# Aggression towards smaller dogs



## ESM (Jul 10, 2020)

Hi everyone
Hope some of you can help me with my dogs recently developed agression

So Murph is 21 months old, and intact.

We have always struggled with his behaviour around other dogs, since he was about 8 months old. Mostly he is over excited, and disobedient. We went to a dog trainer for help with this and made great progress! But we still would t be able to let him off lead in a public park.
He has aslways tried to show his dominance and we’ve had some trouble with him humping other dogs while playing, but this has also improved.

Recently he had started attacking dogs smaller than him. 
What tends to happen is he aproaches them playfully, they snarl or warn him off and he then flips and attacks them. theres never any injury its all noise and teeth but its really alarming and agressive!

Any advice on how to deal with this in the moment and any training we can do to improve his behaviour, or do we need to look into giving him the snip

Em


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## samdora7 (Jun 13, 2019)

Just wondering, is this happening both on and off lead? My rule of thumb is never to introduce dogs to each other when on lead. 

When off lead, my boy has shown similar behavior but only towards young / teenage males. It doesn’t happen immediately but he will snap if the other dog doesn’t pick on his signs (he would growl and walk away at first but if the dog keeps insisting he will make himself big - if it makes any sense - and block the other dog).

As he’s getting older (almost 2 and 1/2) I see he manages to ignore the other dog longer and longer and just growls more often rather than snapping quickly. 

In how to deal with it, I would say try and anticipate and avoid them. If you are too late, make sure you step in and make it clear it’s not an acceptable behavior. 

At this point, I am confident to let him meet a new young male without it escalating but I’m keeping a close eye on them. When I see he becomes uncomfortable we walk away. 

I appreciate my example is slightly different but I would say it is common/normal behavior for males. I wouldn’t let it escalate but they do need to establish a certain hierarchy.

Also remember, a dominant dog is not a bad dog and a dominant dog is not by definition an aggressive dog. Although for the human eye the interaction between dogs can look intense, as long as both dogs come out of it unbothered you shouldn’t worry too much either. 


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## samdora7 (Jun 13, 2019)

Also, neutering is not a solution per se. Our dog is neutered but he is still dominant. Of course hormones play a part in young dogs, but it is not a guarantee it will change his behavior. 

We didn’t neuter him to make him less dominant, we had other reasons for doing so. 


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## ESM (Jul 10, 2020)

samdora7 said:


> Just wondering, is this happening both on and off lead? My rule of thumb is never to introduce dogs to each other when on lead.
> 
> When off lead, my boy has shown similar behavior but only towards young / teenage males. It doesn’t happen immediately but he will snap if the other dog doesn’t pick on his signs (he would growl and walk away at first but if the dog keeps insisting he will make himself big - if it makes any sense - and block the other dog).
> 
> ...



Hi Yes both on and off lead, 

we had a real trouble with him at christmas when visiting family with a small very old spaniel... he went for her multiple times, we ended up having them in seperate rooms the whole time and he would go straight for her as soon as he saw her! 
Since then we havnt let him off lead around other dogs until we can trust he wont do the same to another dog.

He meets many dogs everyday but now on lead, I let him sniff and say hello, reading his behaviour as I can tell when hes likely to snap, and so far hes been ok. He did get a good run about with another Viszla the other day as I know he plays nicely with them as they rarely tell him they've had enough of his energy. This went well 👍 and It felt so good to let him run free!


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