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 pass. 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!”