Is Your Dog Trying to Dominate You and What You Can Do About It #46
Shaped by Dog with Susan Garrett
DogsThat
4.8 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2020
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Visit us at shapedbydog.com
The topic of this episode comes from a listener suggestion, and it is about “alpha” and “beta” dogs. It’s a bit of a spicy subject, and the words “alpha” and “beta” go back to disproven “dominance theory”. Even if you are not sure what “dominance theory” is, you might have heard the term “pack leader”. It was common around 30 or so years ago for pet dog training classes to be based on “dominancy theory”, but not so much these days. Each of us has a filter we see the world through, and that filter is going to have an impact on our dog training choices and beliefs.
In the episode you'll hear:
• What influenced the filters through which I see the world.
• How my filter has an impact on my dog training.
• What I ask if something goes wrong with my dogs.
• The commonalities and digressions I’ve noticed in training beliefs.
• What I googled about dominance theory.
• My quick diversion on humping.
• How what we see in our dogs can be interrupted in different ways.
• The ways our filters relate to our dog training decisions and how changing our filters is possible for everyone.
• That behavior is behavior, for humans and for dogs, and how choice and communication are powerful for any relationship.
• How my puppy This! shredded a bed and my reaction.
• The three things you can do when faced with a challenge with your dog.
• Why it’s time to get curious when you are furious.
• What can go into a plan for you to get what you want with your dog.
• That none of us is perfect.
Resources:
• Quick video of This! shredding her bed (on Facebook) - https://www.facebook.com/SusanGarrettDogAgility/posts/3749967288358197
• Podcast Episode 43: Can a Dog be Happy and Well Trained? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/43/
• Podcast Episode 6: The Art of Manipulation - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/6/
• Podcast Episode 16: The Thing Before Your Dog’s Thing - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/16/
• Podcast Episode 42: Behavior Chains: Are You Teaching Your Dog to be Bad to be Good? - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/42/
• Home School the Dog - https://dogsthat.com/home-school/
• Recallers - https://dogsthat.com/recallers/
• Podcast Episode 44: Using Coincidences and Positive Associations in Dog Training - https://dogsthat.com/podcast/44/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, everyone, welcome to Shape by Dog. |
| 0:11.5 | I am Susan Garrett and today I have got a somewhat spicy topic to talk about. |
| 0:19.4 | And it comes from one of you listeners and the question came in, |
| 0:23.3 | could you please discuss the role of an alpha dog and a beta dog in your house? And for those |
| 0:31.0 | who may not be aware, by way of an alpha dog, the inferences, it's the number one dog in the house or the beta |
| 0:40.0 | is the number two dog in the house. And all of this goes back to dominance theory, which is |
| 0:46.3 | the theory of training that is based on the belief on how wolves interact, which has been |
| 0:53.8 | disproven by any scientists who have actually studied |
| 0:56.6 | the behavior of wolves. But I digress. With dominance theory, there is a PAC leader. The human is the |
| 1:03.1 | pack leader. And there are times in their relationship with their dog where they must express |
| 1:08.8 | their dominance and have that dog submit to them. 30 years ago, |
| 1:13.2 | this was the way the vast majority of pet dog classes were run, that people were trained this way. |
| 1:19.8 | And really, it came from people's lack of understanding of science is really. It started and it's |
| 1:25.9 | like a myth and it just kept going. Today, the most popular |
| 1:29.8 | presenter in the Dominance Theory dog training is, of course, the dog whisperer, Caesar Milan. |
| 1:35.8 | I'm not here to say what's right and what's wrong. I'm here today to suggest that each of us has a filter that we see the world through. |
| 1:49.2 | There isn't a right or a wrong. There's a right for us and a wrong for us. |
| 1:53.8 | So our reality, our perception of what reality truly is, is made up of many, many layers that create the filter that we see |
| 2:04.9 | the world through. So, the reality might be a clear picture, but for somebody like me, |
| 2:10.4 | one layer of the filter is the fact that I came from a family of two very loving parents |
| 2:16.2 | who were very much in love and And I never heard my father raise |
| 2:21.6 | his voice that I was never physically hit as a child. I was never grounded. I was, |
... |
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