And get over it!
When I first heard that this was an antiquated notion, I screamed “Bullshit!” at the top of my lungs.
But I was wrong.
And I accept that I was wrong. That’s always hard.
It was hurting my understanding of dog behavior, and now that I don’t believe it, I’m open to seeing dog behavior very differently.
***
In 2009, an article appeared in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research. No, it’s not a journal that studies the behavior of your vet! It is a peer reviewed journal of veterinary behavioral medicine. That means that the people who get things published in it are experts who know more about dog behavior than I do.
The article was a review of research on dog and wolf behavior, and its clinical application to veterinary behavior practitioners. Essentially it says that the dominance theory is bunk. Absolute bunk.
It seems the concept was on its way to being overturned through the work of Erik Zimen, a Swedish ethologist who studied captive wolf packs in Germany. He was the first to notice that some of these captive wolves wanted out of their enclosures, which would make sense. No one wants to stay in a cage with a bully.
The authors point out that wild wolves don’t have linear hierarchies. On page 137, the authors have a diagram of a wild wolf pack hierarchy. It’s more complex than anything you’ve read in the popular literature. There are two hierarchies: one for dogs and one for bitches. And the arrows are going in many different directions. It’s not linear at all. It is fluid. It is only the male hierarchy that has any linear quality to it. Dominance displays are very rare in the wild, because the breeding pair are able to hold their family together without much aggression. In the wild, only larger packs– mainly the result of disruption, as in the Yellowstone populations– engage in frequent aggression towards packmates. Normal wild wolves are not typically aggressive with their family members.
But the authors very quickly stop talking about wolves for a very simple reason– and a very good one.
Dogs are not big game hunting wolves from Canada, Alaska, the Rockies, or Eurasia. They are a domestic animals. Domestic animals do not always have the same social structures as wild ones. This assumption runs right through most traditional training modules. Cesar Millan relies upon this assumption almost entirely. The authors clearly state this assumption:
“Because the domestic dog Canis lupus familiaris is descended from the wolf Canis lupus, it is often assumed that its capacity to form social relationships is similar to that of the wolf.”
And that’s where it is dead wrong.
The authors explore literature on free-roaming and feral dogs, as well as the social behavior of domestic dogs that have been neutered. Feral dogs do not form pair bonds at all, so the wolf pack structure doesn’t happen. In wolves, status determines whether you breed or not. In dogs, virtually everyone gets to breed.
“Overall, it appears that domestication has radically altered the social behavior of dogs, so that when theyhave the opportunity to interact and breed freely, although they do form exclusive kin-based groups, they do not readopt a wolf-pack social system within these groups.”
Free roaming, feral, and neutered dogs don’t form hierarchies that are anything like wolves. I don’t have an answer as to why. However, the basic unit of a wolf pack is a mated pair, and if you don’t have a mated pair, you can’t have a wolf pack. It may have something to do with the fact that domestication has made dogs so socially tolerant of each other that they don’t care who mates with whom. The only time dominance displays were common is when bitches were in season, which makes sense. This is a competitive mating system.
The authors eventually conclude that this whole dominance concept is next to useless in understanding dog behavior. Wolf packs are more cohesive and less belligerent towards each other than that model suggests, and dogs don’t form packs based upon mated pairs. The conclusion, then, is to look at dogs a from a social learning perspective.
The authors discuss very briefly how social cognition is very different in wolves and dogs. Dogs can be thought of as a tabula rasa. Wolves are much more controlled by their natural history. Dogs are much more influence by social and associative learning. If a behavior works, the dog will keep doing it.
Dogs also use what they have learned previously to inform their social decisions.
The authors explain how this works:
Let us imagine, for example, a neutered male Afghan hound (AH) and a neutered male Jack Russell terrier (JRT). Although the 2 dogs have not met before, each will use information learned previously in similar encounters in deriving their behavioral response to the situation. The AH, for example, may have previously encountered a small, white male dog that responded to it with aggression. Because of the similar cues in this encounter, its anxiety would increase, and it would try to identify any other cues predictive of potential aggression. The JRT may have learned to be anxious about all large dogs that show a tense body posture, because it has learned that this posture predicts aggressive behavior.
Because of previous learning experiences in other situations, therefore, the risk of aggression occurring in this encounter is relatively high, whereas if the same 2 dogs had met without any previous negative experiences, the outcome of the interaction would more likely be a friendly one. Using this learning-based model, therefore, explains the complexities of social interaction with no need toinvoke the concept of ‘‘dominance,’’ either as a goal or as an element in an overall hierarchical structure.
