Growling is a very normal, common vocalization that dogs use to warn other dogs, animals, and people to back off. A dog’s growl can have several different meanings and is not the death threat many humans intrepret it to be.
However, growls communicate important information about our dog’s current emotional state and should not be ignored.
Growling dogs give humans a precious opportunity to intervene and prevent a potential bite incident. Growling itself is not the problem, but rather an indicator that there is a problem.
So why is it that many people get angry and upset with their dogs for growling?
Growling dogs scare people on an instinctual level. When human beings are afraid, we tend to react quickly, particularly when our safety is threatened. Our survival instincts kick in and motivate us to act and extinguish the threat.
For this reason, most dog guardians will react to a growling dog by yelling, scolding, or even striking. It’s a knee jerk, primal reaction.
Growling is aggression, and aggression is a bad thing, right? While growling is indeed a warning of potential physical aggression, it is not necessarily an immediate precursor to aggressive violence.
Rather, growling is a red flag that from your dog’s perspective, something is very wrong.
This article will discuss three reasons why we need to mentally reframe growling from a negative to a positive.
If we claim to love our dogs, we must be willing to hear the words they cannot speak.
1) Growling is communication.
All healthy relationships require open communication. Dogs are limited on their ability to communicate precisely with us. Dogs are vocal, but not verbal like humans. They cannot access words to articulate precisely how they are feeling.
They rely on their only means of communication: vocalizations and body language.
Growls communicate a message. A message we often misinterpret. Most often growling is a distress signal, notifying other beings of the dog’s fear or discomfort. Much like a child yelling, growling is more of a cry for help than a violent threat.
A growl can mean “please give me some space, you’re scaring me” or “please don’t lean on my hips, I have arthritis and I’m in pain!” Growling may seem like a singular message of incoming violence to us, but it often communicates many different messages, most of which are a plea for you to intervene and help them.
Imagine being a non- verbal person and having your cries for help met with yelling and a smack to the face from your caretakers. When we reprimand our dogs for growling, we unintentionally discourage an important vocal warning and the end result will be a dog that skips the growling and goes straight to biting.
For large, scary looking dogs we tend to assume growling means “I’m going to tear your finger off”, meanwhile dismissing the high-pitched growls of a little dog as a hollow threat. Some people even think it’s cute or funny to see a little dog snapping and snarling.
However, there is no humor in a helpless animal experiencing acute distress and being completely ignored by their caretaker.
2) Growling is an opportunity.
Most people are very unaware of their dog’s body language and miss subtle stress signals. Typically, when a dog growls, it is only after previous stress signals were missed and ignored. For many dogs, growling is their very gracious attempt to get the attention of their human guardian and alert them of their discomfort.
Growls provide you with a precious opportunity to intervene. Because your dog growled, you know they are very uncomfortable and can get them out of this situation before it escalates.
As a responsible dog guardian, you should always want to be aware of your dog’s potential discomfort. Their safety and the safety of those around them is ultimately your responsibility; ethically and legally. If a dog feels unsafe and their growls are being ignored, they may escalate and choose violence.
However, it’s worth noting that for most healthy dogs, biting is the last and least desirable option.
Take advantage of this opportunity and tune into your dog’s needs by responding appropriately to a growl. Instead of scolding, remove your dog from the distressing situation and later reflect to identify the cause of your dog’s distress.
Once you identify the source of the distress, you can then take action to prevent or prepare your dog for a future similar situation. Example: getting nails trimmed.
3) Growling is violence prevention.
We tend to view growling as an immediate precursor to biting, which is sometimes accurate, but more often it is an attempt to prevent a bite. Violence in the animal world is costly and not very energy efficient. There are no stitches and antibiotics in the wild, so one infected laceration from a scuffle could mean death.
Violent fighting is not productive and most healthy animals in nature avoid extreme displays of violence when at all possible. Dogs (and many other species including human beings) engage in a complex communication technique designed to prevent actual violence called ritualized aggression.
Ritualized aggression describes the complex behavior patterns animals engage in to prevent a real, potentially lethal fight. This includes warning body language signs of stress such as a tucked tail, lip licking, whale eye, and tense body posture.
If those signs are ignored, dogs may escalate to lip curls, growling, snapping, and snarling in a last-ditch effort to prevent biting.
Many of you may be familiar with the above illustration of this process, commonly known as the canine ladder of aggression.
Growling is akin to a human shouting and shaking their fists to ward off a possible attacker. Many people mistakenly interpret growling as the human equivalent of pointing a gun at someone and react in abject horror, escalating instead of diffusing the situation.
Even when a dog does escalate to biting, most dogs are very articulate and intentional with the level of damage they inflict with a bite. Keep in mind that low level biting is a normal, common part of dog play and communication.
Dogs will often issue non-lethal correction bites to curb unwanted behavior from other dogs.
While the level of injury from a correction bite will greatly vary depending on the size, breed, and temperament of that individual dog, most correction bites result in injuries similar to that of a minor kitchen knife accident.
Growling is a dog’s very gracious attempt to avoid a potential correction bite and give the offending party a chance to back off.
Instead of viewing growling as a death threat, we need to mentally reframe growling as a vital communication signal between dog and guardian that something is very wrong.
The next time you hear a dog growl, back off, give them some space, and deescalate the situation. Remember that the dog is using his only means of communication and it’s best to tune in, rather than freak out.
Excellent article, filled with good information. I truly hope it is widely read and people learn from it.