Your caring, canine companion would rarely growl at guests, let alone you. Now, without warning, the bark is worse, and the bite might be right around the corner.
The dark side of your dog’s personality has emerged and you wonder: What happened? What turned your best friend into a snarling stranger? More importantly, how do you get your buddy back?
A typically perfect pooch can display aggressive behavior, even bite, and it’s up to pet parents to understand why it happens, and ways we might prevent or correct it. Check out these eight reasons your dog Jekyll may go Hyde, and seven ways to prevent or correct it.
8 Reasons Good Dogs Go Bad
1. Insufficient mental stimulation
Humans go stir crazy with nothing to do, and the same problem might make your dog surly or bring out other behavioral issues. They say “idle hands are the devil’s plaything,” and the same applies to paws.
2. Lack of exercise
In addition to mental exercise, your dog needs the real thing, too. Being cooped up in the house is a surefire way to fan the embers of anger and pent-up energy. That frustration is bound to come out somewhere.
3. Not enough socialization
A lack of human and animal interaction can create outbursts when your dog discovers strangers. Suspicion, protectiveness, and other instincts can bring out the bad side.
4. Genetics
When possible, it’s best to know the parents of your pet. If there were temperament issues in mom or dad, it’s possible you’re in for a more rigorous road of obedience training and behavior management. The traits might not emerge until after adolescence, so when you have access to parentage info, bone up and be prepared.
5. Illness or injury
Many sudden turns of behavior manifest from pain, which might be from a physically incurred injury but are often tied to something wrong internally. That furious disposition may indicate the onset of a dog disease—talk to your vet if you suspect illness or injury may be contributing to your dog’s behavior.
6. Inconsistency
Have you recently changed jobs, or had a massive shift in predictable patterns? Security and routine are just as important to dogs as they are to us. Increased bad behavior may relate to the upset they feel in their life.
7. Fear
Aggression is often tied to a fear response. If something is making your four-legged friend afraid, the bad dog behavior might be part of the fight-or-flight maelstrom they’re caught up in. They feel like they’ve got nowhere to run and are lashing out instead.
8. Poor discipline
In some cases, the fear and anger cocktail mixing up a dog’s mind might be tied to methods of punishment or reward. Kicking a dog—and other inexcusable actions—will yield a reciprocal bad reaction. On the other hand, talking sweetly to try and calm your angry dog may seem like a reward for bad behavior to them and reinforce the negative trait. Tossing a treat to stop the barking will have the same effect.
Identifying the root causes, while important, is only half of the work: What corresponding actions might stop your dog from hulking out?
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