This model is much better than the dominance theory. It is more consistent with Morgan’s Canon. It is easier for people to understand than the dominance-based nonsense, and it provides a clearer remedy to the situation. You retrain your dog not to be aggressive. You don’t fight him as if you are the alpha wolf!
***
So what does this mean for dog trainers?
Well Gun Dog Magazine has the answer. Gun Dog is hardly a PETA rag. It’s a hunting dog magazine that has articles on gun dog breeds and training methods, as well as how to use tools like e-collars.
However, Ed Bailey writes that we need to drop this nonsense:
Unfortunately the dog behavior wannabes who love the alpha concept either haven’t read the updated literature, haven’t grasped the concept of wolf social ordering, or accepted it and are still flitting around spouting 40-year-old misconceptions.
What need is what he calls the “leader-follower” model, in which we utilize the social learning aspect of dog behavior to train our dogs. I wouldn’t call it “leader-follower,” simply because that isn’t enough of a semantic change from the dominance model. I would call “teacher-student” or “parent-offspring.” (Remember, I think it’s very wrong to consider dogs human children.)
My other complaint about this analysis is that it does do the “dog as wolf” analysis. It’s not wrong. Dogs are wolves, but dogs are different from wolves. If you want me to explain the nuances of that contradiction, I would have to write for two or three days. I’m not going down that path right now. If you read the blog regularly, you know that it’s much more nuanced than you normally get.
For a dog trainer, the most important focus is on being a good teacher for your dog:
When the dog does the desired task it gets paid by receiving some of the desired resources. The dog is working for a living, but because he is getting paid with something positive, he is willing to repeat the desired task. When the dog does something undesirable or refuses to do the desirable thing, the pay is withheld. Gradually the dog does only the correct thing because it pays off and the undesirable drops out because there is no pay-off.
In this situation, the dog corrects itself. A mild correction such as a “no” or “ah-ah” can speed things along and even a heavier correction when required can be beneficial. But the need for any correction gets less frequent as the dog learns that “If I do this I get something good and if I do something else it’s just not worth it.”
The research by David Mech showed wolves train their young pups using this technique.
Teachers in grade school train their charges this way. Wild animal trainers and psychology rat researchers give a pay-out for every small increment of correct steps toward forming a complex behavior and have termed this process “shaping.”
There is a lot of evidence that animals that have been taught how to learn using shaping techniques are far better at solving novel problems and will work harder at it than control animals that were not taught how to learn. Hunting dogs respond the same way.
Wolf scientists moved away from the alpha concept long ago. They have re-evaluated the dominance-submissiveness model in parental care of pups and are now seeing it as a leadership model. Dog people, taking an opposite tack, seem to be getting more enthralled with alpha dominance as the way to go.
Dog people should catch up to the wolf people and drop the whole alpha thing from the vocabulary. And, like the wolf researchers, dog people need to rethink the dominance-submission model for training and realize that it can be counterproductive, cause problems, and that it may be good for making automatons but not thinking dogs.
They need to be teaching a dog to think, to put two and two together to get more than four. Why? Because for real hunting situations, a dog has to learn to think outside the proverbial box.
So for normal working dogs, it might be more useful if we adopted the learning model.
I also highly suspect that learning can also be more effective in treating dogs with aggression issues, but I’ve not had experience with dogs that are aggressive.
But when has a dog learned problem solving from being strung up on a choke chain every time it goes out? Cesar doesn’t teach dogs to think. He teaches them to obey. And that’s a major problem if his methods are applied to working dogs.
***
I need to clarify some things about wolf social structure.
As I stated before, the basic unit of a wolf pack is a mated pair, their pups, and grown offspring that are generally under the age of 2 or 3 depending upon the location. Some wolves remain with their natal packs until they are as old as 5 years of age. Others leave when they aren’t even a year old. All wolves eventually leave their natal packs. This includes both dogs and bitches.
Canis lupus is not the only species of dog to form packs. Ethiopian wolves, Lycaon pictus, bush dogs, and dholes form packs. Ethiopian wolves and Lycaon typically have more males in a pack than females. In fact, it is not unusual for these animals to have only a single breeding female in the pack.
Eastern coyotes also form packs, but this appears to be a relatively recent adaptation to living in deciduous forests that are full of deer. Hybridization with wolves also may have made them more likely to form packs.
