Most behavior professionals are aware that there is a schism in dog training when it comes to helping dogs with aggression. On one side are the people who believe that all aggression is fear-based and counter conditioning is the one size fits all solution. On the other side are those who think that all aggression can be resolved operantly by providing consequences for both desired and undesired behaviors.
The truth about helping aggression lies somewhere in the middle. When aggression is fear or anxiety based it can be addressed with classical conditioning using a hierarchy of exposure. Some aggression is based in confidence and results in a dopamine rush for the dog. This type of aggression is best handled operantly and can be controlled by the consequences provided by the trainer. Knowing how to strategically use classical conditioning is an essential tool when working with dogs with aggression, but knowing how and when to use operant techniques is equally important. In particular, when you are working with a family dog whose heritage includes a breed that has been selected for aggression or hunting prey, using operant techniques can fast track the dog to success.
Source Breeds and Aggression
Several breeds fall into the category of breeds that are likely to benefit from operant techniques when dealing with aggression. Here is a partial list:
- German Shepherd
- Rottweiler
- Doberman Pinscher
- Mastiffs
- Malinois
… and lesser known European herding/working and guarding breeds such as:
- Beauceron
- Cane Corso
- Komondor
- Maremma
These are all dogs who have been strongly selected over the past 150 years for their guarding behaviors, including aggression. In these breeds there are often lines of dogs who have been selected for their original purpose.
There are also lines that have been selected for work in police and military settings. Mastiffs and the Flock Guardians have been selected for guarding property and livestock for thousands of years. These dogs are characterized by confidence, willingness to guard items, space and their handler, great physicality and an ability to work in environments that include physical conflict.
The other group of dogs who commonly exhibit confidence-based aggression are the Terriers. These dogs were originally selected to hunt vermin such as rats, or to fight bulls and bears for human entertainment. Again this is a partial list:
- American Staffordshire Terrier
- Staffordshire Bull Terrier
- Kerry Blue Terrier
- Manchester Terrier
Initially these dogs were selected to be predatory, and to be tolerant of humans handling them while they were actively engaged in biting, grabbing and shaking their prey. Later on, when some of these breeds were selected for dog fighting, these dogs were selected for dog-dog aggression, but they were also selected for being non aggressive to humans. Occasionally, dog to human aggressive outliers occur within the population.
In both dog to dog and dog to human aggression cases that involve dogs who exhibit this kind of aggression, using counter conditioning to resolve the conflict these dogs feel is likely to fail because these dogs are enjoying being aggressive; that is in fact the trait for which they have been selected.
It should be understood that heritable aggressive behavior is controlled by a complex set of genes that is not yet fully understood. We can now identify some specific genes that contribute to the expression of aggressive behavior, but the full picture of what is going on needs further investigation. Many people consider all aggression to be abnormal behavior, but in fact it is considered a normal behavior by ethologists.
Aggression performs a variety of roles in animal interactions. It will occur when:
- an individual feels threatened
- when two animals want one resource
- when play becomes over aroused
- establishing status within a stable social group.
Generally, domestic dogs have been selected for a lack of aggression, and their conspecific conflicts (between two members of the same species) are less intense than would be found in wild canids, but they can still be very intense. When humans selectively breed dogs for guard work, they are intentionally selecting for aggression.
What About Mixed Breeds?
If you work primarily with shelter dogs, you are unlikely to work with a lot of purebred dogs who come from a background where they were intended to be used as patrol dogs, but you will likely encounter an awful lot of “pitbull” terrier crosses! While many of these dogs will be shy, timid, anxious or avoidant, you are also likely to meet a good number of dogs who present as being more confident or who seem to enjoy being aggressive. When you work with these dogs, you may notice that counter conditioning may not be effective and sometimes it may seem to make the aggression worse. If this happens, you may want to consider that the dog you are working with may have a genetic heritage that supports being aggressive and an operant protocol may work better than a classical protocol. Recognizing that the dog in front of you may have genetics that are contributing to confidence based aggression can help you to understand why it is that the dog you are working with may become more, not less aggressive when you try counter conditioning. It can also explain why it is that a client may seem to understand counter conditioning during a lesson, but after a week of practicing at home, the dog returns and has become sensitized to the triggers again.
Your Experience Matters
In the event that you have been dealing with timid, fearful or anxious dogs, and counter conditioning has worked well for you, you may be surprised when this strategy fails. Likewise, if your background is training dogs for protection work, you may be surprised by the suggestion that counter conditioning is a strategy that might be of value. Successful trainers and behavior consultants understand that we must remain open and flexible in our understanding of the underpinnings of aggression and the methods of changing that behavior. There need not be a conflict between the two groups of trainers at opposite ends of the spectrum; we simply need to understand that there are differences in experience and understanding of behavior, and that a trainer’s understanding of how to change aggressive behavior may have a lot to do with the type of dogs they have learned to train.
