How to stop Dog Aggression quickly And easily – In a few steps!
hi and thanks for tuning in today we are
taking a look at dog aggression
now of course dog aggression is a huge
topic and there’s a whole range of
things that can cause them to overreact
so what I’ve done today is I’ve put
together some simple techniques and
exercises that you’ll find useful
regardless of whether your dog is
aggressive to bikes
cats cars or other dogs but the main
thing that I really want to portray in
this video is a concept and it can be
summed up in this famous saying it’s not
what you do but it’s the way that you do
it so see if you can get what I mean and
enjoy the video
so in this consultation I’m working with
Tarna he’s an eighteen month old Steffi
Cross Mastiff and his owners asked me to
come and assess him around other dogs
because when he was about eight months
old something like that it’d be started
becoming a little bit dominant and
aggressive his owner kept him away from
other dogs because he didn’t want any
trouble and it’s just sort of that
period of time that he’s been away from
other dogs has got bigger and bigger and
now he really hasn’t been around dogs
for a long long time so I’m not taking
any chances with him we’ve got a muzzle
on him we’ve got him on our harness
there and I’m going to ask his owner to
walk out onto the grass and then I’ll
bring one or more of my dogs out of it
and I want to show you how I work this
sort of situation so the first thing we
need to do is really keep control of the
situation so you can see I’ve got two of
my dogs they’re on leashes that’s the
two boys they’re very good but the last
thing I want is them jogging over to say
hello so I’ll keep control of them with
a short leash you could use a long line
inka they’re in the foreground she’s not
going anywhere so she’s free to wander
around and of course taarna is on elite
so you need that control to start with
the next thing to look at is the energy
of the dog so clearly my dogs are very
calm and relaxed which is brilliant on a
scale of 1 to 10 I’d probably put a
moaner down at a two or three but Tarna
here you can see his energy level is
much more what I’d say is a seven almost
an eight eight out of ten his tail is
upright he’s stiff and strong and he’s
pulling towards my dogs not really what
you’re looking for so when a dog’s
feeling like this confident strong and
almost looking for a bit of trouble and
sort of wanting to man up the best thing
to do is give them some time just move
them away they’re not ready
yet and times on your side you’ll see
taarna will calm down but you don’t want
to bring them over to meet the dogs in
question when he’s in that sort of state
now what I’m going to do here is a very
simple technique but it’s very powerful
it’s something I call stop start change
direction you basically put lead on your
dog you walk them round and round doing
anything except for focusing on the
other dog in other words I’m going to
focus my dogs on the grass to the right
and the grass to the left come on guys
it’s going to smell the flowers tar
nasone is doing the same and you’re
going to see that just a few minutes of
this is going to calm his dog right down
it’s actually truly amazing I’ll show
you a shot of before and after but is it
what he’s doing now as well is he’s
going to get in front of his dog and I’m
saying to a calm free something of AI is
a lot you crouch down put your hand
under his collar and if we have a look
at his dog now you’ll actually see this
is just a few minutes later his dog’s
Energy’s gone right down if you look at
that tail we’ll zoom in and have a look
but the body language of this dog is so
completely different to the body
language and energy of the dog that we
saw just before here is just ten minutes
earlier confident dominant tail erect
challenging you know is not that in this
state you don’t want to be taking him
over and introducing him to other dogs
it’s only going to go pear-shaped so you
want to do a little bit of work with
them and you know ten minutes later here
is tails in completely the other
opposite direction hanging down he’s
relaxed he’s very inquisitive he’s a
he’s interested he’s calmed right down
totally different dog he’ll have form
far more success with them in this sort
of a state so now that Tana has calmed
down somewhat I’m going to apply a
technique that I call the parallel walk
and it’s quite fascinating I’ll just let
all of this roll and talk you through it
the parallel walk is exactly as it
sounds it’s where you walk parallel to
the other dogs and as you can see we’ve
started off quite far apart from each
other walking parallel but we’re going
to move closer and closer together now
