Growling
“What should I do if my dog growls at me?” is a question that trainers frequently hear. Even though it’s a common question, the “correct” answer is hotly debated among trainers. Here are some of the most popular answers, along with their pros and cons:
Option 1: Do nothing.
Remain perfectly still.
Pro: Easy to execute.
Con : If the growling is fear-based you run the risk of getting
bitten in situations where the dog is growling to signal a desire for increased distance (i.e. “Go away!”), especially if you are standing stiff and facing the dog. If it's dominance based you'll have to give distance in order to "comply" and this will reinforce the behavior.
Option 2: Redirect the dog. Offer a
bone, toy or food
treat to get his mind on something
else.
Pro: Owners, and new trainers, safely escape injury all the time with this time honored maneuver.
Con: What you’re really doing is reinforcing, not redirecting. You are rewarding the behavior. Dog growls, he gets a treat or toy – that’s a positive reward. When you reward a behavior you increase the likelihood that it will happen again.
Option 3:
Correct the behavior immediately. For example,
frontally align yourself and make direct eye contact, scold in a low tone of voice and if necessary do a leash
correction. Teach the dog that it is never acceptable to growl at
you.
Pro: Looks great on TV shows (if the dog backs down).
Con #1: This response
has a good chance of actually triggering a bite.
Con #2: If it
does not trigger a bite, you will be shutting down your dog’s warning
system, making the dog much more dangerous. In the future when he feels
threatened, instead of giving a warning (growl)
he may instead choose to bite. A dog who knows how to warn (growl) is safer to work with than one who bites without warning. Ask any experienced groomer!
So yes, there is disagreement among trainers on this topic. Ignoring, rewarding, or confronting a growl may each have undesirable consequences. A good handler reads the dog's body language and knows how to prevent situations that will cause the dog to growl. But to get back to the options available, let's continue.
If, despite precautions, the dog growls at you:
Option 4: Shift the dog from a threatening mode to a cooperative mode by putting him into drive. Your attitude becomes, “I’m not interested in your growl. I’m doing this new activity instead.” When you put a previously growling dog into working drive, you shift him into a completely different frame of mind. For example, one might go get the dog’s leash, in order to bring him from a "get away from me" frame of mind into a happy, “let’s go for a walk!” mindset. Or call him to sit, down, and then reward with a treat.
Essentially, you are diffusing the situation by shifting the dog into working drive to bring him from an undesirable state of mind into a safer one. (This option should not be used in situations involving resource guarding. For resource guarding, classical counter-conditioning with many repetitions and a commitment to a weeks-long or months-long project has a high success rate when applied patiently and properly.)
Putting the dog into working mode operates on the principle that active submission is first obtained by evoking a new response, and then rewarding the new behavior. But there is an important caveat: the handler must have done sufficient groundwork for this procedure to be effective. "Groundwork" simply means that the dog must already know and respond reliably to basic obedience commands. So if we are working with a dog who has growled at people, we generally start by a) avoiding know triggers; b) training the basics obedience commands; and c) applying the principles of the deference protocol in everyone's daily interactions with the dog.
Conclusion: Of the above options, I prefer option 4 because there is little chance of inadvertently reinforcing the aggressive behavior, since we are first evoking a new response to gain submission, and then offering the reward, rather than directly rewarding the undesirable behavior.
