Stopping Dog Aggression Towards People

Dog aggression towards people is the worst one of all the various forms of dog aggression. Any time a dog begins to act out aggressively towards humans, it is a warning that your dog may actually be willing to bite someone, perhaps a family member or a guest to your house.

You will need to correct your dogs behavior if you see it displaying aggression towards people. Usually a dog will have a reason that has resulted in his becoming aggressive. Often the reason for aggression towards people is that the dog has been previously abused by a former master or someone else.

If you know what to look for, the signs of aggression towards people are easy to spot. The dog will be snarling or growling while displaying his teeth. Often a dog feeling aggressive will be barking, snapping his teeth, and have all the hair on its back raised up. Sometimes, strong aggression towards people will lead to a biting episode unless the stimulus is removed or the dog is corrected.

For a dog to become this aggressive towards people, it has usually arrived at the its level of aggression because of some type of negative conditioning. Therefore, by using positive conditioning, you can gradually correct your dog's aggressive nature-repeating a steady training method using positive reinforcement to restore your dog's trust and confidence in people, and thus finally remove his aggression towards people.

Do not let your aggressive dog run loose until you have retrained him not to be aggressive towards people. Be sure to keep your aggressive dog inside an enclosed yard, or if you have no fence, be sure to keep him on a lead so he cannot get loose and possibly attack any passersby.

Use this following training advice to correct your dog's aggression. Start by taking your dog with you to visit a friend of your-someone who likes dogs is a good idea, so they won't be acting timid. Meet on neutral turf, so your dog's territorial aggression instincts are not engaged. Before you start the training, put your dog on his leash. The leash gives you the control you will need in case your dog decides to lunge at your friend. In case your dog does act aggressively towards your friend, you should immediately calm him down with a firm "no" and put him back into his sit position. However, do not yell at your dog or punish him for this aggression. The hitting and yelling will only hurt your training efforts, because your dog will not calm down if he is getting the negative reinforcement.

Make sure your dog has remained in a relaxed sit position before giving him any praise or rewards. Once he does so, you can then praise him and give him a treat for being a good boy. By only praising and rewarding the behaviors you want, you are using positive reinforcement to get the responses form your dog that you want to see. Every time he displays any aggression at all, you will need to repeat this step. Through the positive reinforcement your dog not gets, his aggression towards people will eventually be desensitized through repeated exposures to them.

You will have to give your dog repeated training sessions for this training to work. After your dog has become relaxed with your friend, you can do the same training step using different people, until he can meet anyone without first being aggressive.

In the early days of his training just have him meet 1 new person at a time. That is because a larger group of people might overwhelm the dog, and cause him too much anxiety to be able to relax. However, after he has met and become comfortable around a variety of individual people you should gradually increase the amount of people he is exposed to in social situations. Of course, you want him to be comfortable around groups of people in every social situation, so he can be part of the family.

If you use these steps your dog's aggression towards people will be corrected, and he will finally be around people without feeling like someone may abuse him. Once your dog has stopped his aggression towards people, you will find that the both of you are much more relaxed-it is no fun worrying about your dog's aggression-and whether he might end up biting someone. Now a walk with your dog in public will be fun instead of a challenge.

The best way to get good results with training your dog at home is to use the step by step advice for obedience training and behavior problem solving in a great dog training book or even a dog training video program. Learning from an expert and copying those proven methods is the surest way to get the quickest and most effective results.