Growling Is One of the Most Misunderstood Behaviours in Dogs

 Read Complimentary Blog: https://www.brighthound.ie/blog/growling/

This podscast explores why dogs growl, what it really means, and why punishing it can make behaviour worse. Learn how to recognise early signals and support your dog the right way. This podcast will help you understand why your dog is growling, what they are trying to communicate, and how to respond in a way that builds trust instead of making behaviour worse.

Other resources:

How Health Issues Influence Behaviour

The Root Causes of Aggression in Dogs

Voice note your questions on WhatsApp to +353 85 143 8688 to have your questions answered on the Podcast.

📧barbara.j.hardman@brighthorse.ie

🌐https://www.brighthorse.ie/

🌐https://www.brighthound.ie/

☎️+353 85 143 8688

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hi everyone, this blog is all about growling in dogs, which is a vocal form of communication or vocalization, and it's often quite a misunderstood one in dog behaviour, and it's one that I get quite a lot of calls about. And when clients come to me about growling, it's rarely coming from a place of irritation at their dog's behavior. You know, they're not irritated and annoyed that their dog is performing that growling. It's usually coming from a place of fear, and that makes complete sense because the growl is scary in certain contexts. If you're sitting on the sofa, maybe you're trying to give your dog a cuddle, or you want to reach out and touch them, and then suddenly they growl, it really can catch you off guard. And your first thought isn't, oh, this is a type of communication and vocal communication. Your first thought is, is this gonna escalate to a bite? I really don't want to get hurt. And you're right in that moment to recognise that early warning system. So what do we do when we're in that situation? We often go looking for answers, right? We want to know why they did it. And our go-to tends to be Google. We read forums, bit of Reddit, Facebook, and we try and understand what is happening and what we should do about it. And unfortunately, what people are often told from these searches is your dog is trying to dominate you, they're being bold, or they're being naughty. Now, spoilers, none of that is true. So the advice that we get online often becomes stop it, because if they're trying to dominate you, we're gonna stop that. Um, it's correct it because they're being naughty, you want to correct that and put or punish it. But the problem is that that advice is not grounded in behavioural science, and more importantly, it doesn't address what the dog is actually experiencing that led to the ground in the first place. And I'll get into it as we move on through this podcast, but it can actually make things a lot worse and escalate the problem. So if you have been given that advice, the first thing I want you to do is don't correct it, don't punish it, don't stop it. Read the blog, listen to the rest of this podcast. It will tell you the correct things that we need to actually do that are grounded in behavioural science to support the behavioural problem. There's also something else that's going on in here that people don't always talk about. Growling really does feel very different depending on the context. So if your dog growls during Tug of War, it can actually feel kind of fun and it's even a little bit sweet if you've got that cute little puppy growl when you first start playing with them. And I personally love that puppy growl, uh playing Tug of War, and I know you probably do too, because you understand that the growl in that situation is a play behavior, you know, it's a fun, cute behavior, so it's very context-specific. So if we think about it as an oh, you know, if we go back to the standard advice of they're trying to dominate you, they're being bold or being naughty, but you're playing Tug of War with her and they're growling, you don't try and stop it there, you don't try and correct it, you don't punish it, you're having fun playing with them. So again, it's we need to make sure that we actually look at it in the context that it is. We recognize that when dogs growl during play, in that correct context, there's not really a concern for the behavior in that moment. In a different context, if your dog growls at you when you touch them or when you try and move them off the sofa when they're resting, that feels completely different, and rightly so. This makes a lot of my clients, and I'm sure if you're reading this and it's been you've been there, feel super confused, concerned about the behavior you're seeing, fearful, and sometimes embarrassed in that situation. Because for a lot of people, there's a real emotional impact there. Like I love my dog, you know, and and I'm sure you do too. So why don't they want me to interact with them? Why are they telling me leave me alone? And that can really hurt us and lead to embarrassment. I often think about how we might handle this with children, like in similar situations. So most of us have been at a family gathering where the child is asked to go and say hello to a relative, uh, maybe shake hands with grandad or go give Auntie a hook. And the child hides behind the parent. They don't want to engage, they're uncomfortable in that social situation. We don't label that as bad behaviour, and we don't force the interaction with the child and the and the relative, or at least we really shouldn't, because we recognise that the child isn't ready yet and doesn't feel safe in that moment to have that social interaction. So instead, what we might do is we might adjust, give the child some space, let them watch the adults have an interaction. We might talk to the relatives ourselves so they can do that social learning, and then we might support them through asking questions about their favourite book. You know, what's your favourite