New research suggests it’s time to stop thinking of dogs as either safe or dangerous. In most cases canine aggression seems to be a learned response to a particular situation, not a personality characteristic, since a dog that growls or bites in one situation may not do so in other contexts. The article references a large survey from Rachel Casey et al, at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, that investigated canine aggression towards family members, unfamiliar people in the house and unfamiliar people outside.
Source: Companion Animal Psychology, January 15, 2017.
One of the most interesting findings is that the three different contexts in which aggression occurred did not seem to be related. For example, a dog that was aggressive towards family members was typically not aggressive to unfamiliar people, whether in the home or outside. This suggests we should reconsider how we think of dangerous dogs.