Teaching a Dog to Snarl on Command

driven

driven

New Member
How would you go about teaching a dog to snarl on command? I've always wondered this. Especially a nice dog who you could never catch doing it to be able to make it into a trick with clicking. I've always thought this might be a good idea for security reasons such a stranger coming up to you while your walking your dog at night or something or someone threatening you in some way. You could tell the dog to snarl (using some kind of command) and the person would most likely get scared off. A snarl is very intimidating and so is a growl and could be used to that advantage. And the growl would probably be necessary at night because the person may not be able to see the dog snarling. How would you teach them to snarl? And what about teaching them to growl on command while snarling?
 
Can someone delete this thread? I've decided that it would not be good to teach a dog to snarl or growl because it may teach them that aggression is ok. Thanks.
 
I don't know how to teach a snarl or growl, but you can easily teach a dog to bark on command. You can also have the word be "protect" so that would sound scarey.

I don't think teaching a snarl or growl would teach them to be aggresssive though. Since you are reframing it, they would learn that snarl= treat and it would just be another trick in their book. However, they may start to do it whenever they see someone, not to scare them away but to try and earn a treat, and it would have the effect of scaring people you don't want scared!
 
Very true. Yeah, I'm just not sure it would be a good idea anyways. I think I'm going to try to work on barking on command. A scary sounding word would be a good idea. I like the word "guard" better than "protect".
 
I met a border who would show his teeth on "teeth". It was very cute and did not elicit aggression. :D He was a lovely dog.

I think it would depend how you taught it... You would probably want to shape teeth than capture an aggressive moment.
 
driven;10392 said:
Very true. Yeah, I'm just not sure it would be a good idea anyways. I think I'm going to try to work on barking on command. A scary sounding word would be a good idea. I like the word "guard" better than "protect".
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First let me say, I do not believe in the average person owning a guard dog or doing that kind of training. However, there are times you wish you did have one. I had a doberman that dearly loved to play fetch. She would get so excited, she would bark and carry on for me to throw her toy. I had my sister and friends work with me on the training. I would have Raven in the heel position, and I used the command 'watch them', then would have her go to the stand position. They would show Raven the toy, I encouraged her to be excited and barking, my helper would throw the toy to be retrieved. We would then repeat. To Raven, it was just a fun game of fetch. As planned, Raven learned that when I told her to watch the person approaching, they would play fetch with her and she would go into the stand, bark and carry on like she was going to eat them alive, but it was happy play to her. Eventually, I released her from the stand and let her jump at the person (really she was trying to get the toy lol). It was quite effective to the approaching person. First they heard me give a verbal command that sounded like a signal to the dog to prepare to attack, then the barking doberman.

I only had to use this in twice over the years with Raven, it was very effective and the people backed off quickly both times. Pretty good for a dog that wanted to play fetch. :dogbiggrin: LOL

Charleen
 
cppugs;10397 said:
First let me say, I do not believe in the average person owning a guard dog or doing that kind of training. However, there are times you wish you did have one. I had a doberman that dearly loved to play fetch. She would get so excited, she would bark and carry on for me to throw her toy. I had my sister and friends work with me on the training. I would have Raven in the heel position, and I used the command 'watch them', then would have her go to the stand position. They would show Raven the toy, I encouraged her to be excited and barking, my helper would throw the toy to be retrieved. We would then repeat. To Raven, it was just a fun game of fetch. As planned, Raven learned that when I told her to watch the person approaching, they would play fetch with her and she would go into the stand, bark and carry on like she was going to eat them alive, but it was happy play to her. Eventually, I released her from the stand and let her jump at the person (really she was trying to get the toy lol). It was quite effective to the approaching person. First they heard me give a verbal command that sounded like a signal to the dog to prepare to attack, then the barking doberman.

I only had to use this in twice over the years with Raven, it was very effective and the people backed off quickly both times. Pretty good for a dog that wanted to play fetch. :dogbiggrin: LOL

Charleen
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That's awesome! Good thing Dobermans have their tails docked though or this may not have worked as well with a happy tail wagging.:doglaugh::dogwink: But that is really cool! Great idea!:dogbiggrin:
 
This is the way of a German Tricktrainer:

Hold a treat in you hand and let the dog bite it out of your fingers, but don't give it to your dog (sorry, my term-english is not the best :dogwacko:)
He will automaticly pull his flews (?) up a little bit and this you have to click out and make it longer and longer. The fingers you hold the treat will be the sign for the trick later.

My dog can't do this so far, it is very difficult to understand for the dog I think.

but you should never click real impend!
 
I think I'll try this method.
When I wanted to teach this, I tried a littlebit funny way. I snarled on the dog, and waited for her to snarl back.... It did work for a little time, but never got really far with it, and I just couldn't stand it without laughing... :D
 
I think it depends on how you teach it. For instance, I could teach Mud to growl rather easily. When you play with her and her tug toys, she growls---but playfully. It's not aggressive, defensive, or possessive at all. She's just playing. If I used this to teach her to growl on command, she would not think of it as being aggressive--she would just think of it as another trick that earned her a reward. However, if you tried to catch your dog in an aggressive growl and taught it on command, you'd be encouraging aggression.
 