It is likely that wolves and the others evolved packs from a phenomenon seen in coyotes and the three species of jackal. In those animals, it is not unusual for grown offspring to remain with their parents to help raise the next generation or two. In jackals and coyotes, these helpers also have been seen helping their parents hunt larger prey.
In the pack hunting dogs, it is likely that they used this helpers helpers to eventual establish a niche as specialists at hunting large prey. However, Ethiopian wolves do form relatively large packs, but their diet is almost exclusively rodents. So exactly why these animals formed packs in the first place is still a pretty good question. It’s much more likely that assistance in raising the young was a stronger motivator than hunting. It is also possible that finite nature of available vacant territory forces young adults in these species to want to remain with their parents. It is probably a combination of all of these factors.
All wild dogs that have been studied have a mated pair as the main social unit. Dogs are unusual among the Order Carnivora in that monogamy (or serial monogamy) is the rule. Pair bonds are very important. The only exceptions that have been found are some populations of red foxes in which harem-type systems have been observed. No one knows what sort of social unit exists among the small-eared dog. They are so hard observe that we know very little about them.
The original studies on wolves focused on their aggression. Aggression was the thing for ethologists to study in the 1940’s.
Now the emphasis is one what makes wolf packs more cohesive, and it has been discovered that what makes them more cohesive is not dominance or aggression. It is the strong family bonds that exist between members of a pack. A pack is a family.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
***
It’s time to put the folk ethology away.
And open up our minds.
The dominance concept has damaged too many relationships between people and dogs. It may have hindered our ability to train good working dogs.
It’s a dinosaur.
Its time has come and gone.
No use to dog trainers/keepers? And round and round we go….It seems like the terms “dominance” and “alpha” are becoming associated with sexist control and tyranical behaviour, and therefore increasingly politically incorrect. This is just too silly to me. Are you the “boss/leader/parental figure/organizer/controller/keeper” of your dogs? Then you are DOMINANT over them, and this is how it should be. This doesn’t have to be a negative, tyranical concept! It reminds me of watching young, inexperienced parents always asking what their 2-year-olds(humans) what they want to do, and letting the 2-year-olds boss them around! This makes for very whiny, spoiled, insecure 2-year-olds! That’s the responsibility of being the parent, or owner/master/keeper(I know a lot of THESE terms are becoming taboo too!) of your dogs. That is kinda how I view my dogs, as my kids(although I am certainly aware of the differences between primates and canids–I DID live with wild chimpanzees and baboons for awhile, too! And the main difference between canids and primates is: canids are a LOT easier!) and although I like to give them as much freedom as I can, and try to make it more of a partnership and defer to the dogs on things I cannot possibly know better than them(like matters of scent, for example), still, sometimes YOU MUST be the “dominant” one and be in charge, or you are going to be in a lot of trouble(and/or your dogs DEAD!). Sorry if folks no longer like the term “dominant”, but that is what that is, and what it HAS to be(or else). A really good example of this involves a BIZARRE encounter I had with some of my wolf hybrids, and an extremely, yea, abnormally aggressive human once. This IDIOT(assuming incorrectly that my animals were “German Shepherds” which he had an extreme prejudice towards–I wonder what he would have thought if he realized they were both part wolf?!) began lunging at my dogs, yelling aggressively and acting like he was going to hit them AND me–I could see he was bluffing, but my animals took him VERY seriously, and I do believe they would have quickly dismembered him if left to their own devices. They hackled up, growled, and went for him–deadly serious. I had to leap on them, wrestle them to the ground, and leash them, and even then, it was all I could do to hold them–they really(and deservedly, by all dog and wolf laws) wanted to KILL this guy! He just didn’t get it, either, that I had BARELY saved him from a severe mauling or death, and he continued to lunge at my dogs trying to provoke them further, and rattling on about how savage and viscous “German Shepherds” were! I have never before or since experienced such an incident!!! Was he TRYING to get bit to have a viable lawsuit filed against me? That’s the only logical(if despicable) thing I can think of. And boy howdy, wouldn’t the courts and media have had a FIELD DAY when they discovered my animals were wolf hybrids! I would have LOVED to have just let them have their way with this guy, and turn him into unrecognizable carrion,(I would have gladly assisted them!) but as I later explained to them(my dogs-yes, I talk to them just as I would another person, perhaps more for me than for their benefit, of course!), we would have had to flee to Canada or Mexico to keep them from being euthanized, justified as they were in their reactions. Man’s law is not always just, especially to animals. If I had NOT been “dominant” or in control of these animals(their “boss”, their “leader”, whatever you wish to call it) I no way in hell could have wrestled them down and clipped their leashes on and pulled them away. Sometimes you, the human MUST be the boss! I certainly did not punish my animals other than the necessary restraint to prevent a human death(alas), and ever afterwards, in this neighborhood, I avoided anyplace other people might also be walking to prevent such from occurring again. The only serious problem, as I have said before, I had in keeping wolf dogs(and other dogs) is other stupid peoples’ behaviour towards them! And you MUST be the one in charge to protect them from the stupid, aggressive humans!
