2. Contents
• What is Dominance? (Misconceptions, Definition)
• Popularity and Origin of Dominance
• Dogs vs. Wolves
• Dog Social Structure
• Is Dominance a Personality Trait?
• Dealing with “Dominance” Behaviors in Dogs
• Sources / Additional Reading
• Conclusion / Final Questions
3. Dominance - Misconceptions
The term “Dominance” has been twisted and no clear
meaning exists among the average dog owner.
Dominance is not a behavior, it is an attempted explanation
of behavior.
Growling, biting, staring, mounting, etc. are real observable
behaviors.
Generally, dominance is explained as a characteristic or
action.
“I have a dominant dog”, or “My dog is dominant with other
dogs”
4. Dominance - Misconceptions
General assumption of many average dog owners and trainers:
1) Wolf research showed a clear linear hierarchy between pack
members with the alpha wolf being at the top. The alpha
wolf must remain strong and use force to maintain his
position or risk losing it.
2) Dogs are directly descended from wolves, so the same must
be true of them
3) Humans must be seen as the ‘alpha’ to their dog, or risk
misbehavior and disobedience. Eating and walking first, not
allowing dogs on the bed, forcing submission are
recommended as ways to show you are alpha.
4) When dogs meet other dogs they assess rank and determine
who will be dominant. Any fights or aggression are labeled
‘dominance aggression”
5. Definition of Dominance
Definition of Dominance
Dominant behavior is a quantitative and
quantifiable behavior displayed by an individual
with the function of gaining or maintaining
temporary access to a particular resource on a
particular occasion, versus a particular
opponent, without either party incurring injury.
Relationship isn’t established until one individual
consistently defers.
6. What is Dominance
Dominant behavior is situational, individual and resource related.
Dominance is a fluid relationship based on motivation. Ex: A starving
dog will not give up a bone as readily as before!
Fact: Dominance is driven by environment and learning – it is not set in
stone. “High quality, clumped resources” tend to create stricter social
hierarchies, while “low quality, evenly disbursed resources” tend to
create looser social organizations. Which would describe house dogs?
Dominance relationships are particularly important for social animals
that need to cohabit and cooperate to survive. No animal wants to
expend energy constantly fighting for resources. Many animals must
cooperate in order to survive (wolf packs, family dogs)
Each animal must make the decision how bad they want the resource
relative to the other
7. What is Dominance
A dominance relationship will be based on several factors:
1) The motivation for the resource of each animal
(Environment)
2) Their history of how to control the resource (some use
aggression, some ‘sneak’ the resource) “Learned behavior”
3) Their relationship with the animal
These factor will be re-evaluated in each situation and with each
animal thus dominance is very fluid. Factors may however
remain very similar over the course of a relationship
10. What is Dominance
In the previous examples:
• The cat was defending itself from an overly excited dog.
• The young puppy was jumping up because it was friendly and
excited. It stole food because it could and had not been
taught otherwise!
“Dominance”, priority access to resources, played no part in
either example.
Why is terminology so important?
Without proper diagnosis, the solution may be flawed. In these
examples the “dominance” of the animal absolved the owners of
blame for the behavior.
11. Popularity and origin
• Early wolf and dog publications such as “King Soloman’s Ring”
(Lorenz), “The Wolf” (Mech) and “How To Be Your Dogs Best
Friend” (Monks) advocated the need to “Dominate” your dog.
• Schenkel’s 1947 “Expressions Studies on Wolves.” is the study
that gave rise to the now outmoded notion of alpha wolves.
• Dominance allows for a simple and ‘sexy’ explanation of
behavior with a simple solution (You need to be more
dominant!)
• Absolves owner of responsibility and justifies harsh or abusive
treatment in the name of training.
• Human social order has many strict linear hierarchies
(Military, Countries, Church, Companies, Royalty, etc)
12. Popularity and Origin
• Science is in flux and many experts have recanted their earlier
research.
• Dominance continues to be a central topic of TV dog trainers
and shows since the concept is easy to explain.
• An unregulated dog training industry is very dangerous.
James O’Heare Wrote:
I think it is intuitive for humans. We, as a species, are very
concerned with who is winning and who is over or under who.
