the one that many of them disregard. Hopefully the guardians will pointed each other and say celebrate when they see their roommates miss opportunities to reward Ellie for desired behaviors.
Next I shared some creative exercise tips like feeding out of a snuffle mat, using treat dispensing toys and puzzles, some tips for the fetch game, and introduced scent games like cookie in the corner.
I’d love to see the guardians come up with a handful of physical exercise and mental stimulation activities that they can do with Ellie inside the home. Later in the session, I saw that Ellie get hyper aroused when outside – which makes it difficult for her to listen.
Since Ellie has some dog aggression issues and lives in a neighborhood full of dogs, it’s possible that she goes into high alert when outside. The guardians don’t have to stop exercising her outside, but every time she is exposed to another dog and reacts, she is practicing that behavior. If you want to help a dog aggressive dog, you need to limit that when possible.
Anytime you are trying to fix a dog behavior problem, it’s really important that you prevent the dog from practicing the behavior. All behaviors can become a habit if they happen frequently enough. So if you have a dog with a behavior problem, your first step should always be the limit your dog’s access to whatever it is that they are reactive to.
How to Help a Dog Aggressive Dog
Later in the session we headed outside so that I could show the guardians a positive dog training tip to use if you want to help a dog aggressive dog. Unfortunately, there were no dogs out and about due to the Los Angeles County wild fires.
But when the guardians grabbed the gear they use for a walk, I saw that they were using a prong collar. These punishment based training tools can do a lot of damage to dogs, physically and emotionally. They are desigend to stop dogs from pulling on the leash by biting their neck when they pull. But this also creates a negative association with things that are nearby or anything the dog is looking at when the “bite” happens.
If Ellie is like most dog aggressive dogs, she has an emotional outburst when she gets too close to things that scare her. When she pulls or lunges -and the bite happens with the collar – she gets punished and develops a negative associaiton to the things around her or that she is looking at. Use that collar daily and its not at all unusual for a dog to start acting out worse and worse.
Compounding matters, the prong collar releases Cortisol, the stress hormone, into the dog’s blood. When this happens, things are amplifed, making dogs jump at sounds, get jittery and on edge. It can take a dog 3 days of being completely calm for their body to filter out the cortisol. But since the collar is used daily, these collars often trigger PTSD in dogs.
Fortunately, Ellie’s guardians are super loving and supportive and immediately aggressed to stop using the prong collar. I suggested they get a X or Y shaped collar with a front clip to use instead. Those harnesses are better for the dog’s body as they distribute the weight more evenly, but they also remove the punishment which will have a long term benefit for Ellie and be of significxant benefit in their efforts to help a dog aggressive dog.
Once we realized that we weren’t going to find any other dogs, we headed inside so that I could show the guardians how to stop dog aggression using the engage disengage game. If you have a dog who acts aggressive around other dogs, check out the free positive dog training video below.
The great thing about this dog training tip is you can do it anywhere; including inside your home. The key is to make sure there is enough space between the dog and whatever it is normally aggressive to so they doesn’t feel scared or anxious. This is paramount when you want to help a dog aggressive dog as most dogs act out due to feeling scared or fearful. Maintaining as much distance as needed is key in order to help a dog with this technique.
Once you find that distance, you are basically giveing your dog the ability to practice not being aggressive to dogs. I know it sounds odd, but having a dog reactive dog around other dogs at enough of a distance where they dont feel the need to react is how dogs can practice not being dog aggressive.
Id like to see the guardians practice this exercise to stop dog on dog aggression for a few minuites at the window once a day. They may need to do this after exercising Ellie then giving her 20 minutes to rest for optimal success. As they get better, they will be able to start collapsing that distance.
Its a process that takes time. There will be good days and bad days. The key is to do it often in short successful sessions.
At the end of this in home LA dog training session I recorded a roadmap to success summary video to help the humans remember all the things we covered in this session. You can watch this summary video below.
Request help with your dog’s jumping problemCategorized in: Dog Behavior