Tips to Stop Dog on Dog Aggression With Positive Training

For this West Hollywood dog training session we worked with Hamilton, going over some tips to stop dog on dog aggression.

Hamilton’s guardian had a really good understanding of dog behavior and training fundamentals. This allowed us to move faster than many of my other initial sessions. She already had a marker in place but hadn’t been using it as often as I would like.

Often when you have a dog aggressive dog, you want to identify why the dog feels the need to act out in the first place. In my experience as a dog behavior expert, I have found many dog aggressive dog’s act this way due to a lack of early socialization or a negative experience with another dog.

Hamilton‘s guardian had socialized him when he was younger, but then Covid happened which probably resulted in some regression. Unfortunately, he also had a few run ins with other dogs that either played too rough or tried to dominate and intimidate him. These arew common things that can result in a dog aggressive dog.

While we would introduce an exercise to stop dog on dog aggression later, I made sure to point out the importance of the things that we can do in the house to make the dog feel more comfortable. Using the marker word consistently was near the top of the list.

Another activity that may seem unrelated but can have a profound impact is to communicate to the dog clearly what you do and don’t want them to do. One of the most common dog behavior mistakes many people make is giving their dog attention when they offer undesired behaviors. To dogs, all of your attention is equally rewarding. So yelling at your dog (Dont yell at your dog) not to bark is pretty similar to giving them a treat.

Anything your dog is doing before you get it attention a pet or a treat is what you were specifically rewarding it for. This situation came up a few times; when Hamilton jumped up on me, tried to get into my bag or onto my lap.

Each time he did those things, his guardian offered some form of verbal disagreement. While I appreciate her sentiment, this usually backfires and causes the dog to engage in the exact behavior the human wants to stop.

Celebrating is the easiest way to teach your dog what you want them to do. Not only does this build the dog’s confidence, it helps them practice basic obedience, give them more experience of listening to you, helps them see you acting like a leader, and essentially teaches the dog manners. I recommend the guardians tell each other to celebrate anytime Hamilton offers a desired behavior that their partner misses.

I also went over dog consent, body language and cut off signals. Many people do not know how to recognize when their dog tells them no or it feels uncomfortable. But if you want to stop dog on dog aggression, you need to recognize the instant your dog starts to feel uncomfortable. This gives you the ability to solve the problem for them. Usually this involves increasing the distance between your dog and whatever it is that they are uncomfortable around.

Tips to Stop Dog on Dog Aggression

Many people create situations that cause dogs to feel the need to react. The dog communicates that they don’t want to meet another dog or have the other dog approache them. They do this by offering cut off signals that the humans fail to recognize. But if you want to stop dog on dog aggression, you must be able to see when your dog is uncomfortable so you know when to step in to help.

We headed out for a walk so that I could see Hamilton’s dog on dog aggression in person, but wouldn’t you know it, there were very few dogs out. We soldiered on and eventually ran across a couple of dogs. While Hamilton isnt an aggressive dog, the way dogs react when they are too close to a dog they are uncomfortable with is often confused with aggressive dog behavior.

One of the best ways to stop dog on dog aggression is to change how a dog feels about the other dog. This needs to be done at the dog’s pace and in positive way.

To help the guardian in that regard, we discussed how to play the engage disengage game. This is one of the primary ways that I stop dog on dog aggression. The idea is to create positive associations when your dog looks at another dog from a distance. At first you reward your dog for looking at the other dog, but eventually it transitions to rewarding your dog for looking away from the other dog.

Fortunately, I don’t have to see a dog to offer a behavior to show someone how to fix it. The dogs we spotted were not his nemesises, so we headed back to Hamilton’s home where we filmed a video on how to stop dog on dog aggression using a spoon, peanut butter and a few other dog training tips.

If you have a dog reactive dog, take a minute to watch the free positive Dog training video below.

By using an incompatible behavior and utilizing peanut butter or another object the dog can lick, we can help create a positive association while also releasing the feel good endorphins of oxytocin and serotonin.

The key to this exercise, just like the engaged disengage game, is to manage the distance between your dog and whatever they’re reactive to. If you make sure to manage the distance for them, they don’t have to lunge or snap at the other dog to make them go away.

I covered a number of other tips to stop dog on dog aggression in that video. While that exercise will go a long ways towards helping change the dogs emotional response, the things that we covered inside the home are almost as important.

I think part of Hamilton’s reactive behavior is due to him thinking that he needs to protect his female guardian. She reported that he does not offer the same behavior with her husband.

Hamilton is also able to go on pack walks with other dogs. So he is not a dog aggressive dog outright, it sounds like there are some dogs that he just doesn’t like.

By recording the sound of the other dog’s collars and playing them while he eats his food and licking peanut butter while he watches them walk down the street and a distance, his guardians can start to build up a positive association.

I wish there was just one trick or exercise to stop dog on dog aggression. But just like many other dog behavior problems, it’s a result of a combination of factors.

By building up Hamilton‘s confidence in his guardians leadership, giving him attention for the things that they like, clearly communicating by using their marker and stopping or moving him away anytime he communicates he is uncomfortable or offers cut off signals, she can strip away many of the elements that have become triggers to his dog on dog aggression.

Later in the session I showed the guardian how to use the positive interrupter lesson and hand targeting to redirect him away from things they don’t want him to do. I also spent some time going over how to develop a strong recall in dogs.

Throughout the session, we kept on coming back to the concept of breaking things down into small steps where Hamilton could be successful. I think that like many guardians, Hamilton’s humans have often moved faster than he was ready for.

The last exercise we covered was a wonderful example of breaking things down into steps. Hamilton had gotten into a habit of running away when his guardian picked up the harness. Since she had to put that on him to walk him, she had been doing this for a while. But when I asked her to show me, it was clear that he was giving her cut off signals and was uncomfortable with the act of putting the harness on.

Over the course of 3 to 5 minutes, I walked the guardian through a CER exercise. By the time we got done, Hamilton was putting the harness on himself. It wasn’t magic, we just moved in small enough steps for him to digest and created a positive association.

I recommended the guardian practice this exercise with the harness a couple of times a day when she was not planning on taking him for a walk. Practicing when you don’t need it is the best time to practice.

We covered a lot in this in-home West Hollywood dog training session. To make sure that the guardian could remember everything, I handed her my camera and sat down with Hamilton to record a roadmap to success summary video. You can check that out below.