I never really considered teaching a dog to growl but I guess it can be amusing to have your dog growl and snap ferociously at someone at your command :dogangry: and then at another command instantly starts licking that someone's face off. :dogtongue2:
 
biggi;10431 said:
This is the way of a German Tricktrainer:

Hold a treat in you hand and let the dog bite it out of your fingers, but don't give it to your dog (sorry, my term-english is not the best :dogwacko:)
He will automaticly pull his flews (?) up a little bit and this you have to click out and make it longer and longer. The fingers you hold the treat will be the sign for the trick later.

My dog can't do this so far, it is very difficult to understand for the dog I think.

but you should never click real impend!
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I get what you're saying and that sounds like a good idea to try. I don't understand what you meant by this though:

but you should never click real impend!
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I know you said your english is bad, but I just can't seem to make sense of this at all. Sorry. Anybody know what that means?
 
tx_cowgirl;10466 said:
I think it depends on how you teach it. For instance, I could teach Mud to growl rather easily. When you play with her and her tug toys, she growls---but playfully. It's not aggressive, defensive, or possessive at all. She's just playing. If I used this to teach her to growl on command, she would not think of it as being aggressive--she would just think of it as another trick that earned her a reward. However, if you tried to catch your dog in an aggressive growl and taught it on command, you'd be encouraging aggression.
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Yup. I agree.

I'm not sure how you would get them to know you were clicking for the growl instead of the tug though if you were playing tug of war or something, you know? Like how would you get them to seperate the playing from the growling and only growl?
 
Good question. I think they would get it because really there isn't any actual tugging unless you're pulling on the toy. If you click as soon as they start growling, eventually they'd differentiate the growling and the tugging. I think it would work. ^^ If I decide to teach this to Mudflap, I'll let you know how it goes. I was thinking about teaching something like, "What does a bear say?" Or something along those lines. :)
 
tx_cowgirl;10622 said:
Good question. I think they would get it because really there isn't any actual tugging unless you're pulling on the toy. If you click as soon as they start growling, eventually they'd differentiate the growling and the tugging. I think it would work. ^^ If I decide to teach this to Mudflap, I'll let you know how it goes. I was thinking about teaching something like, "What does a bear say?" Or something along those lines. :)
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Aww, that's cute! "What does a bear say?" Awww.:dogsmile:

Is it harder for them when the name is long like that?

For me, if I decide to try to teach this to my puppy, I am going to use the word "guard" I think. I want it to be more of a protective kind of thing. I think I get kind of paranoid sometimes walking my dogs at night because we've had some things happen in our neighborhood. For instance, a few weeks ago a girl was raped on the exercise trail behind our house. Things like that scare me...

Anyways though, yes, definitely let me know if you decide to teach that! I would like to know how it goes and the process of it all.:dogsmile:
 
Yes you have every reason to be cautious. There's just too many bad people in the world today. I will probably teach a hand signal to Mud so that I may use it if need be in a sitauation other than just playing. When I walk in a public place with lots of people, I'm always with a buddy and their dog(s), never alone.
In my experience, it does take a bit longer for them to catch on when the command is relatively long. For this reason I would suggest teaching a hand signal first, then later incorporating the vocal cue. The more you practice using the two together, they'll catch on and understand the vocal cue as well. =) It depends on the dog, though. Some of them have no trouble with wordy commands, and some have trouble focusing on the whole sentence and pairing it with the behavior.
Fortunately, I haven't had any problems with wierd people in my neighborhood. I live in the country, but I still have several neighbors, all of whom are too lazy to go outside and walk all the way out to the field and then walk more there. Lol. If anyone tried to do anything though, I know Rusty would defend me with no hesitation. He's very protective of me and seems to be an uncanny judge of character. Of course, he would never attack anyone that he simply just didn't like. However, if someone tried to hurt me, he would protect me. Most people think he's scary looking anyway. If they only knew he's a big old teddy bear. ^^ Mudflap on the other hand...I have no idea how she'd react. She's a big old softy and quite timid, but she has become very defensive before when an aggressive dog started barking and growling at me. And Zeke's always been very clingy and protective of me. So....I think between the boys and Mudflap the attacker would have their hands full. :dogsmile:
 
And understand that my dogs are neither undersocialized, people aggressive, or trained to attack. They love people and would love it if everyone they saw gave them a belly rub and an ear stroke. I simply know their personalities and know from unfortunate incidents(that luckily we all came away from unharmed) that they would defend me.
 
Hi-
So for training the snarl, with just lip movement rather than a growl along with it, would you recommend using the 'move to feed the treat, but then with hold it', so the dog will move its lips? And then gradually start to shape how you want them to move their lips?
Or could you train it by lifting the dog's lips for them and treating and then hope the dog gets the idea and starts lifting their own lips to get the treat faster?
Thanks.
-Dearing & Puppy
 
I'd like to teach this to my puppy, but she doesn't growl when she plays tug. My older dog lifts her lips extreamly when Kai comes around, but I don't want to encourage agression. I don't live in the most dangerous neighborhood, but not the safest either. Plus, I'd like it for media work. Anyone know a way to get her to lift her lips or snarl?
 
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