The aggression consult started with the doorway, not the bite. The human behavior canine aggression link is the part most owners miss, since the dog reads the hand before the threat.
The research could be one more nail in the coffin of breed-specific legislation, which unduly discriminates against certain breeds based on the assumption that they are inherently dangerous. According to the study, the type of training an owner uses plays a larger role in how their dog will interact with humans — strangers and family members alike — than the breed. Attending puppy classes was shown to reduce the risk of aggression to unfamiliar people, while training methods that used punishment or aversives increased the chance of aggression too, well, everyone. Additionally, dogs with owners over age 40 were two times less likely to have aggression issues than those with owners under age 25.
Ultimately, the researchers conclude that training dogs early — preferably using positive reinforcement methods — can decrease the likelihood that the dog will become aggressive, despite what rumors might suggest about the breed. While it might make sense to generalize about some canine behavioral tendencies, they say, it would be wrong to assume that an individual dog will be aggressive simply because of its breed.
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The human behavior canine aggression link is the part most owners miss. The dog reads the hand before the threat.