book? Mine's the hungry caterpillar, like I love that book, or the tiger that came for tea, or you know, what's your favourite hobby? Do you like colouring in? Like, I love colouring in. They're the conversations you'd have to try and support them, and only if they feel comfortable in answering. But we know that shy, shy child hiding behind the parent just needs a little bit more space and time. We understand those social interactions aren't something that should be forced. So there's an element of consent there, which we are still learning as human beings, and we often fail when it comes to dogs and our horses, because we tend to do the opposite. We assume that because we, the humans, want to interact with our dogs, that our dogs should accept that interaction, regardless if they consent or not. And when they don't comply, when they do communicate they're uncomfortable, say with a growl, we label that communication as problem behavior. And this is where things start to go really wrong, because the growl is not the issue. It's the dog's way of saying, This doesn't feel okay right now, so we need to cease communication. Like we need to cease whatever interaction we're trying to do and listen to that communication. In many cases, I see, especially in adult dogs, and this is really important, there's also an element of something else going on underneath. If a dog is growling when particularly when being touched or being asked to move off the sofa, or for example, around food and they're guarding food, or particularly certain spaces that they feel they need to protect it, this is very much linked to discomfort or pain, or an underlying medical condition, you know, and that and I will go through that in detail later on. Um, or potentially a previous medical issue, you know, if they've had a leg break or something else that happened and that's healed, but then they've had a lot of handling with the vet and then they need behavioural modification, they tend to be the two biggest heavy hitters. So the growl isn't coming out of nowhere, like in both those contexts, it is communication, and from a behavior and a welfare perspective, we really do need to listen to it, not silence it with correction and punishment. And the challenge is we've been taught to see the growl as something we need to stop. So this kind of brings me into the next section where you know dogs are always communicating with us, and every behavior that they perform is information that we really need to be listening to. So when I say behavior is information, what I mean is behavior is the only information that we have to really understand what our dogs want and need. So dogs are non-verbal communicators. So I'm talking to you, that's that's verbal communication, and yes, you know, we recognize that dogs may bark, they might whine, or growl. But the vast majority of their communication isn't vocal at all. It's all body language, really subtle shifts, small changes, they can yawn, lip-lick, look away, and all of those things can be really easily missed if you don't know what you're looking for in dog calming signals. Now we call them calming signals because they're designed to de-escalate a situation and communicate emotional states between other dogs, and dogs also employ them with us humans. The bottom line is dogs are communicating with us all the time, even if we don't hear it when it's vocal or can't see the subtle shifts and the calming signals. The difficulty is as humans, we are primarily verbal communicators. You're listening to a podcast right now, and you're able to understand everything, and you can't see. I'm still moving my hands around, and I am just because I am communicating with my hands and my facial expressions as I'm doing this podcast. You can't see that, but you will still be able to hear all of those notes and and everything else. We communicate very well verbally, and we rely on words, and we do rely on our body to communicate, as I said, you can't see my hands movement, but they're there. Um, so when communication is silent from our dogs, we can often miss it because that's who we are as a species. And when we miss it, and our dogs are trying to quietly say, I need a bit of space, then they have to escalate to do something that we do notice, and that usually means making noise, and that's the bark or the growl, or I say whining as well. So dog vocalization, as say, let's talk about the growl here, comes in not because our dogs jump straight to the growl, but because everything before that didn't land with us silly humans. Every behavior our dog does has a function. Okay, behavior is functional. Each behavior our dog performs serves a purpose for them. It meets and needs that they have at that moment in time. And from a behavioral science perspective, behavior is influenced by lots of different things, but let's we're just gonna go for two here. Your internal state, so what's happening inside your body, okay? So that could be pain, like gastric intestinal discomfort if you've got diarrhea or constipation, or you have a gastric ulcer infection, bacterial, or an emotional state. You know, if you feel scared, you know, in love, all of those things, they they all are emotional internal states, or a physical need, like I'm hungry, I need to go and eat something, um, or I need to go to the bathroom. And then there are internal states. So it's what's happening inside the body. The second one is external factors. So what's happening in the environment around us? If you call your dog to you and you have, say, food in your hand and they move towards you, that's movement behavior. They take that food, that's eating behavior. Okay, each part of that sequence exists to fulfill some a need that the dog has. For example, to eat, but they still perform two different behaviors in order to perform that function. We as the humans are exactly the same. So if the