Alpha/Pack Leader/Dominance Ideology in Dog Training
I recently saw a video of a red-dyed hair “trainer” “dominating” an aggressive, muzzled Akita (I lost the link), and a week or so ago, a video where Cesar Millan snatched a triggered owner resource guarding Dachshund from the owner’s lap and tossed it to the ground (which considering for the Dachshund was several times its own height is in itself no small thing), pinning it to the ground until it “submitted.” I believe he sustained some minor injuries in the encounter. I think the Dachshund might be in therapy.
The “You have to be Alpha, Pack Leader, Dominant” approach to dog training is, when you think about it, pretty weird. I believe that, for the most part, trainers who use (or think they’re using) the “Alpha/Pack Leader/Dominance” approach don’t fully understand the meaning of these words and how far removed they are from how higher-order social species teach life skills. For example, if you created a Venn diagram of how being “Alpha/Leader” influences relationships in a pack versus how mother dogs and the rest of the pack actually teach youngsters their life skills, you’d find that being “Alpha/Pack Leader” (if you know what it means in the lexicon of behavior terminology) has very little to do with it.
As to “dominance,” “dominance” trainers also don’t seem to understand what “dominance” means behaviorally speaking versus what it actually has to do with raising youngsters to adulthood are also far apart. For example, as I understand dominance, an example might be the fall rut of whitetail deer, where male deer fight for dominance. Competing males may, after a short encounter, run a lesser candidate off. They also may injure, or albeit rarely, even kill competitors, and their “dominance” is rewarded in the passing on of their genes.
Now, let’s say we all go out to a bar this evening and behave extremely poorly; we trigger an encounter with a bouncer or two and experience a bit of “dominance” ourselves. Do we, while getting patched up at the local emergency ward, turn to each other and say, “That would be a great way to raise a child/puppy?”
I do believe that relationship is everything when it comes to raising a puppy or a child or resolving a behavior problem with either, but the “Alpha/Pack Leader/Dominance” model is nonsense.
For what it’s worth, lest anyone jump to any conclusions, I also think many of those who embrace one of the many variations of what is sometimes referred to as the “All Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free/Never Say No/Just Redirect/R+…, treat, treat, treat” ideology also don’t understand the difference between being a Pez Dispenser versus a loving authority figure. (Hint: not a single higher-order social species embraces the approach the vast majority of dog trainers are parroting to their clients.) I might argue that unless the focus isn’t on teaching tricks but on teaching actual life skills.
I don’t know about you, but if my mother and father had, for the most part, ignored my bad behavior and even lavishly rewarded my good behavior and didn’t provide a measured response to my bad behavior, I would now be dead or in jail.
– John “Ask The Dog Guy” Wade
