Aggression

Aggression

1. towards familiar people and animals

   • ladder of agression
   • a physical exam should be perfomred to rule out any physical disease such as painful processes and sensory impairment
   • ladder of aggression
   • agonistic behaviour
     • goal: threat aversion or confflict resoloution
     • threat or frustration related
     • arousal- growling, barking, high sympathetic nervous system
     • visual signs- threatening body posture, baring teeth, snapping, staring, biting
   • play
     • goal: development of social and predatory skill no conflict
     • gowiling, barking, sympathetic nervous system vatiable
     • signs- play bow, baring tetth, staring, possibly- snapping, stalking and biting
     • treatment
       • normal dog to dog interatction
       • should be self limiting in puppies if owners refuse to play when biting
       • punishment may kead to further arousal and result in a more serious problem
       • reinforce more controlled behaviour
   • predation
     • killing prey, feeding no conflict
     • no growling or barking sympathetic nervouse system low
     • signs- staring, stalking and biting
     • treatment
       • targets are normal play species or any species the dog has not been socialized with including small children, smaller dogs and cats
       • breed can contribute eg terrier prone to chassing and hearding breed chasing and rounding up
       • behaviour is mentally rewording so hunting experience can increase the risk
       • identify and control access to trigger
       • segregation and restraint eg around sheep
       • effective recall training

2. desensitization and counter conditioning

   • before starting a physical and behavioral examination is needed, with a carful contextual evaluation of the problem
   • counter conditioning is the process whereby an animal is trained to perfomr and behaviour or response that is incompatable with the probelm response when envoked by a stimuli
     • the motivation to perform the incompatible behaviour must be higher then the motivation to perform the problem behaviour
   • systematic desensitization
     • involves graduated exposure and habituation to an arousing stimulus that can lead to problem behaviour the result of which is to raise the threshold at which the inappropriate response occurs

3. towards unfamiliar people and animals

   • offensive
     • ears pointed forwards, eyes focused on stimulus, lips retracted vertically, tail elevated, body stance more forward leaning and moving
   • defensive
     • ears drawn backwards, eyes diverted from stimulus, lips retacted horizontally, tail tucked or loward, body stance more retreating or lowered
   • acute managment strategies
     • avoidence- does not solve the problem but not letting the dog practice the behaviour is fundermental in treatment paln
     • prevent punishment, reassurance and reinforcement of the behaviour by having the dog on a lead in the presence of the stimuli and not leting the stimuli retreat while no punishment or reassurnece is given
     • muzzels and head collers can also be effective
   • long term treatment
     • owenr control- controlling the dogs resources and making itperfomr task before these are given give controll to the owner and the dog may look to the owner when in the presence of the stimuli
     • eye contact comand can be used to get the dog to look at the owners rather then the stimulus
     • desensitization and counter conditioning
     • use of negative punishment such as time out