Dominance

Dominance in dogs is one of those behaviour/words that has been over-used, misused to the point that it means something entirely different to people from all different situations in life. People including Dog trainers, the postman, the guy that runs the rescue organisation, to those that work at the pound. The most common use of the “word” dominance factor is used by trainers to explain the dog’s misbehaving character, the lack of control, the failed recall or the aggressive outburst. Now behaviour is governed by the laws of learning, environment, genetics. The reason why I’m using genetics with learning is the simple. Dogs are programmed to follow, to do as they have been trained, the sit, stay, come, down, retrieve, track, is genetic, the dog’s motivation is the reward it gets at the end of it all. In the case of search and rescue dogs the reward is a game of tug of war. So these dogs must not be dominant because they listen to their handlers at all times? It has nothing to do with dominance, these dogs are well trained.
We all know by now that Canines historically were social predators, scavengers, living in packs driven by pack drive a survival mechanism, a social system of cooperation, a genetic factor that drives our dogs lives. Dogs been social predators have the ability to kill each other, but have evolved a set of behaviours ” Rules, Boundaries, Limitations” to insure they do not injure, kill each other when settling differences. These set of behaviours are Learned and kept in check by pack Rules. Dominance should be defined as: “priority access to a preferred resource”
A dominant dog is neither aggressive, nervous, anxious. ” the last two are a major contributor in a dog acting out aggressively.
A dominant dog is calm assertive, in control, everybody knows he is dominant there is a stillness of the mind about him.
As most of you know I live with a pack of 17 dogs, so I’m at the head of pack life 15hrs a day 5am start and I have the pack fed and in kennels by 8.30pm.
One thing I have learned through observation is…..
The dog who is more assertive in our social pack is usually the dog who gains more often access to a preferred resource, so would this make him more dominant over the others? What if I tell that the same dog loses interest in that resource and an other dog comes along and takes it away, has this dog lost his “dominance”? No. He simply lost interest in… say toy. The ever changing order of a pack is dynamic and highly dependent on context, dominance believe it or not is only one little aspect of our dogs behaviour not the all consuming that is often made out to be.
Two dogs live together one is more dominant over the other, this goes on for a long time, one day this more dominant dog is sick and not up to his usual self, what happens? The dog that we have perceived to be the submissive, all of a sudden is in charge running rings around the once dominant dog. The pack ranking Order is ever changing, that is why our dogs will challenge us from time to time, they sense a chance in us that we haven’t even made notice of, that is the dogs cute to make a move up the ranks, it’s not dominance it’s survival of the fittest. Have you ever heard that all puppies are born submissive? It’s true they are, so why are there different personalities in the same litter? That survival of the fittest starts at the very first breath the puppies take, Suckle or perish. the runt just does not have what it takes to fight for the best teat where the milk flows in abundance. We can call these runts genetically incompetent since the pups mind is already being modified by the uterine environment. You can read more about this in Dr Bruce Fogle’s book the dog’s mind.
Take for instance my dog Artemis, very shy compared to say Aragorn or better still Malakai
(“Malakai is what you would call a natural dominant dog and only about 2% of dogs are born this way, extremely calm, never aggressive, assertive, walks about like he is Genghis Khan.) very submissive to the pack, let’s give Artemis a lamb neck to eat….. And let’s see what Malakai will do, NOTHING! With just a persevered stare she will make him change direction and not challenge her for the prize ( sorry I have to put this in… I know what I’m doing and it’s for my learning that I do this under control constantly reading the dogs body language, dogs are predators and WILL kill each other over primal food, DON’T DO IT) once again Dominance plays no part, and Artemis will aggress towards him. Why? Aggression is just behaviour with the same rules has all other behaviours occurring only because it might be effective and efficient. Powell 1974 argues that rigid linear dominance hierarchies primarily develop under the influence of unnatural and conflictive conditions. My final thoughts on dominance…. As a matter of fact we should drop that approach completely, has it only distracts us from the vastly more straightforward approach of identifying the actual problem behaviour and the things and events in the environment that are controlling the behaviour.

Dangerous Dogs

Interesting read.

