re: Dog Help Advice Needed- Growling and Baring Teeth

Yes, the vet idea is good - but if it isnt some injury you dont want to show aggression and escalate the confrontation. You need to find ways to correct the behavior that dont have you aggressively confronting the dog as your primary response.

Calm but assertive corrections show you / other family members as the dominant leaders better. That is why I always would suggest the walking thing I mentioned above. The dog will usually be calm in the above scenario and all family members can do it and it allows an extended hour or more daily where the dog is forced to accept someone else as the leader in order for the walk to continue.

There are certainly other ways, and in certain situations it is necessary to pop thim, but when the typical answer is you aggressively showing dominance, I think you run the risk of the dog still be aggressively dominant towards pretty much all other people and he may end up snapping at a houseguest, etc.

Good luck, and there are a lot of good books that can help if you have trouble. The Monks of New Skete have some really good guides about dog behavior.