weather turns cold, that's the environment, right? The external state, and we feel uncomfortable because of an internal state, homeostasis, then we go and put a jumper on. That behavior exists because we have a need to regulate our body temperature and it's all functional. It solves a problem for us in that moment. And dogs are no different. So when our dog growls, it's not random, it's not defiance, it's not personality flaw, it is functional. The dog is meeting a need in that moment in time. Something isn't right here, says Diggy Doggy. I need to change this. And this is where we get stuck as humans because we tend to label it good or bad behaviour. And these labels don't really hold up when you look at them closely. They are based on our own social ideas of what is expected. For example, if you were at a funeral and you stood up and you walked out halfway through, people might see that as bad behaviour because there's a social expectation that this is a you know a very challenging time and we should be there for solidarity and someone's interrupting it. But if you had a medical condition, for example, if you had diabetes and you felt your blood sugar drop, you needed to go out and take insulin, and you needed to leave to take care of yourself in that moment, suddenly that behavior makes sense. We so would we judge it now as good or bad behavior? You know, is that person a good or a bad person that they left a funeral in the middle of a eulogy? Or was there a behavior that served a need? The context is everything, and it's the same with our dogs. If your dog growls when you touch them, is it bad behavior? Or are they responding to something that we haven't fully understood yet? Maybe there's discomfort, pain, or maybe they just don't like being touched in that way in that moment in time. The behavior itself isn't necessarily the problem, and that's why I say it's information. And when we start to see behavior through that lens, we get more clear about everything else and other things start to fall into place. I want to take a moment to explain what the growl actually is, um, and explain two concepts called distance increasing and distance reducing behaviors. They're what we describe as behaviorists. So when we talk about growling, we have a tendency to jump straight to labels like aggression. And aggression is a very easy answer to a more complicated problem and doesn't actually describe the behavior that we're seeing. Growling is what we call, let's say as behaviourist, a distance increasing behavior. Now that might sound technical, but actually it's something that we understand really easily as humans. And I'll give you an example. So if somebody walked towards you with their arms open, clearly going in for a hug, and you didn't want that interaction, what would you do? You might step back away from it, you might look uncomfortable and look away, you might put your hands up to try and stop them, you know, you might block with your body, you'll be tense, your facial expression will say a lot of these things. All of those behaviors say please don't come any closer, and they're distance increasing behaviors. It's not aggression. You want the behaviors you're performing are that you want to increase your distance away from that interaction. And dogs are exactly the same. The difference is that they don't use words or body language that we understand, they use dog body language, looks very different. And when that doesn't work, if their human doesn't speak their doggy body language, then they need to vocalize with the bark, whine, or growl. So when a dog growls, they're not being bad, bold, or dominant, they're saying, Hey babe, you want to give me some space? Or please, sir, I'm uncomfortable with this interaction. Or flat out, just please stop it. We also have the opposite to this, which is distance reducing behaviors. So again, we want to reduce the distance between that interaction and their behaviors again that we perform that tell the other person that we want that. So again, we go back to hugging our friend. You move in with your arms open, they do too, you lean in, you both move closer, and you give yourself a big hug, yourself, each other a big hug. So dogs do this too, but in a different way. They seek proximity and closeness by moving in a sort of an S shape towards each other, they smell each other, hence the famous smelling each other's arseholes, and they use calming signals to say, hey, babe, I'm not looking for a fight, I actually want a nice interaction. And we and we see this in human-to-dog interactions as well. Dogs will still perform the same behaviors and try and communicate with us in those ways. When they choose contact with humans, they do it in a very similar way. They may approach, they have a soft, low head carriage, slow, waggily tail, um, and we recognize that as them approaching and wanting proximity. And it's really important to recognise that our dogs are individuals as well as a different species. What one dog wants from you might be completely different from what another dog wants, um, even within the same household or between humans that live in that household. So, for example, my own dog, the perfect angel that she is, loves physical attention from my husband. Like she will literally lie on top of him, she will seek him out, she's right downstairs now, getting cuddles from him on the sofa, not up with me being office doggy. She is happy to be his lap doggy. She does not want that from me, you know. I'm also I run very warm, so I think it's probably a heat issue too, and I'm really fidgety. Whereas David is lovely, calm, cool glass of water, so I think you know that's part of it too. But she doesn't want that from me, and that's okay, as much as I love cuddles, and when I do get them, I'm so grateful, but it's on her terms. It doesn't mean that there's a problem with me and her and our