Now here is a case of people, all humans really labelling someone or something, mad, aggressive, strange or different. Just like we do with our criminals, or even better with psychopaths, we label them. Psychopaths are typically profoundly selfish and lack emotion. “In lay terms, psychopaths seem to have little or no ‘conscience. Psychopaths make up about 1 percent of the general population and as much as 25 percent of male offenders in federal correctional settings, according to the researchers. My point here with psychopath is this, we label them MAD put them in an institution, jail, or worse “put them down”. The moment we have accepted these labels we move on and get on with our lives. Does this sound familiar???

We have our VETS, COUNCIL RANGER, POLICE label some Dogs Dangerous, some get “PUT DOWN” and we move on again!!!

Now if you stop to think about it when these so labelled bad, aggressive dogs were first, rescued, purchased or given to us as a gift had little or no real behavioural issues. ” same with our psychopaths these so labelled MAD ppl once were someone’s child, and like our pets started showing signs of behavioural issues that went on un noticed and left to sort itself out, ( oh don’t worry he’s only a kid he will grow out of it. Oh but he’s just a puppy, or he’s had a bad life been through so much he will eventually once settled in relax and calm down.

NO he won’t grow out of it, and definitely NO the puppy/rescued dog won’t grow out of it or stop, getting worse and worse, till its labelled Dangerous.

Now the vast majority of behavioural problems in our dogs are caused by mistakes (willing or unwillingly)that are made by us in the basic foundation, the way we set up this new relationship with our dogs. Dogs are not humans and they never will be. They live in the present, “and unlike human psychology that has a strong focus on the past to get answers to the current problems”

 it would be a huge mistake to think that this is how we can fix behavioural problems in our dogs. With the exception of a truly abused dog.

Dogs live by, recognize and are wired to follow what is called a pack drive, pack behaviour is a genetic factor that drives our dogs lives, and it is so very important that we set up a pack structure for our dogs the moment we decide to bring home a dog. having the perfect dog is our responsibility.

 Owners who connect with their dogs on a mostly emotional level will have more behaviour issues than owners who follow a more assertive and structured path. Every Canine directly reflects the level of care its owner has chosen to offer it.

This sensible solution sounds like a good plan and it might work if… Dog owners like us are willing to make the changes needed in the way we interact with our dogs. Condition your dog early to its new pack structure and its role it will have in your home as soon as he comes into the home, almost all behavioural problems can be prevented by us the pack in which the dog lives.

Form of Aggression

Here is a list of different forms of aggression, each type of aggression has its own set of triggers. It is ok to assume that the one dog can exhibit several type of aggression and not just one of the many forms of aggression. Here is a list of types of aggression.

DOMINANCE AGGRESSION

POSSESSIVE AGGRESSION

FEAR AGGRESSION which is offen the cause of PAIN INDUCED AGGRESSION

PREDATORIAL AGGRESSION

PLAY AGGRESSION

TERRITORIAL AGGRESSION

INTER-MALE AGGRESSION

REDIRECTED AGGRESSION

MATERNAL AGGRESSION

LEARNED AGGRESSION

IDIOPATHIC AGGRESSION

With all these different types of aggression the primary goal is the same. Avoid injuring yourself and your Dog never try to treat any of these types of Aggression yourself without first consulting a professional. these problems will NOT just go away with time.  

 

Tommy After two weeks at Canine Behaviour Expert HQ

Remember Tommy I picked up not too long ago? he came with a very aggressive name tag? well see for yourself how much he has improved.

Alfie’s Case

Alfie came to Canine Behaviour Expert HQ with a severe case of dominance aggression, his owner had no alternative but to seek help, she was unable to walk him out Alfie getting into fights, not listening running off doing his own thing. Alfie has now been at CBE HQ just over two weeks now and is already well on the way to full rehabilitation. The goal with dominance aggression is to get the dog to assume submissive non aggressive behaviours in the those same circumstances where the dog in question thought he was the dominant over all others.

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Besties

Malakai and pebbles just chilling out, not a worrie in the world

Aragorn reunited with the pack

After nearly 4 weeks Aragorn, is reunited with the pack everything is going well no signs of aggression or fear couldn’t have asked for a better out come, so pleaded to see my boy back in the pack.