ID'ing types of aggression

I still don't feel completely confident identifying types of aggression-- Fear aggression, Dominant Aggression, Aggression vs. Reactivity (recent thread got me started again ), etc. And just plain trying to assess whether a dog is trying to kill another dog, or just trying to scare it away.

Normally I just take it on a case-to-case basis, but what are some major differences or body language you guys note when you look at an "Aggressing" dog?

I wish I knew what type of aggression Ruckus has. The behaviorist I was using said it was territorial/domanace aggression. But I have heard many other people disagree.

Ears, tail, mouth are much of what I look at. Eyes to some extent, but I generally don't notice that as much.

Also an overall image of confidence or not as well as the situation.

For example, Ares is very confident in his aggression - tail and ears are up, he postures and gets up above the other dog, but it's always done in a defensive situation, so I consider him to be defense-aggressive.

Here's some illustrations of different facial expressions:

http://www.pawsacrossamerica.com/interpret.html

I haven't read this book, but it looks like it's worth looking at:

http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DTB856&AffiliateID=45241&Method=3

This article is long, and I don't remember which parts of it I disagreed with, but it's a good read:
http://www.siriusdog.com/articles/schutzhund-sport-dogs-winkler1.htm

Dominant aggression isn't as common as fear or defense aggression. A truly dominant dog rarely displays aggressive behaviors. Their mere presence is all they need for other dogs to heed them.

If the dog is quick to react, he is reactive - it's about the threshold to stimuli. He can be prey reactive, he can be defense reactive. Ares becomes very reactive when there's food available.

Aggression vs reactivity really isn't a vs. The dog can be aggressive with or without reactivity and he can be reactive with or without aggression.

IME, almost all aggression can be handled by gradually building positive associations with things and by teaching obedience and building confidence. Positive associations can change their perspective so they don't need to be defensive. Obedience helps build their confidence, provides them with leadership (it's a piece of it, anyway) and allows control over their behaviors - if the dog is in a sit stay, he can't be lunging and biting.

brenda aloff's book Aggression in Dogs is a great resource for this kind of thing. It's expensive, but it's really worth the money.

I recently read a good book called " How to speak Dog" its by a well known animal behaviorist it gets into everything u can think of it will be able to pick everything u need 2 look for in your dogs aggresion apart by body language and even hids barks...

I have that book. I've got so many, I forget which are the good ones-- I'll look through that one again.

Good resources given for body language.

I'm finding the terms "reacting in fear" or "reactivity" are being used to excuse far too many aggressive behaviors in dogs where the actual cause is either the dog's confusion as to their place in the social order or some sort of frustration.

This is not to say there is not some element of fear in the aggressive behaviors of all animals. Fear is what keeps us safe and alive. But dismissing (rather than addressing) aggressive behaviors in dogs (not humans) as "reacting in fear", is an exploitation of this concept, IMO.

A dog who believes they are the dominant being in the relationship with their human can give the human a discipline bite if the human corrects them. This would be social confusion.

A dog who is faced with a boundary where there was no boundary before, may become aggressive. This would be boundary frustration.

A dog who receives little or no mental and physical challenge may vent eccess energy in aggressive ways. This is also frustration.

Social confusion can be headed off by establishing yourself as the packleader from the beginning or by getting help from a professional if you need to turn the relationship around.

Frustration can be headed off by providing the dog with plenty of mental and physical stimulation and by teaching the dog to accept social, territorial, and physical boundaries.

I use the term 'reactivity' rather than aggression but certainly don't excuse anything. What I find is that people are less likely to deal with aggression with physical or harsh methods if you explain what an animal is REACTING to. It seems to better explain the need to deal with what caused the reaction rather than to just punish the symptom.

Aggression, while I'm not afraid of the term, is often used to describe symptoms that are nothing of the sort. I call em like I see em but will always try to make things easier for my clients to understand and treat.

A really good video is this one - Welcome to Dogwise.com I don't love the gal presentng but I lend this out to some clients so that they can see dogs exhibiting different kinds of body language with an explaination. This is particularly useful when repeating an event in order to see behavior in action is not an option for me when dealing with some types of reactivity.

I meant to add that I just finished watching this one and while it's more of a trainers resource and very expensive, it's worth the money to have when you consider how expensive private training is.

Not suggesting that it would replace private training or classes but it would provide information that neither private training nor classes ever could.