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How To Discourage Coonhound Aggression!

With coonhounds being the 127th most popular dog breed in the USA, they are far from one of the more popular dog breeds but their popularity is slowly increasing with each year that goes by and we are seeing more and more people reaching out to ask questions about keeping a coonhound.

Although they are generally an easy dog to keep, we have seen a number of people reaching out about coonhound aggression as in some situations, the breed can display food aggression in multi dog homes.

Proper socialization and training is the key to discouraging any type of aggression in a coonhound with training starting as early as possible in the puppy’s life.

Due to food aggression being the most common problem with coonhounds, feeding your coonhound separately to other dogs in your home is only a temporary solution that can cause the problem to get worse over time so getting your dog used to eating around other dogs is important.

If you have adopted our coonhound from a rescue shelter then it can sometimes be more difficult to discourage aggression from your dog due to potential trauma from its past but with correct training and plenty of time and effort, you should still be able to work on the issues causing your coonhound to be aggressive.

Thankfully though, for the most part the breed are generally friendly and should not cause any problems, especially if they have been trained from being a puppy.

Are Coonhounds Aggressive?

Coonhounds can be aggressive in some situations, most notably around food when the dog has not been correctly trained or socialised or if the coonhound is a rescue dog with a traumatic past.

In general, most coonhounds will not be aggressive and those that are can almost always be trained to discourage any potential aggression even if they have been untrained for many years.

Just keep in mind, the longer the dog has been left to act aggressively the more difficult it tends to be to train any aggression out of the dog.

In addition to that, rescue dogs may have a high level of trauma but the majority of modern dog shelters do an excellent job of rehabilitating dogs ready for rehoming and will give you an honest run down of the expected behavior of any dog they rehome.

If you have adopted a stray coonhound off the street then it can have a number of issues in addition to higher than average levels of aggression so getting your dog checked by a vet for any issues, particularly parasites is highly recommended.

In all of these situations, a consistent training program with a firm and assertive owner should be able to normalize the aggression levels in your coonhound down to a regular and manageable level.

Should I Be Worried If My Coonhound Is Aggressive?

Although you should try to discourage aggression in your coonhound as much as possible, there is generally no need to worry about signs of aggression with the breed.

More often than not, a coonhound will simply show their teeth and growl rather than actually carry out any violence, especially against their owners but any aggression in a dog should be dealt with as soon as possible.

As with most dog breeds, an unfixed male coonhound will often have higher levels of aggression than a fixed or neutered male coonhound as their dominance drive is much higher due to higher levels of testosterone.

In some situations, simply neutering your coonhound may be able to get the aggression under control, especially if you have only noticed the aggression in your dog spike when it reaches sexual maturity.

If you do have multiple dogs in your home then we would recommend that you do your best to train your coonhound not to be aggressive with there being a number of excellent free resources on YouTube that are able to help you with this.

Most major towns and cities have at least one dog training business now so you will often be able to get the assistance of an experienced dog trainer if needed too.

How To Discourage Coonhound Aggression!

A consistent training program with an authoritative owner is the best way to discourage aggression in your coonhound.

Depending on the specific situation, this training can take considerably longer than many people think so don’t begin the training with your dog expecting a quick and easy fix.

Many people who own an aggressive dog, not matter the breed will choose to pay a professional, experienced dog trainer to help them deal with the aggression in their dog.

This can work out to be a much quicker and easier way to reduce the levels of aggression in your coonhound but it can work out to be considerably more expensive than going through the training yourself.

If you do have young children in your home or other pets then most of our readers will probably be much better off paying for a professional dog trainer to train their coonhound not to be aggressive.

This will usually get you much quicker and more consistent results with your dog that stick and reduce the potential risk to your other pets and young children in the shortest possible time frame.

Conclusion

That brings our article going over how you are able to deal with coonhound aggression in your dog to an end. Thankfully, the breed is generally calm and relaxed and even if your coonhound is aggressive, it does tend to be relatively easy to normalise its levels of aggression back to the natural state of the breed in the majority of cases. Food aggression does tend to be the more popular type of aggression found in coonhounds and this can often be fixed quickly too helping to deal with the problem as quickly as possible.