Why Dogs Growl

One way dogs have of communicating is to growl. A dog's growling is not always a bad thing. Some dogs that tend to be rather vocal, will growl when they need to go outside, or they may have a gutteral growl when they are trying to tell you they are hungry.

These types of growls are very different from a dog who growls to tell you to back off his space, his food, his toy. These incidents of growling need to be dealt with immediately. This type of growling is your dog's way of telling you that he believes he is the boss and that it is HIS toy, HIS bed, HIS food. This is a dominant dog. This will escalate into something more harmful if you do not address this immediately.

The very first thing to look at is your leadership role. If your dog has ascended the ladder of entitlement to the point of thinking he is the head of the house, YOU belong to him and so does everything else in the house, then your leadership role is sorely lacking or probably non-existent.

Leadership role does not mean being hard on your dog. It simply means that dogs, like children, need to have a clear understanding of who is running the show and that must be you. If it's not you, then because having a leader is so intrinsic in a dog's sense of well being, they will step up to the plate and become the leader even if they are not genetically equipped to be a good leader.

When your dog assumes he is the boss, when you do something he doesn't like, or you come into his space,or touch his toy, or food, his way of telling you he doesn't like it and you need to back off is to growl. If you don't back off, his next step is to snap at you or bite you.

Here are some things you can do to communicate that you are the parent or boss.

Do not allow him in your space on the couch on his terms. Send him away from you, wait a minute or two, call him back, make him sit, THEN he can get on the couch. The message to him is you getting up here is on my timetable and my terms, not yours. Make him give you a sit or down before you place his food bowl down. The message to him is: the food is yours and you control it. Make him sit before you give him his favorite toy. The message to him is you control something like his toys that are important to him.

Leadership role is vital to the relationship between you and your dog and critical if you have children in the house.

Do not ignore growling, it has the potential to be a huge mistake.

Be as comfortable with the trainer of your dog as you are the teacher of your children. And remember Opportunity Barks