Social dominance makes an intriguing narrative and humans are
very story oriented beings. It has drama. I think that is just
because many people just don't take the interest in familiarizing
themselves with the “boring” principles of learning.
13. Popularity and Origin
Confused Yet?
“A dog that growls when approached near her food bowl might
be labeled dominant. Then if you ask the owner why the dog
growls, she’ll answer, “Because she’s dominant.” So the label
becomes a pseudo-explanation for the behaviour.”
“Dominance theory is so muddled that it often contradicts itself.
For example, if a "dominant dog" is acting aggressively and the
solution is through "calm-assertive" energy which makes the
human the "dominant pack leader," wouldn't a dominant dog act
calm-assertive instead of aggressive?”
14. Popularity and Origin
L David Mech, Author of “The Wolf” and many other
publications who has studied wolves for over 35 years
15. Dogs vs. Wolves
Do these animals look similar? Is their behavior
the same?
how about these?
16. Dogs vs. Wolves
Comparing wolves to dogs holds as much weight as comparing
chimps to humans when discussing behavior.
Wolves are concerned with hazard avoidance, hunting and
reproduction – dogs are concerned with social joys and
companionship, retrieving and herding and other breed specific
traits.
16,000 years or more of domestication has greatly changed a
dog and while many similarities exist in DNA between dog and
wolf, those small changes have profound effect on behavior.
17. Dogs vs. Wolves
• This evolution of dogs from packs of hunting predators to
opportunistic scavengers is an important change. It is a
change of survival tactics that seems largely responsible for
the highly flexible and creative social capabilities of dogs.
Dogs are a species that seems to be able to easily adapt to
life, not just with other dogs but with other species too.
• Wolves spend most of their lives in stable family groups which
normally do not incorporate outsiders Domestic dogs form
loose, temporary groups and/or interact fleetingly with each
other during outings with a human caretaker.
18. Dogs vs. Wolves
Early Wolf Studies
• Early studies on wolves were done on captive wolves
from multiple packs.
• Wolves were not able to hunt or burn off natural
aggressive energy
• Wolves had no prior relationship and were forced
into an unnatural family
• Aggression and “submission” was frequently
observed, giving rise to the idea of alpha wolves and
the need for physical dominance
19. Dogs vs. Wolves
Early Study
Since captive wolves don’t have access to hunting, their natural
method of reducing stress, or of offloading their natural predatory
aggression, or of fostering group harmony, captive wolves find
themselves fighting instead over little things; that’s what they do with
their aggressive energy—they scrimmage.
Scrimmages were taken to be a battle for dominance, rather than an
outlet for pent up anxiety and aggression
Dogs need outlet for their energy as well such as play and social
bonding. Dogs deprived of this can show aggression which is then
mistaken for ‘dominance’. The degree to which this happens is still far
less in dogs than in wolves, who by nature do not socialize with
outsiders (putting together a group of unrelated wolves causes much
more aggression than unrelated dogs).
20. Dogs vs. Wolves
Packing: Packing has been proven to be a product of the environment,
not an innate trait.
Wolves pack to:
• Cooperatively hunt large game. Wolves that have no need of
cooperation to hunt have no need, and do not pack.
• Wild wolf packs will not tolerate outsiders on their territory to
protect resources
• Packing also defers priority access to mating in order to
cooperatively raise young to control population.
• Wolf mates both cooperate in raising the young and collecting food
for them.
All wolves wish to pass on their genes and will leave their pack to form
their own and become the Alpha Wolf (or breeding pair)
21. Dogs vs. Wolves
Dogs live in a very different environment than wolves and are a
different animal!
Dogs do not form packs because:
• They do not hunt game in groups
• Males/females mate as often as they can with no specific
partner
• Males do not take care of the young, pups often scavenge for
food at a very young age
Fact: Dogs do not form ‘packs’ as wolves do, but certain aspects
may present depending on the environment (Ex: defending
resources from other dogs should they be scarce).
22. Dog Social Structure - Dunbar
Dr Ian Dunbar studied groups of domestic dogs for years in the
early 1970’s and made some key observations of their
interactions.
• Dogs pick very distinct sleeping partners and friends to play
games with. Dogs have very clear preference for other dogs.
