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One of the most worrying things that can happen when you are exercising your new dog is if  he displays dog aggression towards other dogs. Your natural reaction is one of panic and then denial.

We were assured by the rescue center that Fig was fine around other dogs. Haha how naive were we. When walking through a rescue center you tend to be excited about the prospect of actually taking the new member of your family home. He is in an unreal environment surrounded by other very vocal dogs.In our case Fig was in a side spur in a run that was partially obscured by cardboard. We were informed that this was because he had a mild case of Kennel Cough and we did not inquire any further other than about the treatment needed for the Kennel Cough.

Lol well now we know better he couldn’t bark at the time either due to the Kennel Cough or due to the fact that he had barked so much that he had lost his voice! We had a bark free week whilst Fig was on his course of antibiotics, he was very docile throughout this time. Fig didn’t ever start off aggressive with dogs but he tended to get over excited after a short while with them and then try his luck! After a further couple of days this turned into barking at dogs on sight and of course trying to rech them even if they were half a mile down the road.

So it was back to my trusty dog training manual to try and work out how to deal with this unexpected turn of events. It was apparent that Fig lacked very many social skills and that he had not been socilised. For this type of issue you really do need a good dog obedience book and if you cannot start to make changes with the behaviour yourself then you must seek professional help. The things that I took away from this whole process were:

• To remain calm throughout, don’t lose your temper and do not get uptight.

• Keep walking your dog to parks where you know there are going to be other dogs.

• Praise your dog even for the smallest sight of good behavior to reinforce that this is how he should be behaving.

• Slowly and naturally let him interact with other dogs do not avoid them.

• Remove him from the situation before it escalates so that you can praise him by watching your dog you will be able to tell when the right moment to remove him is.

We were lucky with Fig that he was just unsocialised, he never attacked he was just vocal, playful and exciteable. I really can stress it enough that if you have a puppy make sure you follow a dog training programme and socialise him from as early as it is safe to do so, it will cause you a lot less hedaches and stress in the long run. If you have an older dog all is not lost you just have to be patient and help your dog unlearn his behavior by teaching him social skills.

If you do not start to see an improvement with your dog in the short term then you must seek advice from your vet or from a dog trainer that you should find either through your vet or through recommendations. Speak to other dog owners in your area most people are more than willing to give you a recommendation.