Dogs are pack animals, so there is always the chance of confrontation between them. While you can’t always stop aggressive behaviour, you can look out for the signs and prevent a situation escalating by taking the right actions.

One of the big mistakes dog owners make when they think their dog is becoming aggressive it to get anxious and panicky. The dog will be looking to the owner for a lead, and will only feel it more necessary to defend itself if the owner seems scared. Stay calm in these situations and it may help to relax your dog and stop a potentially dangerous situation.

Another mistake is to try and comfort your dog through petting or even giving a treat. While with humans this might seem a reasonable thing to do, it may be accidentally reinforcing the aggressive behaviour by leading the dog to think it is being rewarded. Act normally when your dog becomes aggressive and don’t give it any encouragement.

Basic obedience training can go a long way to helping with aggression problems.

If a fight does occur, never try to break it up yourself by coming between the dogs. You may end up getting hurt as the dogs are in an aggressive state of mind. Instead, the best way is to try and distract the dogs. A well trained dog should respond to the come command, but in a fight situation training may be forgotten or temporarily ignored, which is why you may need to distract the dogs before using a return command. Don’t risk your own health to break up a dog fight in any situation.