Control of dominance aggression in dogs by behavioral treatment

摘要

Dominance or dominance related aggression is one of the most common forms of canine aggression. It is manifested by consistent atypical, out of context aggressive behavior directed towards people and towards other dogs. The behavior includes staring, spontaneous growling, mounting of legs, guarding of food and sleepling areas, demanding behavior, resisting submissive postures or situations and other signs. Several authors have reported the control of dominance aggression in dogs by beharioral treatment with varying success (Voith and Borchet, 1982, Crowell-Devis, 1991, Beaver, 1993, Overall, 1993, 1999a, 1999b, Uchida et al., 1997, Cameron, 1997). A total of 10 dogs of different age, breed and either sex with history and signs of various forms ofdominance aggression were selected after ruling out the chances of situational behavioral changes. Amongst them, 3 dogs were diagnosed for demanding behavior, 2 for guarding food, 3 for spontaneous growling and 2 for resisting submissive posture. The respective dog owners have been educated by various behavior modification methods and advised to follow without failure. Some of the behavior modification methods include avoidance of all circumstances known to provoke an affected dog, avoiding confrontation with an aggressive dog, obedience training, decreasing punishment, passive behavior modification to encourage dogs to defer to their owners and active behavior modification in the form of desensitization and counter conditioning. All the dogs were, observed bi-weekly to record the changes, if any, in the behavior, to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment. The improvement in the behavior of the dogs is categorized as slight, moderate, good and complete.