relationship, like I know she loves the Barbara and I love her, but she has preferences, like so. We do different things together. Um, we go for walks, we go down to the yard, she's a yard doggy, we play. Just speaking of tug of war, um, I call it blanket war because I have a blanket that I do tug of war with her and she loves it. We do enrichment together and we do training, um, and she has her choice between how she interacts with those individual human beings. Where things start to become more serious is when the communication or the earlier communication is missed. So escalation into a snap or a bite does not come out of nowhere. It happens when earlier signals haven't been seen or haven't been respected. If a dog is constantly having to move from subtle body language to a growl, to a snap, and then potentially a bite, that tells us something very important that the communication system isn't working, and that communication system has broken down between dog and human. And if the dog is going from what appears to be a nothing straight to a growl, snap, or a bite, then we need to take that very seriously. In many cases, it's a strong indicator that something else is going on, particularly pain or discomfort. I know I've discussed that earlier. It's not something that you need to train through. So please do not try and train through it, investigate it with your vet or a qualified behaviorist. So rather than asking, how do I stop my dog from growling, which is what I want you to do, the better question is what is my dog trying to create distance from and why? And that leads us nicely into why punishing the growl doesn't work and what we need to teach instead. So when clients ask me how do I stop this growling from happening, I find this really hard to answer because the first thing we need to understand is stopping a behaviour isn't a behavior we can train. Okay, don't is not a behavior, stop is not a behavior, and this is what's referred to as the dead man's test. Um and this has been repurposed really for a dead dog test. Um, and it basically says that if a dead dog can do it, it's not a behavior. So a dead dog doesn't growl, right? Uh a dead dog doesn't bite, uh, a dead dog can be absolutely quiet. That's the dead man test. If a dead dog can do it, you're never going to be able to train it. Okay, a dead dog can't sit and then eat his dinner. You see what I mean? So this is what we mean when we say we want to stop something that we can't teach a stop. When we say we want to stop something, we're not actually teaching the dog what to do instead. We're just trying to remove something that we don't like, the behavior pattern we don't like. And that's where things start to fall apart, as when if you punish the grell, because positive punishment is how you stop a behavior from happening, that's what you're actually doing is removing a form of communication, a valuable communication. You're telling the dog you can't say that. And your dog says, Well, what else can I say that makes you listen? And when we punish the grell, you're not changing how the dog feels in that situation, you're not understanding the why they need to say what they're saying, you're not addressing the underlying discomfort and pain, or the need for space that caused the growl in the first place. So the need is still there, which means their only choice is to escalate because our dogs now have fewer safe ways to express themselves. This is where escalation happens, which we really do not want to happen. If the calming signals are missed, the dog moves moves from the growl. And if the growl is punished, then the dogs learn that that doesn't work, and I'm going to be punished for it. So what's left in my repertoire? Snapping, lunging, biting. And the moment a dog snaps and bites, what do we do as humans? We move away. We pull our hand back, we stop what we're doing, and from a learning theory perspective, this is what's called negative reinforcement. Our dogs learn, oh, that worked. The human finally listened to me, I got space, I'll do it again. So now instead of using a growl, the dog has learned that snapping and biting is more effective. We basically trained them to do it, albeit unintentionally. And this is how people end up saying the bite came out of nowhere. It didn't. And there's no shame when I say this, but I really need you to understand that it didn't come out of nowhere. It's just dog behavior and learning theory. But now you know about it. The earlier communication just wasn't seen or it was punished out of the dog's repertoire, but now you know better and we're here to learn how to do better. So rather than trying to stop the growl, we need to shift the question. What do we want the dog to do instead? We want them to learn to be able to communicate earlier in a more subtle and a safer way. That means we have to we we as humans need to start noticing and responding to the behaviors that come before the growl. So, what do some of these signals look like? So before a dog growls, they've already tried to communicate usually multiple times. And the challenge is for us humans, as I said, they communicate silently and we are verbal communicators, and we don't necessarily understand dog language. This is what we call calming signals. It's the take-a-chill pull behavior. These are really small and often subtle behaviours that dogs use to navigate social situations and reduce conflict because they don't want conflict, they want to calm things down. That can look like your dog looking away, breaking out eye contact from you and looking in the opposite direction, um, turning their head, avoidance, just moving away from you completely, taking a step back or not wanting to approach. Uh a lip lick, a lip lip lick, which is where the tongue comes up and licks the lips and the nose, where there's no food involved, it's important to say. Um, yawning, yawning is a big