Why Does My Dog Growl at Other Dogs?

Growling at other dogs is one of the most common things guardians come to me about. Guardians feel embarrassed. Frustrated. Worried that someone thinks their dog is aggressive.

If this sounds familiar, you’re definitely not alone.

Almost everyone that comes to me for this is convinced their dog is “bad” or that they’ve done something wrong.

Neither is usually true. The growl is information, and once you understand what it’s telling you, the whole thing gets a lot less mysterious.

Why Is My Dog Growling at Other Dogs?

A growl is your dog asking for space. It’s a warning, which means it’s the polite version of what could come next. Most dogs would much rather tell another dog to back off than have an actual fight.

Why your particular dog feels the need to ask for that space is where it gets interesting. Behavior is never one thing, and the applied ethologist Kim Brophey sums up the full picture with a model called L.E.G.S.: Learning, Environment, Genetics, and Self.^[1] All four feed into that growl.

• Learning history: What has your dog learned about other dogs so far? A bad encounter, a scary off-leash dog that rushed them, or even just years of growling working to make dogs go away, all teach your dog that other dogs mean trouble and the growl gets results. Think back to whether there was a specific incident, because it often points to where the fear started.

• Environment: The here and now matters. A narrow HDB corridor, a packed lift lobby, or a busy stretch of East Coast Park gives your dog no room to make space the normal way, so they escalate. Singapore’s heat doesn’t help either, since a hot, panting dog is already closer to their limit. Look at where the growling happens most, because the setting is often half the problem.

• Genetics: Your dog’s breed mix shapes what they were built to do. Guarding breeds are wired to be suspicious of newcomers, herding breeds notice and react to movement, and some dogs were simply never selected to be socially relaxed with strange dogs. This isn’t an excuse, but it does tell you what you’re working with so you can set fair expectations.

• Self: This is the individual dog in front of you, including their age, their personality, and crucially their health. Pain makes dogs far less tolerant, and a sore hip or an aching tooth can turn a previously easygoing dog snappy. If the growling is new or getting worse, a vet check is a sensible first move.

You won’t always be able to neatly separate these, and you don’t need to. The point is to stop seeing the growl as a character flaw and start seeing it as the sum of your dog’s history, their surroundings, their wiring, and how they feel today.

Is My Dog Leash Reactive or Aggressive?

Leash reactivity and dog-dog aggression overlap, but they aren’t always the same thing and the honest answer is that the label matters less than what’s underneath.

Reactivity usually means your dog overreacts to something, often out of fear, frustration, or sheer over-arousal. A frustrated dog who desperately wants to greet and can’t reach can look just as dramatic as a fearful one, and both can growl, bark, and lunge. Aggression on the other hand is a behavior a dog uses to create distance or protect something, not a personality type your dog is stuck with.

A leash can remove a dog’s ability to create distance naturally. And for a dog who is looking to create distance, without the option to move away, some dogs will resort to:

• staring
• barking
• growling
• lunging

The leash itself isn’t causing the behavior. It’s changing the choices available to the dog.

This is why many dogs appear perfectly fine off leash but struggle when restrained.

That frustration and lack of choice is the heart of leash reactivity, and growling at other dogs on walks is frequently a leash problem wearing an aggression costume. If the growling only shows up when your dog is on lead, then its worth checking out how I work with this here.

How to Manage a Dog That Growls at Other Dogs

Before any formal training, your first job is to stop the growling from being rehearsed. Every time your dog practices the full reaction, it gets a little more automatic, so management is the foundation everything else is built on.

• Create distance early: Cross the road, duck behind a parked car or a void deck pillar, or simply turn and walk the other way the moment you clock another dog. You’re aiming to keep your dog far enough away that they notice the other dog but don’t tip into growling. Build the habit of scanning ahead so you see trouble before your dog does.

• Protect your dog’s space: Off-leash dogs running up to a leashed dog is a real problem here, and you’re allowed to body-block, step in front, or loudly ask another guardian to recall their dog. Your dog needs to trust that you’ll handle it, so be their advocate rather than apologizing your way through it.

• Watch for the early signals: The growl is rarely the first sign. A stiff body, a hard stare, a closed mouth, or your dog suddenly going still all come first. Learn to spot these and move away before the growl, because that’s the window where it’s easy.

• Manage arousal, not just distance: A dog who has already had three close calls is primed to react to the fourth, an effect called trigger stacking. On a bad day, cut the walk short or swap it for sniffing in a quiet corner. Give your dog recovery time after a scare instead of pushing on.

• Drop the corrections: Leash pops, scolding, or anything that adds a bad feeling around other dogs will usually make the underlying fear worse, even if it suppresses the growl for a moment. Methods built on intimidation have been repeatedly shown to increase fear and aggression, so leave them out. Reward calm noticing instead.

What a Good Behavior Professional Will Actually Do

At some point, management buys you breathing room but you want the growling itself to change. That’s when it’s worth bringing in help. Here’s what a good, modern professional should actually be doing, so you know what you’re paying for.

• Take a full history, not just a symptom: Expect questions about your dog’s background, past incidents, daily routine, breed, and health, basically the whole L.E.G.S. picture. A pro who watches one growl and hands you a fix is guessing.

• Rule out pain first: A good professional will ask when the growling started and whether anything physical could be feeding it, and will happily coordinate with your vet. Pain is one of the most overlooked drivers of behavior change in dogs.

• Find your dog’s threshold: They’ll work out the distance and conditions where your dog can still think, then deliberately keep training there. Real progress happens below the point of reaction, not in the middle of a meltdown.

• Change the emotion, not just the behavior: Using desensitization and counter-conditioning, they’ll slowly teach your dog that other dogs predict good things, so the underlying feeling shifts. This is the slow, unglamorous work that actually lasts.

• Coach you, too: A lot of the plan is your timing, your leash handling, and your ability to read your dog. A good professional trains the human end of the leash as much as the dog.

• Set honest goals: The aim is usually a dog who can cope calmly around other dogs, not a dog who suddenly adores them. Anyone promising to make your dog “love all dogs” in two sessions is selling something.

This is the exact work I do with dogs who get worked up around other dogs, and most guardians are relieved to find there’s a clear path through it.

The Embarrassment Is Real

Walking a dog who growls and lunges is exhausting, and the public side of it can be worse than the behavior itself. You start planning routes around other dogs, walking at odd hours, and bracing for the judgment of strangers.

That invisible load is real, and feeling embarrassed doesn’t make you a bad guardian. It makes you someone who cares what happens. The dogs I see make the most progress almost always belong to people who felt exactly that way and decided to get curious instead of giving up.

If your dog’s growling at other dogs has worn you down, the most useful first step is often just getting clear on what’s driving it. You can start here whenever you’re ready.