Dominance over your dog is not based on being able to get your dog to "submit". I don't believe that you should ever have to force your puppy to submit, to be dominant over your puppy. Canine submission is a safety valve to turn off aggression from a higher ranking individual. The subordinate crosses some boundary, and a higher ranking animal disciplines the subordinate for getting out of line. The subordinate submits and life goes on. When our puppies are being submissive, particularly when we are disciplining, they are trying to turn off the aggression they perceive coming from us.
While I agree that your dog needs to look to you as a leader to be a healthy, happy member of your pack, I believe that there are better ways to teach your dog you are the leader.
I think the best definition I've heard on what dominance is was from Patricia McConnell, Ph.D. She states that dominance is priority access to the resources in your territory. High ranking animals eat first, are the first ones in and out of a given territory, and in many packs only the alpha male and female are allowed to breed. No where is there any mention of high ranking animals physically dominating others. It's a matter of attitude. When you say "jump", your dog should ask, "how high?"
When we use Alpha Wolf roll overs and scruff shakes, we don't have the finesse that another pack member would have, so our discipline becomes over bearing, and our dogs lose confidence in us because they don't understand why we are assaulting them. I firmly believe that it is not necessary to physically dominate your dog to be dominant over your dog. The Rank Reduction program that I use for virtually every behavior problem I come across in my practice follows. In my opinion, these exercises done on a daily basis, as part of your every day life, are much more effective than any Alpha Wolf Roll Over. This is a six to eight week program, but you should start to see some results as quickly as a week to ten days. If at the end of the six to eight weeks you've seen the results you were looking for you may start giving them back some of the privileges we've taken away. However, I want it to be clear to the dog that these are privileges, not rights. If you find that your dog is sliding back into some bad habits, put them back on the program again. You may have an individual who can't be cured, but may have a healthy, happy life being managed.
Even older animals who are aggressive around food or toys respond very favorably to these subtle exercises. They should be a change in your life style, not something that you do for half an hour daily. If you practice with your dog for half an hour, then they are normally good for that half an hour, but the other 23 1/2 hours a day they are busy being dogs. That means they are jumping, chewing, and digging, because that's what dogs do for fun. Your dog will adapt to these new rules quite easily. A few of the rules are harder for people to deal with than it is for the dogs, but it's for the best that you are incorporating these into your life. People with young dogs will prevent status related aggression problems because the dogs don't have enough status to be possessive of food or bones.
If your dog approaches you sitting reading the paper, and head butts the paper out of your hand, in an effort to demand attention, make them sit before you give them any attention. Demanding attention is just as rude for your dog as for your kid. Don't reward them for rudeness by giving them the attention they want.
Same reasoning as above. Don't reward rude behavior by giving them what they want for being rude. It only teaches them to be pushy and demanding.
Sleeping with you makes your dog feel like your equal. If you apply these rules as I suggest, you will be spending roughly an hour a day reducing your dogs rank. If you get eight hours of sleep nightly, that is a net gain, for your dog, of seven hours of equal status daily. You can roll him over all you want, and the rolls will not convince a dog sleeping with an owner that the owner is dominant.
Make your dog earn any praise. They have to at least sit. Keep your praise proportional to what the dog has done. If you tell him to sit for attention, he sits, and then you give him twenty minutes of deep, Swedish body massage for sitting, our praise is way out of balance. How will you make it worth the dogs while to sit to get company in the house, if he gets twenty minutes of stroking for free?
Your dog is in to vertical height as status. When they are elevated and you are not, your dog is higher ranking than you are. Remember this is a rank reduction program.
The down is a submissive position for your dog. Every time you tell them to lie down and they do it, they are as much as snapping a salute to you. Every time you tell them down and they walk the other way, they are quite literally flipping you off. The idea is to maximize salutes and minimize flip offs.
High ranking dogs control the space around them. If your dog tries to get up from a stay, step in and block their forward progress with your body, while you reissue the command.
If you are sitting reading the paper, your dog comes in and demands attention, you tell him to sit, he doesn't do it. Stand up, fold your arms, turn your back on him. Make it clear with your body language that you have no intention of touching him. Most dogs will come to the front of your body, and continue to demand attention. Turn your back again, and tell them to sit again. It won't take more than a couple of repetitions to get him to sit.
