Dog growling, Why do dogs growl?

What do you think when a dog growls?

Dogs have many ways of communicating, many of them are familiar to us, and others surprise us and cause us fear or insecurity.

However, we do not know the language of our dogs, and we tend to misinterpret them. Anyone could say that a dog wagging its tail shows that it is happy, but this is not always the case, as the tail’s wagging can sometimes indicate that the dog is alert or afraid.

Dogs have different ways of expressing themselves. One of them is barking. Not all of them have the same intensity or tone; neither do they always express the same thing.

There may be alert barks, anger, happiness, and to know what their barks mean, you have to observe your puppy and identify its barking tone in each situation.

Now, we must also know that just as people have different ways of speaking, different tones of voice and different words with the same language in common, dogs also have a special way of vocalizing.

For example, races closest to wolf ancestors tend to be less barking and are more commonly expressed through howls.

Some small dogs created to hunt rats tend to be effective alarms that do not stop barking at any movement outside the home because their instinct tells them that there may be a nearby rodent they should catch.

What happens when a dog growls?

One of the defense mechanisms of dogs is indeed the growl. They can tell us that they do not like a certain treatment or manipulation, that they feel some resource threatened and want to protect it, that someone causes them to distrust, or even that they are playing.

Yes, many dogs growl when they are playing, sometimes they can be biting your pants or your sleeve with great force and growling, and it does not necessarily mean that they are angry. They are simply playing, and part of the game is growling.

The growl should be considered a way in which the dog communicates with us, and in no way should we scold it or even attack it because it does it. Read Do not correct it when it growls, where we explain why we say this.

Something VERY important: When a dog growls when you touch him, he is likely in pain, and you need to take him to the vet in a primary way, as his health may be at risk, and this can deteriorate his mood and modify his behavior.

The best way to know how and why your Super Puppies growls is always to observe it, learn its language, and interpret it from the context in which it occurs.

Not always a dog that growls is aggressive. It is not always about to attack. Some dogs growl to communicate with us.

There is a situation in which you must be completely responsible and proactive: When a dog growls at a child, you must learn to manage this situation, it may be that your dog is not used to being with children, that he does not like the way the one who touches it, or simply who prefers to move away.

When a dog does this, don’t hesitate for a moment and interrupt the interaction. In our Dogs and children section, you can learn more about the interaction between them.

When a dog growls to protect some resource, we must find a way to make him understand that we are not a threat and that we are here to share the well-being of the family with him.

It is not fun to record them or purposely annoy them when they are protecting a resource, and it can end up losing confidence towards you and even biting you, which will not seem funny to you.

So if your dog growls in this situation, don’t provoke him. In the article, My dog ​​growls, you can teach it that it does not growl at you.