Case Study:
A large dog growls when eating near a small dog. In this instance would you intervene or ignore the display and what action would you take to prevent this behavior in the future?
You should definitely intervene to prevent the two dogs from fighting. Move the dogs away from their good bowls by using the leash or calling them away with a treat and begin to feed them in separate enclosures. Just because two dogs eat together at home does not mean they will do well eating together in a boarding enclosure. Added stress, plus the fact that they do not have as much space as they do at home can cause dogs that normally eat together to not do so well in a boarding situation.
The other concern in this situation is the size of the dogs. Large dogs can obviously do more damage to a small dog in the event of a fight. This should always be taken into consideration when you put dogs of different sizes (even when they are from the same family) in an enclosure together.
Case Study:
Dog stiffens when trimming nails.
At the moment you see the stiffening, recognizing that this is an aggressive display, you should take a break, stop trimming the nails, and ignore the dog for just a few seconds. If the dog relaxes, then you can try to resume the nail trim. But if the stiffening resumes, you may want to try a different approach. To prevent this behavior from occurring, it’s great to have someone else who can assist you and help you turn the grooming experience into something more positive. Your assistant can feed the dog treats and while eh’s eating, you would trim the nails. If this is not possible, you may’ve to muzzle the dog in order to finish the nail trim.
Whether you can use the treats or you can use a muzzle, you should inform the owners and talk to them about the need for some behavioral training to work on this behavior and help the dog accept having its nails trimmed.
Case Study:
Dog stares and growls when enclosure is approached. Would you intervene or ignore and what action would you take to prevent this behavior in the future?
You should definitely stop your approach and wait to see if the dog changes his reaction. If the dog continues to stare and growl, you would intervene only by ensuring that you approach in a non-threatening manner, turn sideways, and avoid eye contact. If this does not cause the dog to change his posture, go get assistance from your supervisor if you really need to get into the enclosure to get the dog. The most important thing is to keep yourself safe and respond appropriately to the dog’s aggressive display. You’re getting a warning sign…you need to heed it.
Case Study:
You have a loose dog that freezes and snarls when you see him. That mean’s the dog has gotten out of his enclosure and he’s running around without a leash or collar on.
As you come up to him, he freezes and snarls. In this situation I would ignore the dog initially and attempt to reduce his anxiety by changing my body posture. Again, turn sideways and avoid eye contact. Make sure that your body language is an non-threatening as possible. If you have treats you can try to use those to change the dogs association with you from being something scary to you being somebody with food. A dog will often start to take treats and allow you to approach or come to you to get the food. Again, since the dog’s loose if you cannot change the body language of the dog, you should move away slowly and get assistance, or you can open an enclosure and see if the dog will enter the enclosure on his own.
Case Study:
You are walking a dog by an enclosure of other dogs and he barks and snarls at these dogs.
You should intervene to try and prevent this behavior from occurring over and over. You can prevent this by picking the path through your center where there are as few dogs visible as possible so that the dog does not have these triggers. You can try walking the dog and feeding him treats in the hopes that he will be more interested in the treat than in barking at the other dogs. This has an added effect of helping to train the dog to walk more politely and will condition him that walking near other dogs is associated with good things (food and treats).
In the video below we are going to show you aggressive displays. We will discuss each one as we get to them.