If you have experience using desensitization and counter conditioning to resolve aggression cases, it can feel wrong to consider dealing with that behavior change using operant techniques as your primary tool. Certainly in online discussions, we get a lot of support for only using counter conditioning and desensitization to help dogs to stop feeling the need to aggress, but there is an important clue that this may not be the needed technique. Desensitization occurs when there is a change in emotion to a trigger. The dog should change their body language and demeanor when you have carried out the procedure. If for instance, you are working with a dog who offers meta signals such as the “play bow”” before aggressing, then the dog may in fact be using aggression differently than most of the dogs we work with. After the counter conditioning protocol, if the dog is still offering behaviors that show that he is aroused and excited by the presentation of the trigger, this dog may be enjoying behaving aggressively and pairing the treat with the trigger may in fact be working to reinforce the barking and lunging that we are trying to reduce. If we do not see behavioral change after implementing a solid effort at counter conditioning, we may need to look at an operant technique to help address the unwanted behavior.
Genetically Coded Behaviors Such As Aggression and Retrieving
Knowing that aggression can be a normal, genetically selected behavior, it is important to recognize that in some dogs’ aggression will not be exhibited because of fear. In these individuals, aggression is a behavior that will be triggered with much less provocation and without the element of fear that we see in most cases. I like to contrast the aggression we see in these dogs to retrieving we see in the retrievers. If you are raising an intense Labrador Retriever, the first six months of living with that puppy is going to be spent teaching him which items he should carry and which ones he needs to leave alone. Later on, if he is trained to fetch ducks for a hunter, he will willingly and excitedly fetch ducks in near freezing water, through dense bush and for long periods of time. Dogs who have been selected for guarding work are like this. With particularly intense puppies, you can expect that any time they are excited, they will look for something to latch onto and bite. They will preferentially choose pants, arms and leashes, and in the hands of a novice or unsuspecting handler, they may begin to latch onto arms, legs, hands and feet.
I often get calls from clients whose dogs have hit 12 or 13 weeks, and suddenly they cannot live with their beloved dragon of a puppy. Interestingly, 12 weeks is about the time that many protection dog trainers start teaching their puppies about bite work; they don’t start on a full sleeve, but they start to channel biting and grabbing behavior into what they want the dog to do as an adult. Imagine, if you will, trying to teach a 12 week old retriever not to carry anything, using desensitization and counter conditioning. This is where we go wrong with many guarding breeds and terriers. By using counter conditioning, we may in fact be teaching these puppies which target is the desired target. If they are not concerned about the target at all, then feeding when the target appears may indicate to the learning dog that the target is something you want them to take note of. They are aggressive towards people because that is what their genetics have primed them to be, and the treats used in counter conditioning may in fact be indicating to the dog which people should be his target.
Point of View Informs Your Opinion
You may be a trainer who has engaged with other trainers whose work with aggressive dogs is counter to your experience. If you have been helping dogs using counter conditioning and you are speaking to a trainer who has been working with dogs operantly, you may feel very threatened. If you have been working with dogs operantly to increase or decrease aggression, then told that aggression can be changed with counter conditioning techniques that may feel alien or even outlandish. It is no wonder that there can be a split in the world of dog trainers. It is important to understand that education opens the door to more opportunities and better comprehension, as long as we don’t bring conflict and preconceived ideas into our learning. Listening with the intention to learn instead of the intention to teach is a skill we need as behavior consultants and pro trainers. Most of our careers are spent teaching, so when we come together to learn and share, we have to be open to seeing a whole procedure and not simply walk away when we disagree. Learning about something does not mean we must comply with it; it simply means that we know more about that technique.
Next up, Part II: Using humane, non aversive, operant techniques to deal with dogs who are confidently aggressive.
Sue Alexander, CPDT-KSA, CBCC-KA
Sue has been teaching and consulting about dog training and behaviour since 1993. Sue has an extensive speaking portfolio including speaking at the Canadian Association of Professional Pet Dog Trainers National Conference in 2009, presenting at the Dogs in the Park Service Dog Conference for 6 years, and being interviewed on countless podcasts, television shows and radio programs. Sue is devoting her energies for the past two years to consulting to the dog training industry, helping other trainers to learn, grow and optimize their dog training professionalism.
