This I think is a real problem with a lot of dog's problems today. People are being mislead that their dogs are wolves and that if a dog does something you don't like the dog is automatically classified as dominant. This is very far from the truth, your dog is NOT a wolf and your dog most likely is NOT dominant.
So to start off, what does dominant mean? Dictionary term:
- Exercising the most influence or control
- Most prominent, as in position; ascendant
Dog's can most definitely have a more dominant (strong) personality, some will always push the boundaries and see what they can get away with, as dog's do what is most rewarding to them. But to label a dog dominant is very rare as you will find many animal behaviourists and good trainers will agree. Dominance has been a popular term amongst trainers and dog owners because it's easier to blame the dog for misbehaving then telling the owner that their training is failing.
Wolves And Pack Mentality
Another misconception is that your dog is a wolf- FALSE, your dog is a dog (canid lupus familiaris).
Would you call your cat a lion?
Watch the full episode. See more Through a Dogs Eyes.
Yes - Dogs have similar behaviours as wolves such as greetings to one another, warnings ect. but cats have similar behaviours to lions (purring, nudging ect) you wouldn't call your cat a lion now would you?
The first "tail waggers" were likely derived from the asian grey wolf, though the evidence for this is speculative at best, for certain breeds in fact, trace their ancestry to Egypt and Mesopotamia (e.g. greyhound, Pharoah hound) or EurAsia (e.g. sherpherds). There has been thousands (roughly 15,000) years of domestication from humans to shape a wolf into useful help to people, which came the dog with a job.
The first "tail waggers" were likely derived from the asian grey wolf, though the evidence for this is speculative at best, for certain breeds in fact, trace their ancestry to Egypt and Mesopotamia (e.g. greyhound, Pharoah hound) or EurAsia (e.g. sherpherds). There has been thousands (roughly 15,000) years of domestication from humans to shape a wolf into useful help to people, which came the dog with a job.
Power of the pack
Most dog's do not live with 5 + dogs and people over one roof and these dogs and people live their entire life happy and healthy. I know of many places where there are 7 members (dogs and people) in a household and it's chaos even though the humans are practicing "alpha roles" on a daily basis. What these so called "pack leaders" are advertising is power, most people are power hungry in some form or another and this type of training is appealing to them.
My experience
It's not easy for me to say but when I started out I was taught by many people that you needed to correct the dog when he or she didn't comply with the command, this will teach them to listen to us! Did it work, yes eventually, but did I enjoy it, no I felt very upset with myself that this is the only way to train. Years passed, Cesar Milan came to t.v. with his pack leader philosophy, I thought that I should try this training methods to experiment on whether it works or not. All I have to say is my poor dog, I have never been so upset with myself and miserable then when I played "alpha" to my Border Collie. Not only was I unhappy with the training method, my dog was shutting down right infront of me, the happy go-lucky dog with light in her eyes was fading. I then stopped all training and put work on hold to research a different training method, I had heard of positive training "reward good behaviours, ignore bad ones" I thought, "well that sort of makes sense but WHY would you ignore a dog biting you?" I was desperate to find a new way of training that made sense, I bought books off the shelf left, right and center, I searched all over the internet, I contacted certified applied animal behaviourist and found what I was looking for, a AMAZING, wonderful training method that works with every single dog. Progressive reinforcement training, showing your dog the appropriate ways of humans through reinforcement.
Three weeks later I started re-training my dog with progressive reinforcement, starting with baby steps (sit, down, come, stay), it was sad to see the lingering problems from the horrible dominance training I had done weeks before was still there. If she was unsure of what I wanted, she would shut down right infront of me, tail low, sad eyes, frustration kicked in on my part and I then realized that I need to be trained, not my dog. Slowly she started coming back into her personality, she wouldn't shut down any longer she would throw me TONS of confusion signals (sniffing, scratching herself) I took these as, "okay, I'm moving a bit fast for her" so I cut training sessions into 2 min sessions and LOTS of fun. Now look where we are, you can SEE how happy Luna is to work with me, she throws me kisses every two seconds, her tail is wagging the entire time! She barks when she's happy (it's a wooof woof woooof sound, lol), she listens on the first cue, she's a better dog all together and I'm a better person after seeing and feeling the difference progressive reinforcement makes in our life.
Conclusion: The dominance/alpha training method has proven to do more harm than good! People will NEVER master the art of trying to be a dog or wolf! We will never be able to perfectly replicate what a dog will do to another dog. This is why the dominance/alpha/pack leader method is useless and has hurt many dogs and people. People have gone WAY overboard on this method. People become total idiots and power happy and all they focus on is more ways to enforce their position as a “PACK LEADER” and “THE BOSS.”
Most dog's do not live with 5 + dogs and people over one roof and these dogs and people live their entire life happy and healthy. I know of many places where there are 7 members (dogs and people) in a household and it's chaos even though the humans are practicing "alpha roles" on a daily basis. What these so called "pack leaders" are advertising is power, most people are power hungry in some form or another and this type of training is appealing to them.
It's not easy for me to say but when I started out I was taught by many people that you needed to correct the dog when he or she didn't comply with the command, this will teach them to listen to us! Did it work, yes eventually, but did I enjoy it, no I felt very upset with myself that this is the only way to train. Years passed, Cesar Milan came to t.v. with his pack leader philosophy, I thought that I should try this training methods to experiment on whether it works or not. All I have to say is my poor dog, I have never been so upset with myself and miserable then when I played "alpha" to my Border Collie. Not only was I unhappy with the training method, my dog was shutting down right infront of me, the happy go-lucky dog with light in her eyes was fading. I then stopped all training and put work on hold to research a different training method, I had heard of positive training "reward good behaviours, ignore bad ones" I thought, "well that sort of makes sense but WHY would you ignore a dog biting you?" I was desperate to find a new way of training that made sense, I bought books off the shelf left, right and center, I searched all over the internet, I contacted certified applied animal behaviourist and found what I was looking for, a AMAZING, wonderful training method that works with every single dog. Progressive reinforcement training, showing your dog the appropriate ways of humans through reinforcement.
Three weeks later I started re-training my dog with progressive reinforcement, starting with baby steps (sit, down, come, stay), it was sad to see the lingering problems from the horrible dominance training I had done weeks before was still there. If she was unsure of what I wanted, she would shut down right infront of me, tail low, sad eyes, frustration kicked in on my part and I then realized that I need to be trained, not my dog. Slowly she started coming back into her personality, she wouldn't shut down any longer she would throw me TONS of confusion signals (sniffing, scratching herself) I took these as, "okay, I'm moving a bit fast for her" so I cut training sessions into 2 min sessions and LOTS of fun. Now look where we are, you can SEE how happy Luna is to work with me, she throws me kisses every two seconds, her tail is wagging the entire time! She barks when she's happy (it's a wooof woof woooof sound, lol), she listens on the first cue, she's a better dog all together and I'm a better person after seeing and feeling the difference progressive reinforcement makes in our life.
Conclusion: The dominance/alpha training method has proven to do more harm than good! People will NEVER master the art of trying to be a dog or wolf! We will never be able to perfectly replicate what a dog will do to another dog. This is why the dominance/alpha/pack leader method is useless and has hurt many dogs and people. People have gone WAY overboard on this method. People become total idiots and power happy and all they focus on is more ways to enforce their position as a “PACK LEADER” and “THE BOSS.”
Take this from someone who has been on both boats, if I could go back I would, dominance training almost ruined me and my dog.
