Tags
alpha dogs, behavior modification, dog training, dominance, food aggression, pack leader, rehabilitating dogs, rehabilitation, resource guarding, territorial aggression, training dogs
One of the perversities of making sh*t up about dogs is that it allows people to continue to use force, intimidation and scary punishment to get their dogs to do what they want. The mythology of the pack leader ranks high on the list for this.
I am not going to reinvent the wheel in regard to explaining that dogs don’t need pack leaders because they are not pack animals in the same way wolves are. You can find lots of information about that from bloggers, trainers, and field biologists. But I will encourage you to imagine what a person’s acceptance that dogs need a pack leader can mean to an animal that survives by the millions without one, thank you very much. It’s like suggesting to a parent that they need to brush their baby’s body every day even though they don’t have fur.
Is this person being a pack leader or just an a**hole?
Dogs are incredibly adept social animals. They have a wide-range of behaviors that help them avoid or minimize conflict among their peers, and the humans they live with. When one of those humans tries to pretend to behave the way they assume a pack leader would behave, imagine how that could be perceived by the dog. What those who know what they are looking at observe is that the dog is on the spectrum of concerned to flat-out scared.
But then again, if dogs have a sense of humor they might just be chuckling watching the human spitting in their food, scurrying out the door first and laying claim to property in any one of the ways recommended by the folks adept at making sh*t up about dogs.
Making Sh*t Up About Dogs 
Well and realistically, wolves don’t actually grab another wolf and throw that other wolf onto the floor and hold it to the floor unless they’re planning to kill it. The “Alpha Roll” is actually an entirely voluntary motion by the subordinate wolf, and my very most sensitive dog sometimes offers it to me. It goes something like this:
Sandy Pawz looks at me while I am sitting on the floor interacting with her. It has to be in a room where there are no other dogs and where she feels secure.
I do nothing.
She scuttles toward me sideways, her tail fluttering, until she is just in front of me. (There used to be a lot of wee involved too, but she has since stopped this. YAY!)
She then braces with her rear end, half rotates her front end, and offers her shoulder for me to push.
If I push it, she rolls over gently and offers me her tum, tail fluttering.
I truly adore this dog, and her sunshiny personality, but she also has a really delicate personality. If I were to ever use the dreaded “no” word on her, she’d be crushed. God only knows what would happen if I used a pack leader tactic.
She remembers negative reinforcement (even if it is unintentional!) for MONTHS after it occurs, and she is so sensitive that I’ve had to completely modify all of my training techniques to work with her.
Don’t get me wrong, she is not an unsocialized wreck. She is great in public, she loves greeting other people (not so much dogs, but she isn’t bad with them) She is really the perfect dog, she is simply sensitive.
We’ve been unable to progress to “Advanced” stuff (such as sit while I am outside of the room and return, which all my other dogs know, etc.) because I more than anything do not want to ruin her beautiful, sweet, trusting personality, but I don’t really know what works best for her training wise.
Right now I’m working with her with the clicker, and loaded the clicker (and loaded it, and loaded it, and loaded it!) until she made it CLEAR that she LOVES seeing the clicker. Now I’m shaping her “look to the left” behavior, so I can teach her that she can earn clicks by performing behaviors.
Aside from that, I’m sort of stuck. If you’ve got suggestions feel free to say something,. 😀
Sorry for the super long comment!
It is understandable how excited you would be about the power of positive reinforcement training! The system works. If you are asking how to maintain a sit while you leave the room, it all goes back to breaking the behavior down and reinforcing approximations of it.
No, it should be as simple as breaking it into baby steps, the issue I run into is that I need to somehow communicate to her what it is that I want, but without pressuring her in any way. If she gets confused or cornered, we back up three steps it feels like. -.- Right now she can sit on cue, come when called, goes into the kennel on cue, etc. the problem is simply figuring out ways to train her where she doesn’t feel pressured. -.- So difficult!
It is challenging! It’s why professional trainers spend time, energy and money to keep learning and practicing their skills. Don’t give up. You’ll keep learning too!