Fear-based aggression is the most common form of aggression in dogs and reflects underlying anxiety and negative emotional states that cause significant welfare harm to affected animals.
Fear-aggressive dogs live in chronic negative emotional states, experiencing frequent fear and anticipatory anxiety. This represents a major welfare problem independent of the bite risk. The root cause is fear, not dominance, and treating it as such through positive behaviour modification and, where needed, anti-anxiety medication, improves welfare while reducing bite risk.