Article From SubmitYOURArticle.com: 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

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Jim Burwell has the reputation of making the
impossible, possible. Lovingly named
Houston's Dog Whisperer by Texas Magazine, Jim's
25 years of professional dog training
advice can be found
here:http://www.petiquettedog.com/blog

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