Punishing The Growl

I hear it all—the—time! You should never punish a growl because that's how dogs communicate they are uncomfortable. This argument is complete nonsense, and in this episode I break down why and what we have seen with the hundreds of dogs we have addressed growling with.

By putting more emphasis on why something is happening than on how to change what is happening, people stay stuck. The whole 'root cause' argument is generally not helpful and sends people down a rabbit hole that goes nowhere. 

Dogs do lots of things that communicate discomfort. That doesn't mean we should allow it. Allowing your dog to do such things will generally just continue to strengthen the intensity and frequency of the behavior, often resulting in eventual escalation. 

That being said, there are lots of things to consider when it comes to addressing growling, and I'm going to break them down in this episode. Things like the general personality type of your dog and the nature of your relationship, etc. Most of the time dogs are growling at dogs or noises or strangers, but if your dog is growling at you, you need to build something new, my friend. Just attacking the growl is probably not the best plan of action.

But that being said, we never give the advice "ignore it" or "respect it". Those are the words of fools who don't know how to fix it.