I hear the craziest things being a dog trainer… Yesterday a client growled at his dog. I dismissed it the first time, thinking I'd misunderstood. No, sure enough, it happened again, so I asked about it.
This was his answer: We had a training company come in and they said to growl at the dog – that dogs understood growling because that's what dogs do, growl. (This is the same company I posted about earlier regarding their misinformed and dangerous dominance.)
Picture this: you have a 2-month old baby who is crying. So to communicate with him, you cry back at him. How effective will your communication be? Isn't that the craziest thing?
Best case scenario if you growl at your dog — you'll get his attention because you've made a novel noise. Worst case scenario – you'll get bitten in the face.
I used another example to illustrate the fact that growling at your dog is not only silly, but dangerous advice. Let's say you're going to visit France. You don't know the language, but you can make up words that sound decidedly French. That should be enough – it sounds French, it should work, right?
Wrong, of course. You get to France and you start talking with words that might sound French but are really nonsense – or worse are offensive French words!
So what good does sounding French do? Just about as much as growling at your dog.
One last reason not to growl at your dog. Growls serve many purposes for dogs. Dogs growl during play, they growl during sleep, and they growl to display anxiety or threats. So when you growl at your dog, how do you know (and how does your dog know) what your growl means?
I remember how difficult it was to find valuable dog training information, how frustrated I was every time I applied the latest techniques to train my dog, without major success. Often I had to retrain her over and over again. It took me a lot of trial and error, but I finally learned all the best dog training techniques, and I applied them to my dog one by one with great success.
Nice post thank you for sharing
I growl at my dog, and she knows exactly what I mean when I do. The comparisons you make really sound ridiculous to me; If I’m eating and I want my dog to give me space, I can look at her and growl. She instantly gets the message and backs off. I speak French, but I’m afraid my dog doesn’t. I don’t suggest growling at your dog for those whose dogs question their leadership positions, obviously.
Mencheya: I can ask my dog to back away instead of growling at him. It took about 3 training sessions (in one day) to accomplish the task. Much easier and more clear. Or, if I don’t want my dog near me if I’m eating, I simply ask him to go to his mat and lay down. Problem solved before it even starts. *That’s* good training. 😉
The bonus: *anyone* can use that same cue get my dog to move away. They don’t have to learn how to growl at him to get him to move. Easy for them, the dog, and for me. Problem solved without growling. I love it!
I need to leave this blog out where my roommates can find it. They ALWAYS growl at their dogs (and sometimes mine) and it weirds me out!
I have two dogs a 100 lbs lab and a 85 lbs Rottweiler. As we all know labs have a hankering to let their noses lead them, and rottweilers are a power breed that purrs to show even satisfaction. She is definitely right about knowing the difference!! I have trained my dogs and used combination training but I always reaffirm with a command and praise when my pups mind. I believe that is important. I only use the growling when they are crossing a boundary, it simply reinforces that I am the pack leader when they do not listen to the command. I wouldn’t walk up to any strange dog and start growling as she said that is dangerous, if a dog displays aggressive dominance issues all you could end up doing is aggrevate the dog and end up with a fight you didn’t bargain for.
You are all idiots. First of all, there are scientific studies out there that show how dogs communicate through different types of growls. There’s the “don’t you dare come near my food” growl, or the classic stand-off growl when two dogs are looking at the same bone and both want it, there are specific playful growls that you see when you play tug of war with your dog, etc.
Having established yourself as the alpha, having a good command and obey relationship with your dog and understanding what he can understand – growling can be a helpful way to communicate with your dog. It is not a negative thing, you are not growling at your dog in anger – dogs use growling in their day to day lives to communicate and you can utilize this tool to communicate with your dog as well
My dog showed an immediate improvement in behavior once it was clear who the leader of his pack is. Crying back at a baby is not the same thing, babies eventually learn to speak the same language, a dog will never learn to speak the same language as humans. This craziness, that you refer to, has been the most effective training I’ve ever experienced with my dog. So much so, it only took a few days of enforcing the fact I am the leader, I don’t even have to “growl” anymore, it’s pretty much body language and basic commands and praise.
point is, humans are animals. and an undesired action from your dog is going to frustrate and anger us at some point or another. i do not think this is a dangerous thing to do, as long as you do it early on and keep it short term to establish that you are not to be messed with. it’s a non physical way to get your puppy to stop whatever it’s doing and see that what he or she is doing is undesired, until you can trade your growl off for a no or hey or a cesar millan “tsch” if you like. instead of doing something 100 times and driving yourself crazy and maybe even eventually sending your new puppy to the pound cus you never got the confidence to just make them stop… i think this is a much nicer alternative to all of those things.
Your reasonings are quite ridiculous, I have 2 working cattle dogs and both were trained with and growl and pressure/release. Growling helps you to gain dominance, by getting your dogs attention and taking their minds off of whatever they may be doing that you find unacceptable. I find growling works for me especially working around cattle, a human is going to listen to me when I yell “NO” I do not want to have my dogs getting confused that I’m yelling at them.
I’m a wolf therianthrope and on the autistic spectrum; animalistic communicate comes far more naturally to me than chatting with humans. Genuinely, digs respond to me and I understand them when speaking their language. Howls, whines, yelps, growls etc. displaying and reading their body language too is better than expecting other animals to cater to human communication standards arrogantly.
Dogs see me like another canine and respond to dominant, submissive and affectionate displays/noises/posturing rather than clickers or special words. I was recently asked to ‘deal with’ a ‘dangerous’ dog whose trust I slowly won once I realised it was more defensive and nervous than as malicious as it was thought to be. Any time it deliberately decided to push the boundaries and dominate, a snarl with tongue poking through the teeth and making eye contact made outback down, tail tucked and eventually roll over, drsisting the undesired behavior. I proceeded to go over and let it submissively lick the underside of my jaw in apology and we resumed play once the lesson was learned.
Totally agreed!