March 24th, 2011
By Eric Letendre
Friday night I had just sat down and was getting ready to crack open a new Stephen King novel I just bought when I got a call from my good friend, Geoff.
Geoff invited my wife and me to a night out to the Paper City Brewery in Holyoke, MA.
Paper City Brewery is located on what feels like the top of the 80th floor of an old, dusty factory building. After walking up eight flights of stairs, you walk into a large room filled with old motorcycles, flags from different countries, a replica of a large great white shark and one bathroom for about 200 people.
Anyway, as I walked into the room to begin the night’s festivities, I accidently bumped into a guy and spilled his beer.
“What the !#$% is your problem dude?”
As I looked into the eyes of the guy standing about four inches taller than me, I quickly judged that he was not a student of, “How To Win Friends And Influence People.”
Between the tattoos covering his arms and neck and the steel earrings that covered his lips, nose, cheek, and I think I saw one on his tongue, I could tell he was not happy with me.
“Sorry about that.” I said.
“!@$% that, you got beer on my shirt, %@@*&%$.”
I thought the beer stain was an improvement, but kept that thought to myself and again apologized.
Standing there, I thought how interesting this situation was. You see, as a dog trainer, I have dealt with aggressive dogs for years.
I have studied aggressive behavior from every possible angle. I have volumes of books on aggressive behavior and have had some tough cases over the years.
The big mistake that I see beginning trainers make is trying to deal with aggression by using aggression – HUGE, HUGE MISTAKE!
When you use aggression to deal with aggression, it escalates aggression.
An inexperienced trainer will use a leash correction when the dog shows any signs of getting nasty. This usually results in the dog getting madder, which results in the dog trainer getting harsher, which results in the dog… you get the picture.
It can quickly spiral out of control.
Dealing with my tattooed, perforated friend was going to be tricky.
The first step with aggression is finding the trigger.
What is it that causes the dog to become aggressive?
A good dog trainer will find out what the trigger is and start the training process from there.
In this situation, I was the trigger. This dude was ready to brawl because I bumped his beer. I knew that if I said some choice words in response to his comments, it could quickly escalate into a real donnybrook (I’ve always wanted
to use that word in a sentence).
I wish I could say that he shoved me and I did my best Chuck Norris moves on his sorry butt, pinned him to the ground and forced him to say, “Uncle.”
But it didn’t happen that way.
My job was to diffuse the aggression and not escalate it. I apologized again and offered to buy him a beer.
I also offered to have his shirt dry-cleaned. I wouldn’t say we departed friends, but it never turned into a physical altercation.
As you can see, ego also plays a huge role in dealing with aggressive behavior. My ego was screaming at me:
“Tell this guy to shove it.” “Tell this guy the beer stain is an improvement,” ”Tell him to get stuffed.”
But…
…my training and good sense told my ego to take a hike. I have seen first-hand what ego can do in this situation.
In my next message, I’m going share with you the time I was attacked by a dog named Scar. It happened because a trainer’s ego got involved in the training process and I ended up paying for it.
See you then!
Eric
P.S. If you really want to learn about aggressive behavior check out The Dog Training Inner Circle.
Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States and has been training dogs for over 20 years, teaching regular, average, every-day owners all over the world how to get the training results they want as fast as possible. Eric is also the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Improve Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
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Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States. For more than 20 years, he has been developing dog training "hacks" that have worked for dog owners all over the world. Eric operates from a home office or a laptop while traveling and draws on his experience and passion for dog training to show others how to develop a dog that is truly “Man’s Best Friend”.
Eric is the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Hack Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
This was an interesting story. How you relate dog training to dealing with this aggressive idiot was truly interesting. I am a professional dog walker, and two things you say in this article are very true. Dealing with dog aggression by being aggressive yourself only leads to trouble. A large, aggressive dog will always win the battle (i.e. a Pitbull, German Shepherd, Rottweiler), if things escalate and they are very aggressive. The second thing you mention is letting your ego get in the way. Your ego will get you in trouble a lot with dogs. If you take the stand that a dog is not going to get the better of you, you may dominate that dog, but you ruin the relationship. Let your ego go, and use your intelligence instead to work with the animal. Good work