early calming signal. Um, sneezing as well, uh freezing in place, like a very low head carogen freezing. These aren't random behaviors, dogs just do, they're all dog language. And the difficulty is if we either don't see them or we don't recognize them for what they are, we might think our dog is being good because they're being quiet. Oh look, he's just tired, he's yawning in his in his bed, I'll give him a cuddle. We might think they're just being calm, we might even continue what we're doing and cuddling them, you know, while he's yawning away, because nothing obvious has happened to us. What we need to do is respect the animal's needs in this situation. Pause what you're doing, stop the interaction, give them space. Even if you aren't sure, taking a break gives you more information. For example, if your dog yawns when you're cuddling them in their bed and you stop the interaction, and if you move away, if they still want more, they will come back and re engage with you. And this is called consent based patting. Um, and it can work very well to create a good communication system with you and your dog because they understand that that's. Communication works and you will stop, and then they can make the decision to come back and reinteract with you if they want to. Let that communication work to teach your dog this is what I want. This is something I spend a lot of time teaching with clients how to actually see these signals. I use photos, videos, and practical examples so you know people can start recognizing what their dog is doing in real time and then provide correct training plans. Because once you see it, you really can't unsee it. And everything does change for the better from there. If your dog learns these early signals are enough, then they don't need to escalate. We're training the do behaviors, we're training the do yawn, do look away, do like give me a lip lick. I will listen. We want them to keep using them because it stops it escalating. Dogs will learn what communication works for them, which is why it's escalated to a bark and a growl, because that has worked. So dogs will learn from outcomes, and this is learning theory, and it is critical on how dogs like about how dogs learn. Quite simply, behaviors that work get repeated. Behaviors that don't work fall away. We've already seen this in action. If a dog growls and gets punished, that behavior becomes less likely, but the need behind it is still there. So your dog tries something else. If your dog then snaps and the human moves away, the dog learns, good, that worked. From a learning theory perspective, that is what's called negative reinforcement. The dog's behavior was successful, they removed something that was uncomfortable. That's the negative. Think of mathematics, it was removed. So what happens next? The behavior is reinforced. Hence, negative removal reinforcement made it stronger. The dog is more likely to go straight to that behavior the next time because it worked the last time. Reinforcement makes things stronger. Dogs don't sit here trying to be good or bad, they simply learn what worked in that situation, what gets me what I need functionally, and they get very good at it. We see this all the time in dog-to-dog interactions. Both dogs understand that body language. One gives a signal and the other respects it, and the interaction stays calm. There's no need to escalate. Obviously, in situations with two well-socialized dogs. So, what can we do in real life to change how we respond to our dogs? The difference for our dogs is us. If we don't recognize those early signals or we ignore them or we punish them, we are shaping what our dogs learn in the works in that context. So this section is all about what we can do instead. So we need to change how we respond to these signals ultimately. We want to make them stronger, we want to make those calming signals stronger, and we want to reinforce them. When you see an early sign, pause, stop what you're doing, give the dog space, and if you can, give the dog a food reward. Because what you're doing there is you're utilizing negative reinforcement, you're removing yourself, and you're saying, okay, I'm giving you space. And you're also giving them positive reinforcement, you're adding a treat to say, Yes, keep doing that. In that moment, your dog will learn, oh, that was enough. I didn't need to growl and oh yay, treat. Happy days. Everything starts to shift here when we start to support softer dog language. It makes those softer communications stronger and growling, snapping, and biting less likely. The change can happen really, really, really quickly. Not because you've changed something really complicated, but because you've finally started to listen to how your dog is talking. And that is a really difficult thing for us to do. The last thing I want to talk to you about, and I know I touched it at the very start, when we look for help on Google, Facebook, Reddit, and various forums, it's really hard to find the right support for you and your dog. It's very hard to navigate it. And even outside of all of this, your dog may still be escalating to a bite or a snap, and it might be very challenging to read their behavior and modify it. And as I say, there could be other things going on in there that is impacting this behaviour. So at this point, if you're still sitting there thinking, okay, I I understand this better, but I still need somebody on the ground to help me, that is completely fair. You know, do get help, but choosing the right support is critical. And this is not a call to action. Okay, I'm not. I don't care if you call me, I just want you to call the right person. Honest to God, I just want you to find the right support. Because the wrong advice can really make things so much worse, not better. So red flags, and if you hear any of the following, I just want you to pause, seriously question it, and