Pack order/Social hierarchy

Yes it can. Dominance can't be used to base training on, if you think going thru a door first, or not letting them on your bed, or eating first, is going to solidify you as an "alpha" or top dog in your dogs eyes. Those are useful to train, just for manners and you train your dog, but they won't do much other than keep your dog off your bed or from running you over with exuberance to get out the door.

the owner might think of themselves as "dominant" by their definition, but the relationship isn't really affected by those acts. It's affected by how you might train those things, but the simple acts themselves don't really do anything in terms of dog/human relationships.

So in that regards, it's pretty useless.

But take the food situation. There are those, that have said there is no dominance or heirarchy between dogs or between dogs and people. I say there is, thru my own readings and my own observations. I don't think it's like those that base training on it, but it doesn't mean that some training can't come from it. I've seen dogs come in that want to eat who ever they can when they get here. You can't feed them or you will get eaten yourself.

But one person will go to give them food every day, and as long as the dog is aggressing, none is given, but on that day when they decide that the food is more important than whatever is motivating them to be that aggressive, and they allow that one person to come in and give them the food and they learn that this person controls their food, the bond is obvious, and it is plainly visible to me that this simple act has a profound effect on the dog's psyche. This effect seems to flow over all aspects of the relationship and further training.

That simple act does make me "dominant" by lay and behaviorist definitions, and it is very useful for further training and the relationship with your dog, or any dog. So, dominance can be useless and useful.

I don't see it as making you dominant. It makes you accepted as the bearer of good things. It makes you trustworthy.

but that's how you want to see it. most lay people think of it as the one who controls things, I say controlling when something eats is dominant.

Behaviorists generally accpet it as meaning as having first crack at a limited resource. I have a highly desired and limited source of food, I can have it, and I can give it when I want to. The dog can't control that. That makes me dominant by behaviorsts standards as well. Of course it builds trust, it should. That's what makes it so useful in all aspects and makes it different than say just an act of walking thru a door first, which has no bearing on any relationship.

Or, at least, in control of resources, which is technically a dominant position.

And I think plenty of studies show that that isn't dominance theory...that's the dog realizing what behavior equals a reward and what behavior doesn't, and what person treats them right and is predictable and consistent.

Dominance theory training involves things like alpha rolling your dog, and physically punishing or restraining them to supposedly give them the idea that you are "dominant" and therefore need to be respected and obeyed. It doesn't, however, put emphasis on teaching a dog what behavior is acceptable and what isn't, so the dog doesn't really know HOW to obey and be respectful. It's also difficult to train a dog who is terrified of you.

Well, I wish someone would explain that to Ares.

Because I had several dog fights (or almost fights) until I realized he was pissed about not being the first dog out the door and more than that, not being the first dog down the porch steps. That's not him being dominant though, it's him being a bully. But who went first still had bearing on his relationships with the other dogs.

I"m not talking about "dominance theory". I've said that at least 4-5 times in this thread alone it is useless for training. I've said dominance and heirarchy DO exist between dogs, and have been told that those that are "educated" say otherwise.

I have given an example that fits both the behavioral and lay persons definition of dominance, and why one is useful for training and why one isn't.

and I have put this out there for you to read
Who said it?

Patricia McConnell

The Concept Formerly Described as “Dominance” TheOtherEndoftheLeash

and this is one of those things were it "could" be. if outside is the prize, and he thinks it's "his" and he wants to be first, it kind of fits what "dominance" is. I don't know what he's percieving at that time, maybe it's just the excitement of going outside, coupled by a tight space, and others and there's some displacement behavior going on, and redirecting that escalates to a fight, maybe he's just a ****, maybe it really is dominance to him in that situation

Yeah, but I've lived with him for a decade. He's a bully not an alpha. It wasn't that being outside was so valuable, it was simple a "ME!ME!ME!ME!" attitude. Like the playground bullies who push other kids off the slide so they can have it.

The point though wasn't what was behind the behavior as much as it was that who went out first did in fact affect the relationships.

i'm sure it can in that instance

I was going to say I think when one dog gets his or her way the majority of the time over the other dogs, it's because they're just pushy or a bully, not because they're trying to be "alpha".

The way things like controlling your dog's food or asking them to wait before going through a door or enforcing them not being allowed on a sofa is not teaching them you're "alpha", it's teaching them that there are rules to follow and YOU as the human get to enforce those rules and since you have the food/attention/praise/toys, the dog should follow the rules in order to get good stuff. Not because if he/she doesn't follow the rules you're going to grab them by the throat or hold them against the floor...

