29/04/2021
Dominance theory resulted in decades of harmful ideas about dog training. When I got my first German Shepherd puppy, the most recommended book I was given was The Monks of New Skete’s How to be your Dogs Best Friend. Their training methodology was anchored in dominance theory. The results, for me and my dog, were disastrous. After starting search and rescue in 1996, I also started relearning training theory, studying how dogs learn and essentially restarting my education in dog training from scratch.
And yet, despite the emergence of positive reinforcement as a best practice model, with people such as Karen Pryor and Ian Dunbar leading the way in the world of dog training, still decades later, these old inaccurate ideas are still deeply rooted. Karen Pryor, previously better known for training dolphins, wrote ‘Don’t Shoot the Dog’ in 1984 and went on to hold the first Clicker Expo in Chicago in 2003. We were there. We being my two search and rescue teammates, Robin Greubel and Julie Wood and our 3 search partners, Domhnall for me, Talyn for Robin and Barette for Julie.
The number of science-based, positive trainers exploded last century. Unfortunately, popular culture and entertainment also embraced e-collars and Caesar Milan, leaving many dogs and their owners stuck in a punishment and dominance theory past.
It didn’t help our understanding of wolves either. Fortunately, among wolf researchers though, the old, incorrect, understanding of pack social structure has been mitigated due to solid research on wild wolf packs. This article is a good overview.
You may have heard that a wolf pack is led by an alpha pair.