• Females wouldn’t take bones from puppies – 50% of males
would – as puppies aged they did take the bones.
• Taking bones was noise and there was no
touching, rolls, grabs, shakes etc – usually done with eye
contact alone
23. Dog Social Structure - Conclusions
• Socialization is the KEY to avoiding aggression and
unstable dogs
• Dogs don’t want fear, physical pain – aggression is
abnormal!
• Dogs need to be taught rules to keep them safe and
because we are smarter – not because we are
alphas.
• Dog social system is not that much different from
human system – friend, enemy, parents, well
socialization, etc. there is no clear hierarchy in total
social structure.
24. Dog Social Structure
Dominance vs. Submission Signals
Standard “Dominant Standard “Submission”
Aggressive” position position
We discussed that you cannot have dominance
without a resource. Is this fair labeling of these
positions?
25. Dog Social Structure
Dominance vs. Submission Signals
These previous postures should correctly be identified as
threatening and non-threatening.
A “Submissive” dog is actually a more socially confident dog in
that they are attempting to ‘turn off’ the aggression of the
threatening dog
Fighting and aggression among dogs is not natural and has to do
with human meddling (poor training, lack of socialization)
Wolf pack fights very rare – only 2-3 fights in wolf park in years.
Free roaming observed dogs had no link between aggression and
priority access to resources.
26. Dog – Human Social Structure
Dogs are clever scavengers. They will try to get what they want.
They will develop behaviours and strategies to get us to give
them more of the things they want and to keep us from doing
the things they don’t want. But isn’t that more like being an
opportunist than a power-mad status climber? And if we fall for
their strategies, isn’t that more our fault than theirs considering
we have control of all of the resources?
27. Dog – Human Social Structure
• Dogs do not display aggression or disobedience by a drive to
obtain rank or leadership but rather by their desire for a
resource and the associated learning on how to best obtain
the resource.
• Dogs know we are not dogs and have very different means of
communication with us than with other dogs.
• Using force and correction is not the ‘natural’ way to train.
Dogs do not use force to teach other dogs to “Sit” –
aggression and force is only used to say ‘get away from me’.
• Most dog-dog aggression follows the rule of using the least
amount of force required (sometimes only a threat). Do
humans follow the same rules?
28. Dominance Behavior in Dogs
True behaviour motivation is normally a hedonistic one. Dog
behaviour usually reflects a need or want that makes the dog
feel better. Dogs steal food because it tastes good, pull on leash
because we follow along, or they guard bones because bones are
tasty, not because of rank. In the wild the overall driving
motivation for resources is normally to mate and pass on ones
genes.
Many aggressive displays that are currently diagnosed as
dominance aggression are aimed at avoiding some perceived
aversive outcome rather than establishing or maintaining the
offending dog’s social status
29. Is Dominance a Personality Trait?
• No. By our definition, dominance is a relationship
between individuals in regards to a particular
resource
• Can dogs be more predisposed to using aggressive
methods to obtain a resource? Yes!
• This is not a fixed personality trait, but rather
behavior increased via operant conditioning that can
be modified.
30. Dealing with Dominance Issues
Aggression
• Aggression is generally a fear based response, not a confident one.
• Using force (alpha roll, corporal punishment) will stop the
aggression, but not the reason behind it. When threat of
punishment is gone, aggression may return.
Being dominant by force is a relationship you can create and your dog
will submit the way anyone that has less power and is being controlled
would. This is not required.
Labeling the dog as “dominant” creates conflict between the dog and
owner and often is seen as justification for harsh training methods.
Most people would not want to shock, hit or choke a dog labeled as
‘afraid’.
31. Dealing with Dominance Issues
Dog-Dog Aggression
• Dogs meeting each other for the first time are often
assessing if they have friendly intentions (not
determining rank!)
• Aggression will be based on previous history
(perhaps with sex, breed or movements of the dog)
• Lack of positive outcomes may predispose the dog
to continued negative encounters as they become
classically conditioned that dogs are a threat
• Mostly based on anxiety (unsure if dogs are a risk to
their safety)
32. Dealing with Dominance Issues
Resource Guarding
• One of the most frequent ‘dominance’ behaviors – guarding /
using aggression to control a resource.
• Isn’t this the definition of dominance from before? YES! You
could call this dominance, however what you do to correct it
is key!
