There are many different opinions on how to train dogs, and these differences have caused a definite split in the world of dog training. There is a saying that if you put three dog trainers together in a room, the only thing they will agree on is that the other two are wrong. There is some truth to this, but as the debate rages on, science is revolutionizing our understanding of domestic dog behavior and tipping the balance towards a more positive and humane approach that I call “the positive training”.
When I became a dog trainer over 20 years ago, the dog training industry was moving towards a more human model. But just as positive training grew in popularity, punitive techniques resurfaced on a popular American dog training show, bringing positive training back years. The American Veterinary Association, the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behaviorists and the American Humane Association were among the many institutions to sound the alarm, but the damage had already been done. At the same time, my show It’s Me or the Dog moved from the UK to the US, offering American viewers an antidote to punitive training by demonstrating that dogs can be taught to behave without using force, regardless regardless of their age, sex, race or issue. Both dog training camps now had their very public flag bearers and the debate continued to rage.
What is the pack theory?
Traditional training bases many methods on what is known as “pack theory”. Traditional trainers teach people to be “pack leaders” using equipment and methods designed to exert dominance and rank by removing the dog’s supposed desire to dominate people and be a pack leader himself. . This sows mistrust and leads people to use techniques meant to demonstrate their role as pack leaders. One technique is called the Alpha Roll – if a dog misbehaves, they are forcefully held on their back or side until they submit. This forceful submission intimidates and sometimes hurts the dog into obeying.
What an Alpha Really Does
The terms “Alpha” and “Pack Leader” have become curse words in the positive training world due to the damage they cause. The word Alpha is usually used to describe a dog or person who forcefully exerts control over others, but in reality an Alpha does not need to use force at all. True leadership is shown by teaching and influencing the behavior of others without resorting to force, which most dog lovers would prefer to adopt. So why are some people so wrong?
The pack theory and the misuse of the word Alpha are partly due to flawed research done on captive wolves in the 1970s by David Mech, a senior scientist with the US Geological Survey. Little did he know his research was about to unleash a storm of misunderstanding in the dog training world.
To carry out this research project, wolves from different packs were forced to live together so researchers could get a better idea of how wolf packs work. The resulting violence to establish dominance within the captive pack has been vigorously studied, and the findings have also been applied to dog behavior. But if the researchers wanted to see how a real wolf pack worked, they were headed in the wrong direction because their experiment was based on crucial flawed assumptions.
First, dogs are not wolves. While dogs retain some characteristics of the wolf, 15,000 years of domestication have changed them in different ways, both physically and behaviorally. Second, what researchers were seeing when studying captive wolves was dysfunctional pack behavior, and it was this dysfunction that caused the violence. David Mech has since explained this error by stating that “when one artificially brings together a random group of any species, these animals naturally compete with each other.”
He goes on to say that a natural pack is made up of a mother and a father and their offspring. This pack survives much like a human family where the parents take the lead and the children follow. In a natural pack, violence is not normal and harmony is created because submissive behaviors are given freely by young wolves, rather than being imposed by their parents. This deference avoids injuries that would compromise the pack’s ability to hunt prey successfully. So when humans attempt to assert their Alpha status on their dogs using techniques like the Alpha Roll, they are not Alphas at all but are replicating the role of a pack bully. And as for being pack leader? Well, dogs are pretty smart and know very well that humans aren’t dogs. How can people be pack leaders when they look and act so different?
A natural pack of wolves consists of a mother, a father and their offspring.
Positive versus punitive
There’s still a long way to go to put the punitive training methods and abuse of words to bed once and for all, but until then, I will continue to carry the flag of positive training camp. Positive training seeks to build relationships with dogs based on mutual trust, motivating rewards, and understanding. Instead of punishing negative behavior, positive coaches work to find the cause of the behavior and adopt human ways to modify and change it. The results are worth it. Dogs that are positively trained are more confident, tolerant, self-sufficient, and predictable in different situations.
As David Mech asserts, “this question is not one of semantics and political correctness. It is about biological accuracy that accurately captures the biological and social role of animals rather than perpetuating a misguided view.