It may be of some use to wolf hybrids. Those are screwy animals anyway. They don’t have the ability to internalize rules that dogs have, and they have the wild and flighty nature of wolves.
That said, for working gun dogs, it is a useless term.
I’d say for most dogs, it is.
I don’t think you read through the whole post. No one’s saying that you shouldn’t be a leader for your dog. The Dominance (with a capital D) concept he’s referring to is a specific, outdated philosophy, not the general ‘leadership’ definition of the word in general.
Bingo.
That’s what I’ve been trying to articulate.
And that’s what Lane is saying that he is. If he calls that alpha, he can call himself that.
I’m talking about the view, as expressed by Cesar Millan and others, that the dog must be put in its place all the time. And that all behavioral problems are about the dog not accepting its status.
That’s so stupidly reductionist.
I prefer the term teacher-student, rather than leader follower. Teachers can use discipline, but the discipline is to get the student to learn, not so that the student becomes an automoton to the teacher.
I can certainly understand the knee-jerk reaction. I probably had one, too. “What are you saying?! That it’s wrong to discipline my dog?!”
No, that’s not what you’re saying. Sure, some voices out there are not reasonable, and are 100% anti-anything-that-even-looks-aversive. But the point is they’re NOT reasonable. Debunking non-reasonable views may make you feel better about your world view, but it’s almost as bad as setting up straw men.
Involving the incident I just described, any sensible DOG with the SLIGHTEST bit of protective instinct intact, would have reacted the same way(my Catahoula WOULD have KILLED the guy!)ALL WOLF HYBRIDS, regardless of percentage of wolf blood and dog breeds involved–thousands of individuals raised in a zillion different ways under an infinite variety of environments–are ALL SCREWY! Imagine if you said that about any other breed of dog or category(racial, religious, etc.,) of humans! But what you said IS politically correct(if WRONG) about wolf hybrids at this point in history in this and other(overly civilized) countries. CAN’T internalize rules that dogs have? My wolf dogs(5 of a variety of percentages 75% to 25% wolf) were all quite dependably housebroken(better than other dogs I’ve had!), obedience trained(they went to official dog school classes using AKC rules, with tests and finals, and they were all in the top ten of their classes of sometimes over 50 dogs–including behaving BETTER than some Golden Retrievers in those classes!) and sled trained(an organized, often confusing activity requiring quite a bit of self-restraint and cooperation on the part of the dogs, to say the least!), and perfectly trustable and reliable on recall off leash, ALSO BETTER than some of my other “fully domesticated” dogs! How is this in any way an inability to “internalize” rules? Wolves MUST learn rules in the wild, why not from people? It’s just that most prejudiced or frightenred or unqualified people will not ENFORCE the rules as necessary–it IS NOT that they CAN’T be taught to abide by them! Tame wolves and hybrids that are well socialized in captivity are hardly “flighty” either! Far from it in some cases! Sure, you will get overly shy INDIVIDUALS(often stemming from insufficient socializing!) sometimes, but you get that in dogs, too! I had a VERY “flighty” Sheltie X Golden Retriever cross once–afraid of her own shadow!(she was still a GREAT dog, though….). Please forgive me my ranting, but without exception(so far…) every time I hear this “can’t be reliably trained”, “can’t be properly socialized”, “can’t be trusted” about wolf hybrids, it has ALWAYS been from someone who has never had one, never tried to train one, never met one in person, or never even read a GOOD book about them(there are a few–and this does NOT include the sensationalized ALWAYS negative, biased and inaccurate newspaper and dog magazine articles, which, in all fairness, is all most people are ever exposed to!). I AM NOT trying to encourage anyone to go out and impulsively get a wolf dog–you have to be reaally dedicated to give one a good home, and the prejudice from humans you will encounter along the way is a real pain in the buhtootie!(including vets, dog trainers, and neighbors, to mention a few). But in memory of all my beloved animals, all but one who lived a long(14 years or more) healthy happy life, and were trustable and dependable to their last breaths(I miss them FIERCELY sometimes….) I MUST respond to such ignorant prattle! I love your blog and (most) of your discussions Retrieverman, but my beloved animals SCREWY and UNABLE to follow rules? If only they were still alive, I could change your opinion on THAT in one nice hike in the woods with my former pack! Or perhaps a sled/cart ride! I can show you a video of my wolf hybrids who-are-unable-to-internalize-rules someday, when you visit the N. C. Zoo again! Maybe I should end this rant(provoked!) with some negative, breed prejudiced remark about Golden-Simple-Minded-Retrievers to get YOUR hackles up! But I’ll try and refrain:)……
The dominance concept has damaged too many relationships between people and dogs. It may have hindered our ability to train good working dogs.