Resource guarding manifests because:
1. Resources are scarce
2. The dog has been conditioned that humans will take their
items (not something that dogs often do, possession =
ownership)
3. Using aggression to defend the resource has worked in past
33. Dealing with Dominance Issues
Resource Guarding
Object guarding and possessiveness are not necessarily
indicators of dominance, even though superficially the behavior
appears to be motivated by dominance- related incentives.
Among wolves, there is little correspondence between object
guarding and dominance, with wolves of all ranks exhibiting
heightened possessiveness over objects located within their
ownership zone around the mouth. In addition, all
wolves, regardless of rank, will attempt to steal food from other
wolves irrespective of dominance (Mech, 1999)
Retaining a resource is a natural behavior in all dogs. To avoid
this issue we do not need to alpha roll, ‘force submission’ or
punish our dogs.
34. Dealing with Dominance Issues
Resource Guarding
To correct or prevent resource guarding in dogs:
1. Provide ample resources (not high
value, limited resources)
2. Teach dogs to trade using reward based
methods
3. Do not create confrontations over
resources, this causes anxiety and stress
35. Dealing with Dominance Issues
Leash Walking
Misconception: Dogs walking ahead of you is a display of their
dominance
Reason: Alpha wolves are always in front of the pack, thus you
should be in front of your dog
Not only is this irrelevant, alpha wolves are often not walking in
front of the pack
Why do dogs walk in front or pull on leash?
1. Dogs move faster than us – they must be taught to move at
our slow pace and to wait for us
2. Often owners allow the dog to pull by moving forward, thus
the behavior is rewarded and continues (learning).
36. Dealing with Dominance Issues
Leash Walking
By rewarding a dog for walking beside you and stopping
whenever they pull, a dog will easily learn to walk on leash.
Dogs can be asked to wait at a door by teaching a stay.
All can be taught using food, positive reinforcement and clear
communication. It is that simple.
There is no need to invoke ideas of
dominance, alphas and other human
created reasoning for the behavior.
37. Dominance – Misconceptions review
General assumption of many average dog owners and trainers:
1) Wolf research showed a clear linear hierarchy between pack
members with the alpha wolf being at the top. The alpha
wolf must remain strong and use force to maintain his
position or risk losing it.
2) Dogs are directly descended from wolves, so the same must
be true of them
3) Humans must be seen as the ‘alpha’ to their dog or risk
misbehavior and disobedience. Eating and walking first, not
allowing dogs on the bed, forcing submission are
recommended as ways to show you are alpha.
4) When dogs meet other dogs they assess rank and determine
who will be dominant. Any fights or aggression are labeled
‘dominance aggression”
38. Dominance – updated information
Correct information for dog owners and trainers!
1) Early wolf research on captive packs was unnatural and
showed increased aggression due to anxiety. In natural, wild
packs, the alpha is simply the father and dominance is based
on relationships, not force.
2) Dogs are directly descended from wolves, however their
environmental and genetic differences result in huge
behavior variations
3) Humans should be seen as leaders that provide information
and resources for cooperative behavior from their dogs.
4) When dogs meet other dogs they assess the social ability and
safety of the other dog. Encounters will be based on
previous experiences.
39. Conclusion
Dominance is simply a description of a relationship – it should
not infer the need to use physical force to become the ‘dominant
one’. Dogs are not looking for a dominant ‘personality’ they are
simply looking for clear instruction on how their world works and
how to live within it.
Only a rather incompetent leader would go about challenging
and agitating deferential subordinates. In short, the process of
maintaining dominance is about regulating social limits and
boundaries while making oneself an object of social attention
and affection—a true leader.
“To lead people walk behind them.” Lao Tzu
Welcome to Understanding Dominance in Domestic Dogs, I’m Tristan Flynn and I’m a certified Pet Dog Trainer operating in HRM, Formerly I ran Golden Rule Training but will be opening Jollytails doggie daycare in Late July in Halifax Offering daycare along with group training and behavior rehabilitation for aggression and other issues.
