We saw a recent article on Yahoo! Shine detailing seven dog breeds that don’t deserve their stereotype and really wanted to share it. We couldn’t agree more! Properly training your dog, regardless of breed, is the single most important thing owners can do to make sure he grows up without any behavioral issues.

We consulted our expert trainer Beverly Ulbrich, founder of The Pooch Coach, to help further debunk these breed stereotypes. She told us any dog can be fearful and aggressive.

“All dogs need to be properly socialized and trained so they are not fearful, which almost always leads into aggression,” Ulbrich says. “Dogs need to learn boundaries and have bite inhibition. They should be taught not to growl or snap when upset.”

She also emphasizes dogs should be treated as individuals and it isn’t fair to make general assumptions about a breed.

“I don’t like spearking in generalities about breed,” Ulbrich says. “Breeds are like nationalities for people; they might look similar, but personalities and disorders vary greatly.”

The Pooch Coach says this is very true of Pit Bulls, a breed which often gets a bad rap.

“The issue is that people have used and bred them for the wrong reasons, so they were improperly trained and therefore unpredictable,” Ulbrich says. “Any dog bred to fight or trained to be a ‘protection dog’ is potentially dangerous, but a Pit Bull can do a lot more damage than a Chihuahua.” 

So how do you know when a dog is being fearful and when do you need to take action? Yellow Dog Blog detailed the ways dog communicate their fear and what you need to look out for. Remember, dogs are individuals! Their behavior is not representative of the breed but representative of how they were socialized and trained.