9 month old male, getting aggresive, bit my face and attacking feet. help!!!!!!!!
hello all, i no there are many posts here concerning aggresion in maturing bull terriers and im quite relieved to read that it is probably just a phase and Down to hormones but i also have another problem. my dog vinny is biting Our feet. if you are sat near him and so much as wiggle Your toes he goes stiff and then lunges, growling and biting. its the same reaction he has With the hoover. he goes mental. he also growls at my girlfriend and bit her foot the other day. he always acts so sorry afterwards and his ears are back and he hides under the table. its like his mind is forcing to do it against his will. most of the time he is loving and caring and loves cuddles but sometimes he gets this look in his eyes and im sure one day he will bite me, really hard.im praying its just his hormones as he is only 9 months. he was a grear dog before all this aggresion started. in every other way he knows i am boss. obedience is great, meal times there is no aggresion. he does everything i tell him. the aggresion only seems to surface when he is tired. he has my friends kids hanging off his neck and being rough With him and he doesnt care, its just certain times his Whole personality changes. i Guess i just need more reasurance that this will pass as he gets older
Comments
You're correct, there are many topics simular to this one of this forum and the suggestions for correction are what you'd want to do also for teaching him that his actions are not going to be tolerated. Be firm with him and get him to understand immediately that what he's doing is wrong.
"It's not just a Dog, it's a Bull Terrier!"
www.bulliesofnc.com
For some reason my husband and I came to talk about this discussion again when Bully got invited into the bedroom for a round of cuddling and play this morning.
He pointed out that a lot of behavioral problems result from misunderstandings, which is so true. But in order to live and deal with and train a dog, understanding their behavior often helps a lot.
Some people are not aware of the fact that the dog’s body parts most closely representing hands are not his paws. It’s the mouth. Not only do they eat and bite with it. They use it to grab, hold, tear, fixate, examine … basically all the things humans use their hands for.
Yesterday we watched the dogs playing in the dog park and laughed about how they grab and tug each other’s lips or grab each other’s ears and feet during play.
Of course, this would not be funny and probably result in injury, if a dog did this to a human to that extend.
But actually this explains why lunging at the face and face biting is sadly not such a rare event - either during play or as an act of aggression or defense.
This is most dramatic for kids. As they are shorter than adults their faces usually are well in reach of a dog’s mouth for sudden “grabbing” for whatever reason.
But “attacking" and using the mouth is still not a hostile act in every case. It can have a number of different reasons.
There have been dogs seen grabbing kids near a busy street by the hip and dragging them away. As this “grip” resulted in some injury and the dog used his mouth, this got mistaken as an act of aggression. What the dog most likely was doing instead, was preventing the child from running into cars.
The dog is just behaving “natural”. What’s going wrong here is the human understanding of dog behavior and a huge lack of PREVENTION and management.
Like in driving, you often have not only to act and react for yourself, but also anticipate what others will do in order to avoid accidents. This is especially true in Florida
Understanding behavior, of course, is no reason to just accept that your dog is biting. But with this in mind it’s often possible to anticipate some of the situations and develop some tactics to avoid the behavior in the first place.
Or just manage the dog in critical situations and not leave it up to him, if he chooses to behave or not.
For example, we tell everyone who wants to pet Djamila please NOT to bend over her, but rather kneel down in front of her. Because we know about the energy of the Bull Terrier and how hard it is for them sometimes to curb their enthusiasm.
As much we teach her not to go up on people, we can NEVER be 100% sure that her nature will never break through and cause her to ignore the rules, lunge up in joy to greet someone and cost him teeth.
Understanding behavior, anticipation, dog training, prevention AND management are ALL part of life with a dog as a responsible owner.
Also it enhances chances of catching your dog in the act and turning this into a lesson.
Your dog needs to understand that humans are not dogs and that behavior that may be appropriate among dogs it not appropriate with humans.
Luckily dogs are so eager to learn, it fascinates me over and over.
It’s up to us to teach them OUR right and wrong.
"It's not just a Dog, it's a Bull Terrier!"
www.bulliesofnc.com