Why is my dog always angry with me when I return from my office?
My dog always seems angry with me when I return from my office. This behavior is regular and he bites almost all of my family members, but still we want our dog to be with us. Any idea why is he behaving like this? Any solution?
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So, first of all, I don't think it's anger. Behaviors like this are often a result of earlier "play" with the dog that was a little more physical than appropriate and so the dog learns that biting is a part of play. I can't say, for sure, if this is your case, but it's a common cause. Net effect, this may be a sign that the dog misses you and wants to play.
Obviously the problem here is that the biting is not desirable. The key to that is to make sure that you don't reward the behavior, even unintentionally. Also, don't engage in physical punishment. The idea here is to encourage the good behavior so that the dog learns to gravitate to that rather than the undesirable behavior.
When he starts to bite when you return, you should stop any interaction, gently extricate yourself, and give some verbal clue such as "no!" to the dog. Do not try to move away (you may be sending a chase play signal) or try to calm him with petting as this would be rewarding the behavior. Ideally, if you can treat or reward him for the times he does not bite when you come home, then you'll start to encourage that behavior as a reaction to when you come in the door. In other words, treat when he responds well, no treat when he nips and bites.
Even if I can't really answer the "why" part of your question and if I doubt it is actual anger, here are a few things you should try to reduce or eliminate that behaviour, assuming that your dog is quite excited because you're back:
stay calm, do not actively pet him before he calms down
if he jumps and/or bites you, do not say anything, this will very likely excite the dog even more and certainly it will not efficiently give him information that it should not happen, and on what should happen instead
do not punish him or whatever, this will create even more stress when you're coming home
Instead try to practice a few exercices when you have time and are relaxed:
take a treat pouch with you (and a clicker) and leave for a minute
come back as you usually do and treat him for staying with 4 feet on the ground
repeat with some variations
do the same exercice but first thing you do when you open the door is to ask him to sit (or whatever else, handstand is more difficult), then treat, you should highly reinforce that.
The goal is to teach an alternate behaviour that you can then reinforce.
Then if he's doing "the wrong thing", you can redirect to another behaviour. The dog will quickly learn what's appropriate, ie. what pays.
At first you can treat, then as he learns what to do, you can simply pet him. For example you come back home, ask him to sit (which he might have done already), do whatever you want to do first and then come back to him, petting, affection, etc.
My key message is
Your dog does not know what to do you when you come home. Consequently he is very likely to propose a behaviour that we (humans) consider incorrect. Teach him an alternative behaviour that you highly reinforce. When it is done do not punish the incorrect behaviour but ignore it and redirect quickly to the correct behaviour which in turn can be rewarded.
This will certainly take some time and it will be frustrating at first, but eventually it will work and your dog will have learnt something.
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