I think part of the problem here is that - as so often happens in dog training - we're getting hung up on semantics.

To me, "dominance" doesn't really mean anything in the dog world anymore, simply because everyone has their own definition of what it means to be dominant. When a shelter says "This is a dominant dog," what does that mean? When a behaviorist says "Your dog is dominant over you," what does THAT mean? Whether dominance exists or not, it's not really useful to use these terms anymore, IMO.

Instead, I use the term "leadership." I think, where humans might be confused about the parameters of "dominance," most people can define "leadership" in more exact terms. Telling someone that they need to be their dog's leader is usually a lot more clear than telling them that they need to be dominant over the dog.

"Dominance" has connotations of alpha rolls, "putting a dog in his place," ideas about who should get to be on the furniture, giving one dog a treat before another just to prove a point, etc. It tends to be very punishment-oriented. I'm not saying that's how behaviorists define dominance, I'm saying that's the way our training clients - the people that matter, in this case - would probably define it.

But "leadership" has connotations of being consistent with rules, controlling access to resources, being fair with discipline, having good communication, being responsible for those in our care, etc. These ideas are much more useful when dealing with dogs and discussing training.

So I personally don't even talk about dominance with clients, I simply talk about good leadership. JMO.

:hail::hail::hail:

Am I to understand that food is completely withheld from the aggressing dog until it no longer aggresses? A lot of the time, perhaps even most of the time, a dog shows aggression because it is scared, and it wants the Scary Thing, whatever that may be, to go away. By withholding the food, you are simply making the dog hungry enough that its motivation to eat is greater than its fear of the person attempting to feed him. He then receives food from the person, gets good feelings while eating (the brain releases feel-good chemicals to reward us for eating, and the same is true for dogs), and those good feelings are associated with the person who brought the food. The person then becomes a Good Thing. No "dominance" about it.



I completely agree with this entire post! I never know what people mean when they say a dog is "dominant". It really is not descriptive of whatever behavioral issue the dog actually has!

My other pet peeve is "submissive". When people say to me, "this dog is submissive", I look at the dog, and what I see is simply a dog who is underconfident and throwing off calming and appeasement behaviors to say to you "I am not a threat to you, please don't hurt me!"

I wish the words "dominant" and "submissive" would just go away. They've been so overused they really do not mean anything anymore.

actually it fits the very definition of dominance. You can chose to call it whatever you like or explain it another way, but by both lay and behavioral standards, it IS dominance.

I know why it works and why the associations are made, and how powerful they are. That was kind of the point.

I have this friend, and every time his dog jumps on the couch he's like "she's being dominant"....

no, she's being comfortable.

Well, I suppose if we look at this definition from dictionary.com:

dom·i·nance
   /ˈdɒmənəns/ Show Spelled[dom-uh-nuhns] Show IPA
–noun
1.
rule; control; authority; ascendancy

Then you are technically correct, of course. And by this definition, we are also dominant over our children, over any animal we share our homes with (even livestock, since we control their lives), and we are quite dominant over insects, we can choose to end their lives with a single movement.

However, the point I was trying to make, is that this has no relevancy in terms of training. I would bet money the dog's thought process probably goes like this (if dogs thought in words ) "I'm really hungry..." *sniff* "food...oh Scary Thing! Must bark! But hungry...too hungry...." eat chomp glut smack...



In fact, it would still work even if you just tossed the food in without waiting for the dog to be so hungry he no longer aggresses. He would still associate person + food = Good Thing. I mean, that's how I fix cage aggressive dogs at FOHA. We can't just withhold food from them, the volunteers would crap a brick. I feed them cheese right through the chain link door, and it usually only take a few minutes for them to realize I am not a Scary Thing after all.

Sometimes I wonder if people even know what they're arguing about

I have to agree there.

Again, I encourage everyone to read this.
http://www.pawsoflife.org/pdf/Library articles/Bradshaw 2009.pdf


If you do not want to read the whole thing, (which would be a shame because it's very interesting and informative) then at least scroll down and read from these headings: Of course, you won't have all the background (the meat of the matter) that precedes these but you can see what was concluded after extensive observation and studies.


Is dominance a useful construct in the interpretation of interactions between domestic dogs


Interactions between dogs and owners


Conclusion


And for the OP especially, if you're wanting to get a feeling for what you were asking about, I recommend looking over this link. It's very educational and I think, just what you were wondering about.

The Dominance Controversy - Philosophy - Dr. Sophia Yin, DVM, MS