I’m sure it has. I’ve seen it. However, I will not argue with those that insist dominance must be the way, I cannot change their minds and will not waste my time trying. I train the way that I find productive for me and mine.
You can go through this blog.
I have only written about this issue this week.
I know what these debates lead to. That’s why I closed off that one entry from comments.
People get bent out of shape about terms like “dominant”–I suppose my view of that is simply, being “the boss” whenever necessary. “Teacher/student”? That’s a lot kinder and gentler certainly(and nuthin’ wrong with that!), but some people will IMMEDIATELY beg to differ with even THAT term, because, well it could imply that the people are always the “teachers”, and the dogs the subordinate(oops! Another bad word!) students! I just think all this worrying about the correct “term” is silly. It reminds me of scientists who just CANNOT accept an anthropormiphic term like “play” or “think” in regards to animals. They fall all over themselves trying to come up with something to describe the animals’ actions—“Physical-and-behavioural-response-to-non-survival-related-actions-that-mimic-frivolous-high-spirited-mechanical-movements-that-appear-to-serve-no-purpose-other-than-what-seems-to-appear-to-be-for-something-akin-to-entertainment-value”–heck ya’ll, I’ll stick with “play”–a lot easier on my horribly overused right index finger(and I’ll continue to use “dominant/submissive” in the same manner, this IS UHMAIRIKA after all!)
Holly, you are completely right, people being tyrannically, pointlessly dominant HAS screwed up many a relation between dogs and humans, and humans and everything else! But it should not ALWAYS be viewed as a NEGATIVE term, it does not have to be. Are good parents dominant over their kids? Of course. Are teachers dominant over their students? For the students to listen and learn anything, they have to be to at least some degree! Have you ever been in a classroom where the teacher had no control? Wasn’t much of a learning environment, was it? What about the incident I just described? Do you think I could have pulled those justifiably angry and defensive animals off that bizarrely nutty guy by using a clicker or a treat or waving their rubber frog(they did have one of these, and loved to play with it!) in their faces? Or should I have just stood by and wrung my hands and cried? Same with a serious dogfight, especially a pile-on of multiple dogs vs. the one on the bottom! It ain’t no fun, but FORCE is THE ONLY thing that is going to save the day in such extreme instances! If you have not had such experiences, I can see why you wouldn’t realize such things existed or occurred ever(just like a previous bit of ignorance involving E-collars someone I am very close to exhibited on this blog awhile back!), but they do, and sometimes in life, being “nice” just won’t cut it! I wish it weren’t so, but it is. And before all thuh wimminfolks pile-on me here as a red-neck sexist for DARING to defend using “force”, I recall many a (deserved) whoopin’ quite a few teachers and female parental units dealt me, quite effectively and timely with excellent results! My Granny-with-a-switch was quite the obedience trainer! And I love her forever for giving a damn enough to go to the trouble(okay, that was EXTREMELY unfair to bring my beloved, sainted grandmother into the discussion–but–I couldn’t resist!) :D
“But it should not ALWAYS be viewed as a NEGATIVE term, it does not have to be.”
Indeed, and isn’t is sad that Millan (and others) have ruined this word for the rest of us.
“But it should not ALWAYS be viewed as a NEGATIVE term, it does not have to be.”
what does .this. have to do with me choosing not to engage in debate?
cyborgsuzy –
Isn’t it sad that you ruin words like “sexist” for the rest of us with unspecific and petty over-use? Yes, yes it is.
It seems to me I just wrote the same thing this morning…
But there is a difference between what I just said, and stringing a dog up every time he goes out, incorrectly using e-collars, and talking nonsensical ethology– which is what Millan does.