The leader is the first one in and out of a given territory. Every time you let your dog out, and either don't go out with him, or follow him out, the message to your dog is that he's the leader. Most of us let our dogs out six or seven times a day, times seven days a week, times how many years old your dog is, that's a lot of subtle messages that he's the boss. Make him sit, tell him to stay or wait, and then you precede him through the doorway. I don't care about doorways in the house, ( kitchen to family room). I do care about doorways out of the house, or coming back into the house from the outside. You can either use body blocks ( step in front of him and tell him to sit again), or close the door in the dogs face when he breaks his stay. If he bounces his head off the door a couple of times he will learn to wait at the door.
Take it means your dog may have a toy or a treat. Off means don't touch. When you can give permission to have something or deny permission to have something you are automatically a leader. Take a few pieces of special treats, liver turkey, chicken, steak. Something really knock your socks off good. Give him five or six pieces in a row, telling him "take it", prior to giving him the treat. Now take a piece and put it down in front of his face exactly like you did with "take it". Tell your dog "off". He will come forward for the treat anyway, when he does, give him a little bop in the nose. Just enough to sting. When he pulls back from the sting, give him the treat and tell him "take it". He will soon learn that if he gets off of something when he's told to, he just might get it later.
A real life reward is anything that you give to your dog that you know he wants. A real life reprimand is when you withhold something that you know that your dog wants. An instructive reprimand uses a basic obedience command to cancel an otherwise negative behavior. Let's say you are going to take your dog for a walk. You pick up the leash, your dog comes running, he spends the next couple of minutes turning excited circles, barking and jumping around. You are trying to hook the leash to the collar. You finally get it, and take the dog out for his walk. You just rewarded all of the obnoxious behaviors that immediately preceded the walk, thereby guaranteeing that it will happen the same way when you go for your next walk. If when you pick up the leash, he comes running, you tell him to sit, and he sits, then you take him out, you've just rewarded the sit behavior, guaranteeing that he will sit when you tell him, in that context next time. The reprimand comes about when you pick up the leash, he comes running, you say sit, he doesn't sit, you say "Too bad! You blew it!" hang the leash back up, walk out of the room. Come back a minute or two later, pick up the leash, he comes running, you tell him to sit and he does! You withheld something that you knew that he wanted. That's a reprimand. An instructive reprimand tells your dog what you would rather have him do. Let's say that jumping up is a problem. Teach a good, solid, sit command. Tell him to sit prior to the jump, he can't physically sit and jump at the same time. The sit cancels the jump. Now you can praise him for sitting, and the jumping extinguishes because it's not being reinforced.
I hope the rules for rank reduction will be helpful and that you can put them to good use. Readers should be able to see that dominance is much more subtle than the exercises that were popularized in the 70's and 80's, like the Alpha Wolf Roll over, scruff shakes, etc.
Many of my clients inform me that after only a week to ten days there are some very subtle, but noticeable improvements in their dogs behavior. Among the fringe benefits is a dog that is typically much less anxious than usual. The dogs appear much more confident, and comfortable with their new role in the pack. The dogs are looking to their owners more and more frequently for guidance and leadership. That is what makes an owner dominant when the dog looks to you for guidance. Not how many times you roll them over and hold them pinned down.
John M. Fairweather
There has been a constant stream of posts regarding dominance. Most of them are from new, inexperienced puppy people, who are looking for help with some problem or another. People are advising them to do "dominance" exercises. It's my observation, from my canine behavior practice, that in many of the aggression cases I deal with, the dogs were routinely "dominated".
1. MAKE YOUR DOG SAY PLEASE BEFORE YOU GIVE HIM ANY ATTENTION.
2. MAKE YOUR DOG SIT BEFORE YOU THROW THEIR BALL OR OTHER FAVORITE TOY
3. DON'T LET YOUR DOG SLEEP WITH YOU.
4. NO FREE PATTING
5. DON'T ALLOW THE DOG ON THE FURNITURE WHILE YOU ARE ON THE FLOOR.
6. YOUR DOG WILL DO AT LEAST ONE LONG, DOWN-STAY DAILY.
7. USE BODY BLOCKS TO REINFORCE YOUR STAY COMMANDS.
8. SHUN YOUR DOG IF THEY IGNORE A COMMAND.
9. MAKE YOUR DOG SIT AND WAIT TO GO IN AND OUT OF DOORS.
10. TEACH TAKE IT AND OFF.
11. USE REAL LIFE REWARDS, REAL LIFE REPRIMANDS, AND INSTRUCTIVE REPRIMANDS.
K-9 Friend Behavioral Counseling
Milwaukee, WI