Is Your Dog Protecting You With Their Aggressive Behavior?
It’s natural to feel a secret sense of pride when your dog reacts aggressively toward a stranger or perceived threat, thinking they’re protecting you. 
But before you get too comfortable, it’s important to recognize that such behaviors may not always be rooted in protection.
In fact, aggressive or defensive behaviors could stem from underlying issues like fear, anxiety, or resource guarding. While it might make us feel special, understanding why your dog behaves the way they do is crucial to ensure not just other’s safety, but also their own.
What Does ‘Protective Behavior’ Look Like?
When people describe their dog as “protective,” they often refer to behaviors such as barking, growling, lunging, or even biting when someone approaches them or their home. These signs are typically seen as protective, but they may indicate something else entirely. In fact, many times, these behaviors are more about the dog’s own emotional state than about a protective instinct.
Signs of “protective” behavior might include:
- Barking at strangers or visitors: This happens when someone new enters the house or approaches their personal space.
- Growling or lunging at perceived threats: The dog may try to physically push a perceived intruder away from the owner.
- Placing themselves between the owner and a perceived threat: A more overtly protective stance where the dog positions themselves between the threat and their human.
These behaviors might seem protective at first glance, but it’s important to delve deeper into what’s motivating them.
Training vs. Instinct: When Does Self-Preservation Kick In?
Let’s first clarify an important point: training plays a massive role in whether a dog will protect their owner. It’s important to note that protective behavior isn’t always an instinctual response.
For most dogs, self-preservation tends to override any instinct to protect others. Protection training teaches dogs how to assess threats and respond appropriately, while instinct tends to push dogs toward avoiding confrontation in less dangerous situations.
Without formal training, it’s highly unlikely that a dog will override their own survival instinct to protect their owner. In everyday situations, they may react defensively, but that doesn’t mean they’re stepping in to protect YOU, their guardian. This is particularly true for dogs that are more fearful or anxious, as they may resort to aggressive responses simply out of self-defense and their own self-preservation instinct rather than a sense of duty to protect.
Motivations Behind Behaviors Often Interpreted as Protection
Putting aside dogs that are formally trained in protection there are several motivations that may drive behaviors that are often mistaken for protection. Here’s a breakdown of those:
- Attachment Style
A dog’s attachment style plays a significant role in how they behave in situations where their guardian is threatened. Dogs with a strong attachment to their guardian might display behaviors that appear protective, but these actions are often more about the dog guarding their connection or access to their guardian rather than defending the human. They may act out of concern or stress of losing that access or connection, which can often be misinterpreted as “protectiveness.”
For example, a dog with an anxious attachment style might overreact when their human is approached by a stranger, simply because they are anxious about the possibility of losing that connection/access. While this can look protective, it’s actually a reflection of the dog’s emotional state and attachment needs.
- Emotional Contagion
Dogs are excellent at picking up human emotions and state of mind. Their sense of smell, coupled by their keen eye for our body language, means, they often pick up on our state of mind well before we do! Emotional contagion refers to the dog’s ability to pick up on their owner’s emotional state. If you’re anxious, scared, or stressed, your dog may reflect those emotions through their actions. This can lead to defensive or reactive behaviors that mimic protection, but are really just a result of the dog reflecting the emotional state of their owner.
For example, if a guardian feels threatened by a person approaching them and becomes visibly nervous, the dog might pick up on that anxiety and act aggressively, not because he is protecting the guardian, but because the dog is mirroring the emotional state he is sensing. This emotional contagion can make it seem like the dog is protective, but it’s often just a reaction to the guardian’s own feelings.
- Fear and Anxiety
Fear-driven behaviors are often mistaken for protective instincts. A dog that is fearful of strangers or unfamiliar situations might act aggressively toward a new person or unfamiliar object simply because they perceive it as a threat. In these instances, the dog isn’t protecting the guardian; they’re protecting themselves. This is common in dogs with anxiety issues, where their aggression is more about their own discomfort than any concern for their human.
Fearful dogs are more likely to lash out at a person or situation they don’t understand. Their “protective” behavior is actually just a defensive mechanism to safeguard themselves from perceived harm, rather than any genuine intention to protect their guardian.
- Resource Guarding
Resource guarding is another behavior that might be interpreted as protection, but it’s really about access. In this case, the “resource” could be the guardian. Some dogs may display aggressive behaviors toward people or other dogs if they feel that their access to the guardian is being threatened. Here, the dog is not protecting the guardian for altruistic reasons, but instead is attempting to guard their access to that human as a valuable resource.
Resource guarding can be seen when a dog acts aggressively towards others who try to approach or interact with their person. The dog is essentially letting others know that this ‘resource’ is theirs, and they are not willing to give access or share.
- Territoriality
Dogs tend to be territorial animals by nature (breed and genetics considering). If a dog perceives someone or something as an intrusion into their space, they might display defensive behaviors to establish boundaries. Territorial aggression is a behavior where the dog feels compelled to protect their home or space, including their guardian, from any perceived threats.
In cases of territoriality, a dog might bark, lunge, or even bite if someone enters their territory. These behaviors are often misinterpreted as protective, but they are more about the dog establishing a boundary around their space and preventing intrusion, the guardian just gets lumped in with the space.
What to Do When You See These Behaviors in Your Dog?
If your dog is displaying protective behaviors, it’s important to first assess the situation. Are they reacting out of fear or anxiety? Are they guarding you as a resource? Or is there a legitimate threat that the dog is responding to? If your dog hasn’t had formal protection training and is displaying these behaviors with regularity, it might be time to:
- Seek Professional Help: If the behavior continues or escalates, consult with a professional dog trainer or behavior consultant who can help you address the underlying causes.
- Training: Once you’ve understood the underlying motivations, work with the professional to establish more desired behaviors in those scenarios so that you dog isn’t a danger to others or themselves
What to Do If You Want a Protection Dog?
If you’re genuinely interested in a dog that is trained to protect, it’s essential to work with a professional who specializes in protection dog training. Dogs in this field undergo years of training to learn how to assess threats and respond appropriately.
Protection training involves teaching a dog to differentiate between real threats and normal, everyday situations. This kind of training is controlled, methodical, and must be done by experienced professionals to ensure safety for both the dog and the owner.
If you want to know more about what’s involved with protection training you can read all about it here. Dogs undergoing Protection training, really need to have the right temperament for it and its not what you might be thinking! You can find out more about it here.
Conclusion
Understanding your dog’s behavior is crucial to determining whether they are genuinely protecting you or acting out of fear, anxiety, or resource guarding. Protective behavior is complex and often driven by motivations like attachment, emotional contagion, and instinct. By identifying the true causes of these behaviors and seeking the appropriate training and guidance, you can ensure that your dog’s instincts are directed in the right way, helping both you and your canine companion live more peacefully together. This is even more important in Singapore where we have strict rules around dog guardianship to ensure all citizens and residents are safe.
All in all while it can feel reassuring that your dog is displaying protective behaviors, its important to consider what their training history and motivations are. Once you have a better understanding of these