Articles
Sorting out Dominance and Leadership by Anne Nichols
With so much information available about dog behavior and training, it’s no wonder the average dog owner is confused. Many people are particularly confounded when the terms "dominant” or “alpha” and “leader" are
used interchangeably. Sorting out these terms and how they really apply to
dog behavior can make a profound difference in your dog training choices and
in the outcomes of those choices.
The terms “dominant” and “alpha” originated with research on social structures among wolves. Those terms were adopted by dog behaviorists and trainers to explain certain types of behaviors in domesticated dogs. Many dog trainers also use the terms “dominant” and “alpha” to refer to the way owners should interact with their dogs. In this way of thinking, the relationship between dog and human is one of constant potential conflict—either the dog is dominant or the human is dominant, and every interaction between the two is imbued with the struggle to get and stay on top.
So how does leadership fit in? Simply put, the leader is the one who makes the decisions. Any halfway decent trainer will agree that the human needs to be the leader in the dog/human relationship. But many trainers mistake a lack of leadership from the human for dominance in the dog. When training is approached this way, many owners are left with the impression that an undesirable behavior reveals the dog’s secret plot to mutiny.
Let’s look at a common example. Some trainers will misconstrue a dog who eagerly rushes through the door ahead of its owner as “dominant”. Oh, come on! Let’s see this behavior for what it really is: the dog is excited to get outside and has never been taught not to plow over its owner to get through the door. The dog isn't secretly viewing its rush outside as one more step to ultimate power. Heck it isn’t thinking about its owner at all. And THAT is the problem. The dog who rushes out the door isn’t “dominant”, it just hasn’t been taught to respect its owner as a leader. Instead its been left to do what dogs do, which is make decisions that please the dog. It’s up to us, as humans, to act as leaders by teaching our dogs how to respect us so we can live together without constantly clashing.
Once we understand that the issue here isn’t when the dog goes out the door but how it goes out, you might wonder how to deal with this situation. Older dog training methods would have you hit the dog as he rudely rushes through the door. This would be called showing “dominance” over your dog, or teaching him that you are the “alpha” member of the pack. While this would probably eliminate the behavior of rushing the door, it would also likely teach your dog to fear you and might teach it to fear the door as well. Not the results you are hoping for.
In contrast, many so called “positive” trainers don’t want you to deliver consequences for an unwanted behavior. Obviously simply ignoring the behavior won’t stop it because the dog is constantly rewarded by his arrival in the pleasant outdoors. These trainers will often instruct you to hold a treat in front of your dog’s nose as you approach the door. If your dog is very food motivated, he will stay with you as you go through the door together. But if you take away the food, he will immediately rush the door again because he hasn’t actually learned what you want from him. He certainly hasn’t learned to respect you as a leader.
Let's look at this situation differently. What if, instead of dominating or bribing your dog, you teach it to look to you for leadership? When a dog learns to sit calmly before exiting and to wait for further direction on the other side, it is learning self-control, awareness, and respect. In other words, it is learning to think instead of react. By teaching our dogs to think instead of react we are acting as true leaders without the need to resort to fear or bribery.
While there are similarities between dogs and wolves, there are also significant differences. As much as we might learn from studying wolves, there is a limit to how useful that information is to understanding dog behavior. When transplanting information from wolf studies hampers our ability to foster a mutually beneficial relationship with our dogs, it’s time to look a little closer at the canines we’re living with. So let’s treat dogs as dogs, not as wolves living among humans.