Dominance is a traditional ethological concept that pertains to an individual's ability—generally under controlled conditions—to maintain or regulate access to some resource. It is a description of the regularities of winning or losing staged contests over those resources. It is not to be confused with status and, in fact, does not need to confer priority of access to resources.In situations in which the concept of dominance has been used with regard to status, it is important to realize that it is not defined as aggression on the part of the "dominant" animal but rather as the withdrawal of the "subordinate.“The behavior of the relatively lower status individuals, not the relatively higher ranking one, is what determines the relative hierarchical rank.Rank itself is contextually relative. Truly high-ranking animals are tolerant of lower-ranking ones.Dominance displays infrequently lead to actual combat. Instead, combat ensues when these displays are not effective.If there is no assumption of a dominance-based system, one is seldom identified. When free-ranging baboon interactions were classified by behavioral types (e.g., friendly, approach–retreat) and then analyzed according to specific behaviors of the participants, no dominance system was noted. This research was also done by John Bradshaw in the Paper, Dominance in domestic dogs, useful construct or bad habit
“Dominance theory is so muddled that it often contradicts itself. For example, if a "dominant dog" is acting aggressively and the solution is through "calm-assertive" energy which makes the human the "dominant pack leader," wouldn't a dominant dog act calm-assertive instead of aggressive?”Lindsay (2000) – many aggressive displays that are currently diagnosed as dominance aggression are aimed at avoiding some perceived aversive outcome rather than establishing or maintaining the offending dogs social status
Thirty to forty years ago, dominance theory was the basis for dog training. All behaviour and methods linked back to the idea that social interactions take the form of either dominance or submission. Some of the very first dog training books that came out linked to a popular book at the time titled The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species (First published 1970, University of Minnesota Press). In this book, Biologist David Mech outlines his studies of captive wolves and their behaviour. He concluded that order was maintained in the wolf pack by one wolf being an alpha leader, which was established through force and physical strength.One of the most popular dog training books that followed was How To Be Your Dog’s Best Friend by the monks of New Skete (first published in 1978). Many of their methodologies reflected this research and focused on the importance of being a pack leader, being seen as alpha, and the use of physical force in training. They were responsible for the technique known as the “alpha roll” which advised physically flipping a dog on his stomach to force him into a ‘submissive’ position, a practice still done by some trainers today.Dog training, still in its infancy to the general public, became much more popular with these publications. Finally, dog training seemed to be easily explainable and anyone could do it. Trainers jumped on the bandwagon, agreeing that many behavioural problems were due to the dog being ‘dominant’ and trying to raise his status within his human ‘pack’. The remedy was based on what science at the time told us wolves would do to resolve the problem.
Dr Mech States:“Labeling a high-ranking wolf alpha emphasizes its rank in a dominance hierarchy. However, in natural wolf packs, the alpha male or female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw none. Thus, calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a doe deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its young offspring, so "alpha" adds no information. " The Monks have also re-released How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend with 40% new material and the following notation:“The Monks of New Skete advocate the philosophy that understanding is the key to communication, and compassion with your dog; whether it is a new puppy or an old companion. From The Art of Raising a Puppy we have learned that our monastic environment offers us a unique perspective. Here we are forced to re-examine our attitudes about everything, including dogs. We are constantly challenged to become more open to the language dogs use to communicate with us. “
DNA similarities between the two comparisons are about the same
Prof Ray Coppinger (2001) stated: “Dogs can’t think like wolves because they don’t have wolf brains. We descended from apes but we don’t behave like them and we don’t think like they do. We are a much different animal than apes and in spite of our common ancestry – the same is true of the dog and its ancestor the wolf”.
It seems ridiculous to talk about a linear dominance hierarchy in such a group of dogs, the composition of which may change from minute to minute as the dogs interact in a dog park, since rank, which is a statistical construct, can only have meaning within in a group that stays together long enough for a statistical pattern to emerge.
