Myths About Dominance

Note from Con Slobodchikoff: This is a guest post by Dr. Suzanne Hetts, who is an applied animal behavior specialist certified by the Animal Behavior Society. Her website is: www.animalbehaviorassociates.com.

A client told us she had recently read that she needed to spit in her dog’s food to show him who was boss.  The theory was that if a dog eats food with another’s saliva on it, he is acknowledging his subordinate role in the relationship.  Another client has a dog that is anxious at doggie day care and attempts to dig out.  She was told this is because her dog is worried about her because she isn’t a good “pack leader” and the dog was trying to get to her to take care of her.

The myths get worse.  We talked to a family who was told by their trainer that they and their 12 year old son had to “hump” their dog in order to establish their dominance over him. So they spent half an hour with the trainer chasing the dog around the backyard trying to mount him.  Now the dog won’t come when called and doesn’t want to have much to do with them.  Is anyone surprised?  And why would anyone agree to do this?

All of these explanations for dog behavior are from the MSU school.  This is not Michigan or Mississippi State University, but from people who Make Stuff Up.  We have no clue where these ideas came from - they certainly didn’t come from the scientific literature!

Many dog trainers have claimed that the “dominance” or “pack theories” of dog behavior are based on scientific studies of wolves and dogs, and therefore this legitimizes their explanations of dog behavior towards people.  Most of us would agree that scientific explanations should carry more weight than non-scientific ones, but only if they accurately reflect what is really known about the particular phenomenon. 

Virtually all the popular explanations of dominance behavior distort what is really known about wolf and dog behavior.  In fact, Dr. David Mech who is the senior biologist with the U.S. Interior Department and has studied wolves for over 40 years, has published articles in Wolf Magazine and video interviews on You Tube clarifying the misconceptions surrounding the term “alpha wolf”. (Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNtFgdwTsbU).

Dr. Mech reminds us that he was mostly responsible for the term “alpha wolf”, which he used in a widely circulated scientific article in the 1970s.  However, as he says, science has progressed quite a bit from that time, and it’s just too bad that a certain segment of the dog training community hasn’t followed along.

The preferred terminology now is “breeding” male and female.  Dr. Mech likens a wolf pack to a human family.  The role of the parents (a term he is quite comfortable with in addition to "breeding”) is to teach and guide the youngsters in the ways of the world and how to survive.  The parents are not “bullies”, which is what people sometimes become when they use confrontational, intimidation tactics with their dogs based on so-called “dominance techniques”.  And rather than constantly vying for “dominance”, the wolf pups are predisposed to acquiesce and follow their parents and older siblings – just like our dogs that, after 15,000 years of domestication are predisposed to acquiesce to and follow us.  All they need is just a bit of consistent guidance about what behaviors we want from them, and to have reasonable boundaries established for their behaviors.  There is no need to be heavy handed and deprive our dogs of privileges such as access to toys, the opportunity to share our beds (if that’s what we want!), and to ask us for what they want using appropriate behaviors.

Because social dominance hierarchies are based on the outcomes of direct competitions, in order for these interactions to be relevant to social status, the proponents of these ideas are assuming that - being ahead on walks, going through doorways, eating before we do, and playing tug games - dogs are viewing as competitive interactions.  There is an abundance of evidence that this assumption is simply not true.  Let’s take just one example.

Why do dogs want to be ahead on walks?  Because they are motivated to, and capable of, moving faster than we do!  Have you ever known a dog to turn around and threaten his owner when she tried to move faster and catch up to him?  Silly, isn’t it.  Our dogs would be happy campers if they could get us to move faster on walks.

Don’t confuse having control over your dog with social dominance.  Control and dominance are not the same things.  We’ve barely scratched the surface of “dominance” myths.  Very bad things have happened to dogs in the name of “establishing dominance”.  Rather than thinking of ourselves as “pack leaders” a much better way to develop mutually beneficial relationships with our dogs is to view our roles as a mix between a best friend and a parent.  Learn more about how best to function in these roles by subscribing to our free newsletter at www.AnimalBehaviorAssociates.com/blog.

