Dog Aggression Towards Family Members

In my article “Your Dogs Aggression Towards Strangers” I talked about the major mitigating factor that affects how you dog interacts with strangers, unfamiliar environments and different and new animals. In this article I will cover why your dog is aggressive to family members and this aggression is not the same as it is when a dog is aggressive to strangers.

So what is the underlying cause of your dog being aggressive to your family members? Well first you need to think of your family in terms in which a dog thinks of the family and that is as a pack. Canines live in a pack hierarchy. What this means is that every member of the pack has a place in that back and dogs that have a lower ranking in the pack are subordinate to those members with a higher ranking.

Your family is the substitute pack for your dog and if the dog does not know or understand the pecking order of the pack it will act aggressively to those members it believes it is superior to. You therefore need to change the pecking order in the dogs mind by initiating obedience training sessions that teach the dog that you and your family members are the boss.

This needs to be done with the individuals that the dog is acting aggressively with as they are the ones the dog considers to be of inferior standing. These sessions should be no more than 15 minutes in length and should be carried out three times a day.

When the dog follows instructions given the dog should be praised and rewarded with a treat to let the dog know that such behavior is acceptable. When the dog fails to obey or follow directions then the dog should be isolated form everyone for a period of time so that the dog realizes that such behavior is unacceptable.

With constant training your dog will soon learn that he or she holds the lost rank in the family and is subordinate to the other family members and it will not seek to dominate the family members.