Holly! :) You “engaged in the debate” when you commented about it on this blog! Nuthin’ wrong with that! I enjoy reading other peoples’ viewpoints, and whether or not I agree, it does make me think deeper about stuff. I was trying to give you another view of “dominant” that wasn’t negative, and show by actual experience an incident where “physical “force” was absolutely necessary, and where I in no way would have been able to pull that off if I HADN’T been “dominant” to those animals in our relationship. If you are lucky enough to go through life and are never in a potentially volatile situation like that, then that’s wonderful, you’re a lucky individual! But sometimes these things happen(“shit happens”–I’ve seen lots of bumper stickers with that saying. One of my favorites, however, was one that said “Doo-doo occurs!”). And it is wise to remember that more occurs than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio! Different perspectives can be VERY helpful in the long run…….
I don’t know what Millan does on TV since I don’t have TV, but there is none of the controversial stuff in Cesar’s Way. It’s the best dog training book I have.
The best training book I have is this one:
http://books.google.com/books?id=kBiLc1S4PHgC&dq=other+end+of+the+leash+mcconnell&source=gbs_navlinks_s
This is also good: http://www.amazon.com/ASPCA-Complete-Dog-Training-Manual/dp/1564584879
The best dog book ever is this one: http://www.harcourtbooks.com/MerlesDoor/interview.asp
That last one is beautifully written and full of science. It’s very rare to find a book on the science of dogs that is actually written with an ear for voice and style.
http://www.kerasote.com/MerlesDoorB.html
Another good book: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/10/reviews/970810.10footet.html
I quote from it regularly.
“Do you think I could have pulled those justifiably angry and defensive animals off that bizarrely nutty guy by using a clicker or a treat or waving their rubber frog(they did have one of these, and loved to play with it!) in their faces”
NO ONE who trains positively, outside the dominance paradigm, thinks you or anyone else could have. That’s a typical redherring typically spouted by those who don’t believe that it’s possible to teach complex behaviors, precision behaviors, reliable behaviors, alternate behaviors, etc without the use of aversive techniques.
By the time an animal has retreated into its “alligator brain” NO training will stop a behavior and really only physical intervention can work. Training is about teaching/conditioning an animal alternate behavior and responsible ownership is about trying to avoid situations in which the animal WILL get into (or cause) trouble.
*nods yes to Emily*
Hey, Emily S.–it sounds like we AGREE from what you’ve just said–was I condoning ONLY force methods for training? Of course not–again and again on this blog I have emphatically stated that one should ethically use the most humane, kind, and gentle methods possible.And I had to be on the bottom of a deserved pile-on to realize that some people actually CAN and DO use E-collars humanely–I had just not experienced that in lo, my many years of existence, so I had no idea it occurred! In that tradition, so that others using “positive only” methods, who are so VEHEMENTLY against even the IDEA of force or domination, I told the above story to illustrate that SOMETIMES(hopefully rarely or never) FORCE is quite handy! The POINT I keep trying to make(which seems to get twisted around to be interpreted as I condone force methods in training for EVEYTHING–NOT!!!!!) is that SOMETIMES it IS NECESSARY! To be negative to ANY form of force is not taking into consideration a bizarre incident like I related above–I just wanted to get that out there to those who have luckily not experienced such, but that have a very limited, one-sided view that ALL force is WRONG! This wasn’t an expose on TRAINING, but on DOMINANCE, and how, if you are not dominant(the boss/the one in control/the one deferred to/ the leader/ the master/ the teacher-in-charge), gentle training or commands won’t cut it! THE POINT I was TRYING to make was that if animals in such a volatile situation do not defer to you because you are not dominant over them, then no way in heck are they going to let you wrestle two 80 lb. raging, defensive critters down(regardless of breed) and haul them off–they do so ONLY because they are already in the habit of deferring to your judgement as a leader, not because of any positive obedience training for precision or reliable or alternate behaviours!(Which is all just great for most interactions!). ONCE AGAIN, THIS WAS ABOUT DOMINANCE, NOT training techniques! Do your dogs do what you tell them to do, regardless of methods? Then you ARE DOMINANT over them! Apparently you have yet to experience a dog that does not automatically submit to you and do your bidding, or possibly challenges you for supremecy in your “pack”. If you ever do, THEN you will see the differnce, and finally know what I am talking about, and realize dominance is not a bad thing for the human to have!…..
It would be interesting to see someone do force only methods of dog training.
Cesar comes pretty close.
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