A Study of Redirected Aggression - What Is It?

Aggression comes in many levels low to severe. It also manifests itself in various behaviors. This study takes a look at redirected aggression, one of the most dangerous forms of aggression.

This post defines redirected aggression.
Redirected aggression is also called respondent aggression. My simple to understand definition is that it is a reflexive response caused by overstimulation to stimuli such as bunnies, squirrels, people, dogs, even noises or objects. The dog's fear or anxiety turns to anger or panic as it is unable to obtain the stimuli or flee from it. The display finishes itself with a redirected bite to whatever is in the dog's way, whether it is your leg, arm, a couch, a leash, a chair leg, another dog etc.

Definition from James O'Heare's, Aggression in Dogs puts it this way:

Respondent: An unconditioned response (reflex) or conditioned response that is elicited by a stimulus (unconditioned or conditioned).

Respondent Aggression: Occurs when a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (that elicits an unconditioned response). After conditioning has occurred, the neutral stimulus itself elicits what we call a conditioned response, and the neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.

Respondent aggression occurs when an animal is STIMULATED to attack another nearby animal (human, objects) by being presented with an aversive stimulus (Ulrich, Hutchinson & Azrin 1965). In some medical-model classification systems, respondent aggression has been called pain-elicited aggression or redirected aggression.

Some facts:
Tendency is “species specific” – humans, hamsters, monkeys, rats, dogs will and can redirect aggression onto another animal, same species animal, or human. Imagine you or someone you know has a bad day at work. This frustration or anger is redirected on anyone you come into contact with, your wife, your child, even the checkout girl at the local supermarket.

Effect may be cumulative. The incidence of attack increases as the frequency or intensity of aversive stimuli presented increases. This means that the stimuli, in this example a squirrel, manifests itself to other situations, such as fast movements of any kind. The more the dog practices redirecting, the more frequent it will occur and the intensity will increase.

So this explanation leaves little to the imagination that it is a dangerous projection of anger. There is little direction on how to exactly modify this type of aggression. Through my case studies we'll take a look at how to do that. If you have a dog who redirects their aggression and don't know what to do, this is a place to talk about it and possibly get some sane advice to move you along to diminishing this behavior.