Today’s Dog Obedience Training Does Away With Dominance

Not too many years ago, it was believed that dog obedience training was best accomplished through the use of aggressive dominance practices. Ask any top dog trainer, and you’ll likely learn that this is no longer an acceptable approach for training a dog.

The modern day dog owner is searching for a respectful dog human relationship, not the teetering, explosive link that’s established with dominance dog training. This is due, in part, to the fairly recent findings of animal biologists and other professionals.

In the past, it was believed that if a dog barked, growled, ran ahead while on a walk, or jumped on guests, she was fighting for her rank as the dominant member of the household; that her misbehavior was more than bad manners; it was an attempt to rule over her owners.

AVSAB, The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, says this about dominance dog training: “The AVSAB recommends that veterinarians not refer clients to trainers or behavior consultants who coach and advocate dominance hierarchy theory and the subsequent confrontational training that follows from it.”

For instance, a dog owner may have inadvertently rewarded bad jumping behaviors by petting, playing with, yelling at, hitting, pushing, or speaking to their dog when the behavior happens. The jumping is a product of attention, positive or negative, not an attempt at dominance.

In reality, humans initiate most dominance struggles. When a dog owner growls at a dog or uses an alpha roll with the dog, they start an aggressive reaction chain, which can ultimately result in a dog’s aggressive behavior toward the owner and other humans.

To expand upon the alpha roll, and explain why it is ineffective, it can be helpful to look to the wolf, your dog’s ancestor. In their natural environments, subservient wolves voluntarily lie on their backs to show leader dogs their submissiveness. The alpha roll is accomplished when the human forces the dog onto his back, in an effort to force him to submit. This an example of dog psychology, misrepresented. It confuses the pet dog and equates to bullying, which can eventually lead to dog aggression.

The AVSAB contends that leadership and dominance are two different concepts. If you consider a happy human family, you might observe that the father, or the mother, or both, lead their children through the use of wisdom and respect. A family in which the father or the mother is dominant through the use of abuse is never considered to be functional. Wildlife biologists are coming to understand that wolf packs operate in a manner that closely mirrors that of a functional human family. This understanding is contrary to the previous belief that those packs were organized under strong, alpha wolf dominance.

Establishing yourself as a leader, and getting respect from your dog, means using positive dog obedience training techniques, like crate training and clicker training. It’s natural for your dog to want to jump, bark, bite, chew, and dig. But if you use positivity to reward good behavior, and replace bad behaviors with good ones, you can get your dog to walk on a leash, stop digging and chewing behaviors, and stop your dog from barking and jumping.

Clicker training rewards good behavior in the most immediate way possible, and adheres to all of the things that contemporary top dog trainers, progressive veterinarians, wolf biologists, and the AVSAB recommend. When you carry out dog obedience training with patience, kindness, and respect, you will not only achieve the positive results that you desire, but you will do your part to demystify the dominance saga.

Learn more about dog training. Stop by Dr. Nortey Omaboe’s site where you can find out all about dog obedience training and what it can do for you and your dog.

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