Why is my 2 year old becoming dog aggressive?

Hi everyone,

My nearly 3 year old male has always been so sociable. He's been well socialised and even a regular at the dog park with no problems. However, over the past year he's become more and more dog aggressive. So much so that we can't take him to the dog park anymore as we never know whether it's going to go without incident.

In particular he hates other bull breeds including Staffies and he doesn't like small dogs either. He was attacked by a Staffie when he was younger and he gave as good as he got and as he's a massive Staffie he's usually going to come out on top. Terrifying! He seems to go from friendly play and being excited to loosing his temper big time in the blink of an eye. He definitely fancies himself as the alpha in any pack of dogs.

I've looked into finding a behaviourist that specialises in bull breeds but can't find any near me.

I really need advice as our walks are very worrying. I know my shattered nerves will be making him worse but it's so hard not to be nervous when you see another dog. We live surrounded by fields so he can still get off lead and if he's got a ball he doesn't even look at another dog, so distraction works well for him. But.... Whether he's on lead or off lead and another dog comes up to him and starts bounding around you just never know what's going to happen. He's also alot less tolerant when he's on his lead.

Hi Vikki

Yep all sounds very familiar. Axl started showing aggression at around that age as well but as you will see from my other post we had a lot to do with it as we made a few mistakes which inadvertently fuelled his aggression. Just to give you some hope though I can now walk past dogs with no aggression. It's not easy and requires a lot of patience but you can turn things around.

Few questions.

Do you have him muzzle trained? I know it's not nice seeing your baby with a muzzle on but after training it really just becomes something they wear when walking, like a lead and collar. They really do just accept it and it does help build up confidence again as you know he can't do damage if the worst were to happen. I would even go as far as to say that axl wearing a muzzle was probably the main thing that helped us rehabilitate him as we relaxed on walks which in turn relaxed him. I have a lovely little muzzle for Axl which is called the trixie loop muzzle it doubles up as a halti which is also invaluable but I will get to that. Muzzles are not a quick fix and in my opinion should be used as a training tool to help you rehabilitate and learn to trust your dog again. Once you start to trust him and he trusts you things will change rapidly. Also if you are wondering, like a lot of people do, what about if he's attacked he can't defend himself my answer to that is that's your job, you should keep him out of situations that could end badly I.e stop dogs approaching him if he kicks off when they run up, walk away from dogs and owners you don't like the look of etc. If he feels you will deal with any threat he will back off and trust you to keep him safe which reduces aggression.

Halti - this will stop him lunging and pulling you around I love walking Axl on his halti it is such a good training tool. Axl is a big staffie and without it, if he wanted to, he could pull me anywhere he wanted to go. With this it stops that and gives me absolute control which relaxed me and in turn relaxes him.

Dog parks are a bad idea for reactive dogs as you found out. While you are working on your dog's aggression try not to put him in any situation that stresses him out or could end up badly. What you want to do is make sure he has purely positive encounters with dogs you trust and know. Dog parks are full of the Unknown. I had an incident when I first started trying to work on axl's aggression, he was doing really well so I decided to take him to a park, as soon as we got there a bulshy dog ran up to him and of course Axl went into crazy mode, the owner was on his mobile and miles away. It was awful and eventually I managed to pull Axl away (he was on lead of course) and left the park but it pushed him straight back to square one. You don't want that so keep him comfortable and in positive situations. Don't be shy or afraid to cross the road, turn around or even tell someone to give your dog some space, most people don't realise or are untrained lol.

The play turning into aggression seems to me to be over excitement. I can't advise on that as I wouldn't know how to stop it. For now though I would advise you to keep your dog on a long lead so you have control. One of the others may be able to help with the over excitement when playing.

What do you do when your dog kicks off? I used to shout and get really frustrated with Axl which made him worse. I then would try to talk to him in a cooey comforting voice which, yep made him worse. Now if he kicks off which he occasionally will do, I don't say a word. I hold his halti so his head is facing away (never tug or jerk the halti by the way as it can hurt their neck) and just calmly walk past as quick as possible. The reason for this is by talking to them in a gentle voice you could encourage the behaviour as the gentle comforting voice might be taken as a "good" voice. Best not to say anything and do not give any treats until he is calmly sitting and the other dog is out of sight. Try not to get frustrated as well. Calmness is your best tool.

I hope the above helps. Hopefully one of the others will check in soon and give some more advice but like I said don't give up its possible to turn things around it just takes time

Hi vikki if another dog comes bounding over the watch me command may be useful for you . Its important to use even tones firm not over overexcited apart from that cant add to already excellent advice.

You've got one big tool you can use by the sounds of it - that ball!

I'd be teaching him 'this way!!!', first away from any other dogs and then gradually introducing it into more testing situations. In effect, all you do is get all happy, calling 'this way!!!' as you change direction, while luring him towards you with the ball. They very soon learn that 'this way!' means play, and they will do a quick about turn to follow you to play. This adds an extra ingredient to the distraction alone, because you can use is when you see that other dog hurtling towards you as your about turn bail out.

The other benefits are that it gives you something contructive to do yourself, and something fun so that should hopefully also help reduce the tension in yourself.

Very wise words from Debs too. Re the muzzle, even if you don't feel you need to put it on, just having it can be reassuring for yourself and also help people take you a little more seriously when you say he doesn't like being crowded by other dogs.