When Animals Attack; Where Does it Come From?

In my past career I’ve been bitten and chased my so many different animals. To name a few, orca, walrus, tiger, lion, elephant many of which in protective contact but some in free contact as well. The question i’ve always asked myself is where did such behaviour come from?

To be able to know what is going on we first have to understand that aggressive behaviour is a natural behaviour for an animal. This directly means that it is a behaviour to let us know how the animal feels. The animal is communicating something to us. When we think this way we can backtrack how the animal actually got into the position of showing you aggressive behaviour. There are various reasons when this what we call “unwanted” behaviour” happens.

We Push the Session to Hard to Quickly

A big one where I’m guilty off is that I push my training sessions to often. I Like to live on the edge in my training because it is outside our comfort zone. To be honest often it goes well but there are times where it doesn’t. Just like the giraffe below. I didn’t request giraffe information from other keepers who knew some important details such as that giraffe are sensitive on their lower legs. Also I forgot to ask what the individuals history is on this behaviour. This important information was missing and guess what happened? The animal kicked against the fence. Directly we created a negative history on the target we placed on the leg. We now had to counter condition the touch. Another strategy which we could’ve avoided completely!

Cue Without Chasing the Environment

This is quite a big one which happens all that often. We cue animals on behaviours which we then cue again and again. We keep cueing the animal till the behaviour appears. Sometimes the behaviour doesnt appear at all and we get an aggressive outtake. Imagine that we ask you you to go drive a car but you are not able to but I keep cueing you to do so eventually you become frustrated and walk away. Imagine with animals that the behaviour we request them to do, they are not Abel to do or they dont understand… How is an animal communicating back to us after an x amount of cues without changes in the environment that they are not able to do this behaviour? Exactly frustration -> Avoidance or aggressive behaviour.

The Overlooked Reason For Aggressive Behaviour

This last one is quite big because it is a reason that we do not think about often enough. We often plan a training session when it fits in our schedule regardless of any other situation happening in the environment. Because right now works for us, so the animal should comply to work with us right now. But what about this, the animal just had a discussion with its counterparts, they have been fighting. This specific individual has lost the argument and is full of negative energy which it can’t throw out. Now you start your training session and directly you wonder why the animal is not focussed. You push the session a little bit because you want to reach your goals and bang… there it is an aggressive outtake.

We now think where does this behaviour come from? It is all about the observation you do before the session starts. What has happened and how will this affect the session I’m going to pursue.

Other reasons animals could show aggressive behaviour:

Fear: When an animal is in fear they will have aggressive behaviour depending on how fearful they are. They are often on the brink of an aggressive outtake.

Pain: When the animal is in pain they often show this through aggressive behaviour. This also depends on the pain threshold of the animal.

Protection: Protecting a group member, siblings or their own offspring. A valid reason to show aggressive behaviour.

Medication intake: Sometimes a side effect of medication can create mood swings and aggressive behaviour can show cause of it.

Hunger: Whenever the animal is hungry they could communicate this to us with aggressive behaviour. Although we never want to be in this situation with our animals this could happen.

Whatever the reason is we can’t forget that we always want to try and not let the animal practice this behaviour in your sessions. Most importantly if it happens we teach our animals that it is ok to show aggressive behaviour. We then make sure that we are able to calm the animal again. We don’t do this through punishment but through small approximation where the goal is to lower the aggressive behaviour.