Understanding A Dog’s Growl

Dogs and humans have a variety of ways of communicating their needs to each other. Humans can yell and shout, using words to tell someone else to back off or leave them alone if they are uncomfortable. Humans can walk away and tell other people that something isn’t acceptable. Humans can, sometimes, resort to pushing someone away, or in extreme cases, lash out with a fist or another kind of physical action. These are generally unaccepted in polite human society.

Dogs have more limited forms of communication. Both with each other, and with us, their human caretakers. If a dog is uncomfortable, needs more space, or wants to keep something, sometimes they will use a growl to communicate these things to us.

In times past it was believed a dog should never growl at a person. Growls were interpreted as only being a sign of aggression or dominance, and should be something to be stopped immediately. Fortunately dog training and behavior understanding has come a long way in only a short time.

When a dog growls, something is happening with the dog. Perhaps the dog is playing tug and it’s a fun play growl. In much of the dog sport community tug-growls are encouraged. It tells us that the dog is having fun, may be in fight drive, and is getting a really good game out of the tug.

Sometimes a dog will growl when he feels trapped or uncomfortable in a situation, and he’s telling whomever is near to back off. In such a situation the growl may precede an action on the dogs part, but it may not. In a situation such as this we have to understand why the dog is uncomfortable and change the dog’s environment. Punishing a growl when something like this happens can end up in a very bad way. If the dog growls before a bite, then punishing the growl and making the dog stop growling will only do one thing. It will cause the dog to lash out and bite without warning. Many dogs who have had the growl punished out of them will be thought to attack without warning, when in fact they used to give warning but learned it was too dangerous to do so.

Sometimes a dog will growl because it has food, toys or a chew that it wants to keep. This type of growling is also giving a warning to someone else, be it a person or another dog. If this is the case, the dog should learn, in a kind way, that the people should always be able to take away what the dog has. This is for the dog’s safety too. If a dog has something dangerous that could hurt or kill him if swallowed, he should be able to give it up freely. Usually when a dog is young or a puppy, a valued toy or bone can be traded for something else equally valued by the dog. This way the dog learns that giving something up means getting something great in return.

There are many great books and resources out there now about listening to a dog’s growl and understanding what it means. If your dog growls at you, please don’t immediately punish that form of communication so the dog no longer has that outlet. Understanding the cause behind the growl will improve your relationship with your dog in a rainbow of ways.

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Tags: Behavior