the idea behind this is it’s the exact
opposite of sort of a predatory attack
from the front if you think about it all
animals are used to the sort of
predatory locking on and running
straight at another animal to attack
them so if you’re coming straight at an
anima
dog they can feel very threatened it’s
why when you meet a dog on the pathway
who’s coming towards you it can be quite
threatening
however dogs when they walk parallel
like this it’s far more like they’re
part of a pack if you think of a pack of
wolves
they all walk in the same direction and
here we’ve moved much much closer
together and tar neighs you know he’s
throwing his head around he’s actually
wanting to get towards my dog Jack so we
just move away apart a little bit there
but he’s doing really well and these
techniques are really what Tana is owner
and I put in place for maybe 10 20
minutes until tonight come right down
and then we’re able to put him on a line
and they able to meet my dogs now the
purpose of this video is really just to
give you a couple of ideas of how you
can do that how to calm a dog down but I
do want to show you a couple of clips of
this video where Tony has a line on him
so so here’s just a couple of snippets
of that stage and you can see I’m
actually playing with my dogs so the
first stage really is putting along the
line on Tarn a so we can sort of let him
go free but we still got that sort of
control this is actually a horse lunge
line he’s such a big boy and then the
next stage is actually letting my dog go
so I’ve decided jack is calm enough he’s
just going to run off I can just tell
he’s not going to go over to this dog
he’s going to wander off and play which
is great so here I used the long line to
keep control of Tana and just gauge what
he’s like around all the dogs and it
just gives you the ability to keep
control of the situation
if it starts to go pear-shaped and
interestingly enough its little inca
who’s generally a very fearful little
female dog who goes over and says I
understand you look at those little
tails waggling so they’re communicating
communicating really beautifully there
she runs off there she’s not too sure
and this is when I know we’ve done it
that Jack comes over he’s the dominant
dog here Tana is just letting him sniff
first so Jack’s in charge like a jacks
tails right up Tana is just a little bit
more submissive and I’ll let you hear
the noise because Tana is going to check
Jack out here he’s sort of gaining
confidence and it could go pear-shaped
here but I get the feeling it won’t I
think you sort of playing there thank
you thank you wanna play
a little bit now saying things what
applies and what you witnessed there was
too confident male dogs deciding who’s
in charge to want to play and say yeah
it’s time to drop the long line on the
floor and just let him have a good run
I’m very confident that they’re going to
get on really well the next stage was to
take the long line off him and then when
we were completely confident that he was
gonna be fine and it had a good play we
took the muzzle off and he just had a
great old time here he is playing around
with inka who’s telling him to go away
at this point
and he had a great fun play with the
jack as well you can see here they got
on like a house on fire so there you
have it in my opinion Tana is a good dog
he’s a lovely boy he’s sociable but he
is he has got a tendency to be a little
bit dominant so you do want to
understand how to be the pack leader at
home that’ll keep his dominance right
down and he’ll be far more tolerant
around other dogs and some of the key
stages in getting them off leash first
of all we kept control of them at the
very beginning using those leashes and
the long line secondly we were
constantly reading the energy the
situation every situation was different
and if it wasn’t right then we just
moved them away so just walk away focus
on something else and just remember
there’s no rush take your time because
time is on your side so there you go as
you can see we turned a potentially
volatile situation into a really
successful day and we gave tonight some
much-deserved freedom and socializing
off leash and we gave his owner some
hope back at today’s home I also went
through with his owner the importance of
leadership because this will actually be
the foundation on which the relationship
is built now let me clarify the key
concept I referred to at the start that
it’s not what you do but it’s the way
that you do it a concept which flows
through all of that training in the
video and all that I do basically you’ve
got to keep control of the situation
you’ve got to stay calm and take your
time that’s all for today see you
tomorrow and until then have an awesome
day