then run away. If anybody tells you, correct that growl. If anybody talks to you about dominance, that your dog is bold or naughty, if they try and force any interactions, flooding them, or putting a dog in a situation where they're clearly uncomfortable, if they ignore body language or can't explain it, or telling you to push through it, if they continually flood the dog. For example, this is when a dog is exposed to something they're afraid of or uncomfortable over and over and over again, and they have no ability to move away and they can't cope in the situation. It's overwhelming and it doesn't teach the dog how to feel safe. Another major red flag when behaviour is looked at is when it's looked at in isolation. If nobody is asking you about your dog's health, that is a serious problem. Growling can be linked to skin issues, allergies, gastrointestinal intolerances, other gastroproblems, parasites, external, internal, orthopedic pain, so that could be muscles or bones, previous injuries that are now chronic, uh, arthritis, and yes, even in young dogs, I have seen it in six-month-old dogs. It is not an old person disease, osteoarthritis is very much real and alive. If we don't rule these out or work collaboratively with a vet, we are just guessing at what's maintaining the behavior, and that is not fair on the dog, and it is poor welfare. Do me one massive favor. Whoever you call to get to help, I will and you can ask me this, and you can ask any trainer of behavior, ask them, how long will it take to fix this problem? Ask everyone. That's my top tip. Ask everyone because if they give you a fixed answer, six weeks, oh one session, no problem, one and done, run in the opposite direction. There are too many variables in behavior, and this applies to every behavioral problem, by the way. Every single dog is different, every case is different. A good professional will tell you it depends because it does. And you know that instinctively. You know, if somebody tells you anything, they'll fix it no problem in six weeks. You you wouldn't believe someone who said, Yeah, take this diet pill, you'll lose this amount of weight in six weeks. You know, if you went to a personal trainer that says it's okay, it's going to be a hard slog, there's going to be ups and downs, there's going to be peaks and troughs, I'll do my best to support you to achieve your goals. You kind of believe that person so much more. So we need to ask that question. So again, ask the trainer, ask the behaviorist, how long will this take to fix? Good person will tell you it depends. They will not make promises. So green flags, right? You know, and good support looks very different, right? Good support, they will talk about communication, communicating with your dog, not about controlling the behavior. They'll help you understand your dog's behavior so that you have the skills to be able to go forward and support them. You know, it won't just be about them coming in and magically fixing it. They will be coaches and trainers to you as well as the dog. They will also respect the dog's signals. I have gone out to clients where, you know, for the first hour, you know, the dog just isn't able to do any of the training and and and reaction, you know, and work that we need, you know, and they are not in a good state to be able to do the training, and that's fine. I I have explained that and gone, no, this is too overwhelming. We won't be doing anything here with this dog. You know, we're gonna do some other bits and pieces to help them be comfortable. They will also look for underlying causes. So they will speak with the vet, they will collaborate with other professionals, you know, they will refer back to the vet as well, they will look outside of the behavior itself, and and again, they will be happy to work with other professionals, you know, like physiotherapists, groomers, veterinary nurses. They will be collaborative with other professionals in the field. They'll also give the dog choice, you know, and and allow them to work with you when they want to. And they'll critically they'll support you through it because a good behaviorist is trained in psychology primarily, so we tend to be very good at the human psychology side of things, and we understand that these are like emotive topics that we're worried, we're scared, we're frightened, we're frightened for our children, you know, we're scared for ourselves, we love our dogs, and there's a lot of complex emotions tied up in everything. It's so important that a good trainer of behaviorists will never make you feel stupid. They shouldn't shame you, they shouldn't push you into doing something that makes you feel like it's wrong, and they will work with you compassionately and help you understand what's going on so you can make more informed decisions about you and your dog. I really hope that this has helped you guys understand a little bit more about growling, what your dog might be telling you. Um, if you are concerned that your dog's behavior might be linked to something that's underlying, I do have two other blogs and also podcasts. Uh, if you want to scroll down, you can find them. One is on the root cause of aggression, um, which talks about other you know issues outside of medical stuff. And there is also another blog blog and podcast as well on underlying medical issues. If you're concerned that it might be medical, jump straight to the medical one um and have a look at the blog as well. There's a questionnaire within the blog. Um, and if you know it'll if you go through that questionnaire and you're you'll see those instructions um to help you figure out okay, maybe this is medical and I'll I'll head to the vet. Uh so yeah, I I encourage you to read them um or have a listen to the podcast if you've got any concerns. Uh thank you so much for listening to this podcast, and um yeah, I'll see you in the next one.