Comments

[Nate]

Dr. Hetts seems to enjoy giving extreme examples on dominance as a distraction to the facts. The simple facts of this conversation are that all dogs are pack animals, and that your dog is not motivated to please you. The misconception of any dog wanting to please you has caused the greatest roadblock of all when it comes to dog training. Think about it, what has your dog ever done in order to please you? You can't think of one single instance can you? This is because your dog, and all other dogs are motivated to please themselves. Rolling a meatball across the dinner plate to another dog only happens in Disney movies, not in reality.
Dogs learn by association. It is inevitable that they associate everything as either positive or negative. If you give a dog variable reinforcement in any instance it is in their nature to use this to their advantage. Be it sleeping on your bed, stealing food from the table, or any other behavior that may become undesirable. When an undesired association becomes a part of your dog's imprinting; it can be very difficult to distingish.

[Adriana Diniz]

Hi, I am from Brazil and i found this weblog, do you believe?

This article is very enlightening on the topic dominance.

As a dog owner, sometimes, i was unhappy by doing certain things in the name of establishing my dominance. Things that doesn't make any sense!

When you talk about the proponents of the dominance techniques are your talking about Cesar Millan?

I do believe, however, that something of his method is very useful to us! And I can't deny the fact that a great numbers of dogs were save for his job in his cesars way.

[Rick Smith]

Well, I definitely agree that modern scientific studies have pretty much eroded the traditional theory of alpha dominance in wolf packs, but I certainly don't agree that breeding wolf pairs are kind of like breeding human pairs and whenever animal behaviors are compared to human (animal) behaviors, I quickly throw up a red flag :-)

All jokes aside, animal pets living with humans do require control that may or may not be explained in terms of dominance or the old outdated "alpha" word. I have yet to read any scientific definitive studies of this although dog trainers for years have gathered lots of empirical and anecdotal data to back up whichever way they choose to explain the terms and confused a lot of people.

I do think much of the wolf's body language can still be observed in domestic dogs, so that research has been helpful to me in dealing with domestic dog behavior, but I would like to see more studies on human/dog groups before I rule out all aspects of the "alpha" dominance factor as it might pertain to these unique groups. They are tightly knit inter-species social groups and light years apart from wolf packs. Obviously no breeding occurs and in many cases breeding urges have been completely removed (at least on the dogs side:) through spaying and neutering, therefore the primary basis for holding a wolf pack together simply does not exist in our canine/human households. I respect his scientific efforts but don't think I would study wolf research to determine how best to raise and care for my dogs (and cats), and those who would should probably look in another direction for guidance :-)

Just like in dogs and wolves, our human DNA is pretty close to a lot of "other" animals, but we don't raise our kids the same way a mother chimp does, so it seems logical the same should apply to our pets. But although I continually see problems when people try and raise dogs as if they were mini humans, I have NEVER seen a problem when an owner has raised their dog (or cat) based on an understanding of the principles of operant conditioning and (consistent) positive reinforcement. And all of these same problem free pet owners have shown just as much love and affection as the loving owners who come to me with problems that their "spoiled child" and "stubborn brat" pooches are accused of instigating :-)

Happy living conditions in a family with dogs and cats certainly requires control and that may indicate the need for the dominance of some over others. Maybe my dog has become the aplha since he eats MUCH better food then I do, gets much better health and dental care than I do and has ensured I exercise him daily, rain or shine :-) Should you be the "aplha" in your pack and not let your dog dominate you or other family members ? Maybe, maybe not, but if you take the time to learn how to effectively shape their behavior to happily coexist in your household using time tested scientific behavior shaping techniques, it really won't matter and cease to be an issue pet owners worry about !

[Randall Johnson]

Kudos to Dr. Hetts for finally setting the record straight on the issue of dog dominance. Some myths are beautiful or heroic. This one is downright ugly...not to mention way off base! A much better model was presented by Alexandra Semyonova, who did a 15 year study of domesticated dogs in their natural habitat (i.e., living in human households), using the principles of emergence theory to describe their behaviors. Her study showed that dogs are, in fact, quite cooperative with one another, and that there is no real evidence that dogs form dominance hierarchies the way we humans think of the term.
Here's a link to her paper: http://www.nonlineardogs.com
In closing, I'd like to say SHAME on the 'trainer' for telling that one family they had to 'hump' their dog to establish dominance of him, and SHAME on the family for falling for such a load of c**p!

[Dogprosusan]

Well said.

[MelF]

Amen! I'm so glad you wrote this post. We need to do more to educate people about dominance and control. I had someone at the dog park tell me yesterday that she bit her dog's ear because she growled at her. Unbelievable. Today, someone told me that her sister rolled her Rottweiler and beat it up so it knew who was boss. Seriously people, if you have to beat your dog you're not dominant or in control. You're just plain stupid and cruel.