Your dog is scared and acting aggressively to cope with what it finds difficult in his/her environment.
You’ve probably seen reactive dogs in action. They’re the ones lunging and barking at the end of the lead with guardians either trying to calm them down or attempting to drag them the other way.
This type of dog behavior is more commonly known as fear aggression.
Fear Aggression in Dogs
When a dog is in the presence of something that it perceives as a threat and becomes fearful, it responds with a flight or fight mindset. Triggers can be dogs, people, moving objects etc.
If you have such a dog I understand everything you go through. The embarrassment, frustration, tears, anger AND the contemplation of giving up and rehoming your beloved dog. All is not lost and you can build a better life for your fearful dog and walk him or her without reactivity and fear.
Training an emotional change in a reactive dog can be done using techniques and tools that don’t harm the dog and it requires time, patience and perseverance on the guardians part. I use a "Do No Harm" approach to teach dogs how to cope with their fears.
There is a saying, “aggression begets aggression”, and it certainly applies to dogs. Punishment based training methods do not help a scared dog. In fact, it can have the opposite effect and make a dog MORE fearful and apt to increase the negative reaction the next time around.
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