There is no doubt – a Staffordshire Bull Terrier is a powerful dog, with powerful jaws – one once specifically bred to fight other animals. So it goes without saying that – like many other powerful dogs, the potential for aggression exists.

With younger dogs it’s important to gently but firmly control aggression – from around 4 weeks, getting the dog to accept you as leader! If you do not do this, the dog may try to establish itself in a position where it sees you as the under-dog quite literally.

Now please – this training should be done as gently as is possible, I know that men in particular can be too harsh with dogs, as some of the articles I’ve posted on here on cruelty will suggest!

If you have a dog that growls at you as a pup – all that is needed is to hold the pup at your eye level and growl; until it stops growling at you! Often it may lick your nose as a sign that it has submitted!

Nothing stronger than this or some simple – Time Out in a cage or darkened room is necessary on puppies!

Once male dogs get older though – there may be another challenging period around 12 months of age or so – you might call this stage the “troublesome teenager” stage!

Here a male dog, may make another attempt to dominate you – and this may even take the form of some quite nasty sounding growling!

This can be a really difficult stage – and we’re told is the point at which many dogs are destroyed; as a result of the human fear of the dog becoming dangerous!

As I write this article – we are experiencing this phase in our first ever male Staffordshire. Up until now we have only kept females and put our bitches out to stud dogs!

Our 12 month red male has taken to some quite nasty sounding growling – whenever he’s asked to do something he does not like!

I must admit, when I first saw and heard it for myself; I was concerned that we may have to have him euthanised! But we are persisting with training him for the moment – and I will report on his progress! Needless to say, this is quite serious for us – and for him!

Through reading books on Canine Behaviour, we have established this as Dominance Aggression – a period where he’s trying to position himself as dominant over our 4 bitches – but also over us!

This is UNACCEPTABLE – and we will not permit him to continue with this behaviour!

Treatment for him at present, consists of treating him as if he does not exist for most of the time! And when we DO acknowledge him, e.g., at meal times – it is ALWAYS with some request from him to do something for us!

In other words when we feed him – we always make him DROP – before he eats and only allow him to eat – once he has done this!

Or when he omes to us for attention, he only gets the attention after he has done the Sit or something similar. The idea is to get the dog to accept your control of him – NOT the other way around!

Please be gentle – and have a heart – I am NOT asking you to be cruel!

You should already have trained him to Drop prior to this, so just get him to Drop and then say OK or whatever you normally do before he is released!

Excuse me if I’m cautious in how I explain myself, but one of our bitches came from an abusive home and I believe many owners are just too heavy handed in discipline!

Besides there are a lot of “Dropkicks” out there; who’s very small ego means that they think they need a tough dog to be complete, these types are often cruel to dogs also, believing that by fostering aggression in a dog, they’re somehow heroes!

SHEESH!

We have just started this phase of his anti-aggression training and already have begun to see some changes – but we are NOT finished yet! Stay tuned for news on his progress!

Steve