But since captive wolves don’t have access to this natural method of reducing stress, or of offloading their natural predatory aggression, or of fostering group harmony (you can’t hunt large prey without working together), captive wolves find themselves fighting instead over little things; that’s what they do with their aggressive energy—they scrimmage.The same process would be apparent in both village dogs and domesticated dogs. Village dogs don’t usually hunt together; they mostly scavenge. So they tend to have the same build up of tension seen in captive wolves, and skirmish a lot. With pet dogs, who are like both village dogs and captive wolves in that they don’t routinely hunt as a group, it’s often the most “dominant” dog in a household who doesn’t know how to play, for example. And since play is nature’s stand-in for the hunt (it teaches young predators how to catch prey, and young prey animals how to evade predators), it’s a great tension reducer, as well as a kind of social “glue”—it bonds dogs and owner together emotionally. And for dogs, in fact for all animals, social play is probably the best tension-reducer there is. That’s why when a “dominant” dog is taught how to play hunting games in a harmonic social context, or when his owner or trainer find another way to reduce his inner anxiety, you’ll find that all his supposed instinctual dominant behaviors begin to magically disappear.So it turns out that what we’ve all been taught was dominance is really two things: a build up of internal stress, and a form of resource guarding, which is an anxiety-based behavior.
Generally a stable wolf pack consists of a mated pair and their immediate offspring known as a nuclear family. Pack dynamics are not necessarily straight forward as packs can have extended families with siblings and their offspring, a disrupted family where one or both of the parents are missing or a step family which has accepted a wolf from another pack (Packard 2003)Many wolves at the age of about two or three leave the pack and go in search of another lone wolf to start their own pack – these are known as dispersers. Rather than stay in the nuclear family where there is little chance of passing on their genes and mating they risk the elements of the wild.Original pack observations were from captured wolf packs. In a natural wolf pack dominance is not manifested as a pecking order and seems to have less significance than the results of studies of captive packs had implied. In a natural wolf pack the dominance rules bear no resemblance to those of the packing order, that of similar individuals competing for rank. ( mech 2000)Captured wolves are unable to leave the pack and build their own as a free wolf would hence the domination ranks that develop.
Dr Ian Dunbar studied the hierarchy and dominance of Dogs for 10 years in the 1970’s, I was fortunate enough to be able to meet with Dr Dunbar and discuss his research.
Some trainers may not use the word ‘dominance’ in regards to their training methods, but rather market to the idea that using punishment and force is the “natural” way to train dogs. Their theory is that a dog’s natural communication with each other is through punishment and correction. These trainers also normally tie this idea in with the dominance model of needing to use corrections and force to maintain order and control. It’s true that dogs do learn through corrections from other dogs instead of positive reinforcement (you don’t’ see other dogs giving each other bones for a job well done) but the biggest problem here is – a human isn’t a dog.Humans struggle to communicate with dogs in their language. A study showing how humans played with dogs examined methods for encouraging play. Despite a play-bow being one of the top ways for dogs to encourage play - a human play-bow was found to be least effective to encourage play from another dog vs. other normal human methods such as jumping around, making noise, etc.Humans are unable to communicate with dogs via language in the same way because communication takes into account all aspects of body language. Humans don’t have a tail to communicate with, pay very little attention to how their weigh is shifted, and do not use their teeth, mouths, or eyebrows the way a dog would. While it’s clear that our body language can impact a dog’s behaviour, we simply do not have the same communicative repertory that a dog does.It’s been shown that dogs that more closely resemble wolves have a much higher communicative repertoire than those that do not. A German Shepard for example displays many more signals than that of a Pug.Humans also cannot hope to have the speed at which dogs correct themselves. Many humans punish their dogs numerous seconds after an event occurs – a dog’s correction is normally the instant the behaviour occurs.
Suppose you have four groups of four dogs and you toss a juicy bone into each group. Likely there may be fighting and one dog will likely emerge with the bone. Now put the four dominant animals in the same group and toss a bone. Only one dog will get the bone and they will just form a new hierarchy. Therefore three of the four animals will lose their dominant standing.You could argue that the overall winner of the bone was the most ‘dominant’ dog however establishing one animal as dominant based on their personality trait can again be problematic.The resource used in this example was that of a juicy bone. What if three of the dogs were just fed? Likely the forth and hungriest dog would be the one to emerge with the bone, given he would have the strongest motivation to obtain it. What if all 4 dogs were starved for weeks? Likely they would all fight, perhaps to extreme injury, to obtain the food. Dominance relationships will break down if resources, such as food, are too scarce for the subordinates.Experiments on chickens which coined the phrase “pecking order” have shown that all animals will attack each other regardless of rank if deprived of food.
