Posts Tagged ‘alpha’

A Moment at the Park

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

I had a moment recently where I called someone on their bullshit. This is not like me at all. I don’t like confrontation and I usually let most things DSC_3177pass. But this women, kneed her dog in the head when he barked at my dog, then explained to me how she is a dog trainer and her dog was too dominant and she really needed to get herself a “dominant bitch to put him in his place.”

It is always surprising to me how free people are with the word “dominant”. People regularly use the term ‘dominant’ when talking about their dog’s personality or temperament. When questioned about their choice of words, they really mean that their dog shows dominant behaviors is certain situations.

Lets be clear, dominant behavior is behavior relating to control, mainly of resources. Resources are anything that can be in contention. This includes sex, food, toys, personal space, and even attention from caretakers. Social dominance is control of all resources, so ultimately if you are dominant your are also a higher ranking individual. Most dogs in a social situation that are constantly snapping, barking or fighting with other dogs are not actually dominant animals. They more likely frightened or stressed, and have poor impulse control and coping skills. A confident and “dominant” dog will usually be calm and savvy at reading and giving calming signals.

So what does it really mean when you say your dog is “dominant” to other dogs? Well, it depends on the context and is not necessarily, in fact rarely is it related to overall rank in a group. For instance, my small, 6 year old dog Cooper, shows dominant behavior to my younger, larger dog Ripley, in the presence of food. This does not include aggressive behavior, he simply sees food and pushes the bigger dog out of the way, Ripley allows this because Cooper is dominant in this situation. However, when a tug game is  involved Ripley is dominant to Cooper. Ripley always wins and Cooper always gives up. So although Cooper is older and tends to have a higher rank than Ripley, he is not dominant in this situation.

I am dominant to both of my dogs, not because I am bigger, meaner, or more physically capable, but because I am smarter, older, and have access to all the resources. I don’t need to bully my dogs, or pull rank to stay the dominant member of the family, I just am. The same way that your parents will always be your parents and therefore dominant to you (until they are too old or feeble and rely on their children to take care of them) even so, they may still get priority access to the best chair in front of the TV!

Dominance is about priority access.  When something is in contention among dogs a fight can ensue. The same is true among children. Through supervision and practicing impulse control dogs (and children) can learn to share, and communicate without using physical aggression. This lady was misreading her dog’s barking as dominance, when in fact he was barking because he had poor social skills and was stressed. Having a “dominant bitch put him in his place” would be unlikely to help him feel less stressed.

I was probably too hard on the lady at the park and I am sure I could have been more tactful, I probably wouldn’t have said anything at all if she hadn’t just kneed her dog in the face then called herself a trainer. I hope that our “conversation” made her think a bit, although probably not. It ended with her replying “Well that’s my opinion so shut up!”

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Posted in Aggression, Background, learning, Methods | No Comments »

Being the “Pack Bully”

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

I started reading books on wolf behavior because of all the talk about “Wolf Pack Theory” this is the general idea (not an actual Scientific Theory) that you can predict your dogs behavior based on how wolves act.

This idea is propagated by various well known dog trainers like Jan Fennell, and Caesar Milan. (Although they seem to interpret dog behavior in the same way, they have very different methods of responding to it).

Some of the major themes of this idea; You need to “show your dog who is boss” usually by domination tactics and physical corrections like the infamous “Alpha Roll”, you need to be a “Pack Leader” and act aloof, confident and calm in his presence always so as not to lose your rank, you must never let your dog on the couch, your bed, or walk through doorway first.

All of these themes are based on observations that came from ethologists in the “field” in the 1970’s. Here is where the idea falls apart.

In the 1970’s Wolves were extremely hard to observe in their natural environment. Partly because they were almost extinct and were very hard to find. When they were found they were still hard to track. The technology used to track animals in the wild was cumbersome and often broke. So most of these observations were taken by wolves that were either wild caught, or raised by humans and observed in their “home” territory (a large fenced section).  You can see now how this breaks down down. The wolves were not actually being observed in a natural way. They were not among blood relatives and they did not have 100,000’s of acres to roam. It is no wonder really that they were seen as territorial and rank focused.

“The Wolf: His Place in the Natural World” by Erik Zimen, Published in 1981 is one of these books whose author, through necessity, had to focus most of his research on human raised, captive wolves, from various bloodlines. Although he does seem to realize this problem and endeavours to find wolves in the wild to study as well.

One of the really interesting points he makes is on page 208

“It was not superior young wolves who left the pack because of their competition with the alpha animal, as had often been claimed, but inferior animals; and leadership of the pack was “democratic” rather than “authoritarian”. DSC_0280

Wow, just wow.

He wrote this in 1981, how is it that the vast majority of the dog owning population still feels it is necessary to “pull rank” on their dogs, when as observed by Zimen in the 70’s that wolves in fact DON’T act this way!

30 years later it is time for a change to the “traditional” way of understanding and interacting with our dogs. It is not all about being a “Pack Bully” but being a role model for how we want our dogs to behave. If we bully them, that is how they learn to act with other dogs and other members of their human family (toddlers watch out!).

Lets take a step back from “Wolf Pack Theory” and start thinking rationally about our family canines. Dogs are dogs, not wolves. And even if they are like wolves, wolves are not what the majority of the population seems to think they are.

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Posted in Aggression, Book Review, Communication, Training Methods | 2 Comments »

The Aggression Issue

Monday, November 16th, 2009

I was asked recently if I worked with aggressive dogs and I realized that the answer to this question is significant. And may in fact, take me a few blogs to answer entirely, so here is part one.

I have worked with Lions, Leopards, and Grizzly Bears. Large Carnivores all have something very important in common, something you can’t ever forget. They are dangerous. Of the Big Cats I worked with, many were friendly towards humans, some you could walk into their enclosure and they would lay down and get ready for a good scratch. Others… well if you walked into their enclosure you wouldn’t be walking out again. These animals are predators and they have never been domesticated. So even the friendliest of Pumas must be watched, in case her instincts kick in and she suddenly sees you as pray instead of a caregiver.

Aggressive dogs are like this as well. They can be dangerous and are at their most basic level, a predator. This sounds dire but in fact dogs are amazingly self controlled predators. They have been evolving alongside humans for thousands of years. During that time they have become one of the only species in the world that can coexist in our homes with us. They are unique in their ability to see us as pack members, members of their family. To them we are extremely strange dogs; we are dogs that are at many times unpredictable and hard to understand.

My point is that it is not common for dogs to just “snap” and become aggressive. Even the most frightening looking pit bull is still a dog, and dogs have evolved to live around and love humans. So if we understand that dogs don’t just snap, then what is the deal with dog aggression? Why do they do it? Well first of all let me point out that I rarely see truly aggressive dogs. Many behaviours people call “aggression” are simply the dog over reacting to a stressful situation.

Aggression is a term used very loosely in the dog community but has a severely negative connotation, a connotation which can result in the euthanasia of a perfectly normal and trainable dog. So in the future when I talk about aggression I will be referring to the issues that are classified as such by the professional behaviour consultant community.

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