Common misconceptions regarding dog behaviour

Standard definitions of dominance involve exerting power and influence to assume a commanding or elevated position over others.  

This has been erroneously applied to canine behaviour, resulting in an assumption that owners need to exert dominance over their dogs in order to prevent their dogs from fulfilling a (misperceived) natural desire to achieve highest-ranking status within the home.

Where did this theory come from?

The misapplication of the dominance theory arose in the 1960s, through observations of captive groups of unrelated wolves who had unstable social relationships, aggressively competing over the limited resources available to them.

Subsequent observation of wild and free-living wolf and canid groups demonstrate that this type of dominance activity is rare, and that social canid groups naturally tend to form stable, compromising relationships with shared responsibilities.

The scientists who originally observed the captive wolves have therefore now discredited this research.

The consequence: punishment training

An unfortunate consequence of assuming a dog is behaving in a particular way in order to elevate their own status is the belief that punishment training techniques, which involve intimidating or frightening a dog into inhibiting the unwanted behaviour, are acceptable.

From an owner’s perspective, positive punishment works – and quickly too – to stop the undesired behaviour from happening. It can offer the ‘quick fix’ that owners are often seeking when they experience problematic behaviour in their dog.

Therefore, where owners are ignorant of the downfall of punishment, they might continue to use it because it brings about the change they want.

Positive punishment has a potentially dangerous downside

While dogs learn through the cause and effect of their own behaviour, they also learn through association, pairing together things that happen very close together in time.

For example, if a dog jumps up at a person and then that person smacks the dog to stop them from jumping up in future, the dog might learn that jumping up results in a smack, so they won’t want to do it again.

However, they might also pair together the person and the smack, simultaneously learning that people can cause discomfort. This is likely to make them feel differently not only about jumping up, but also about people.

Using punishment to teach a dog will therefore not only teach them the behaviour that their owner would like them to perform (or not to perform) but also to be frightened of their owner and worried about how they might react to any other behaviour.

This can damage the relationship and bond between the dog and the owner. The dog now behaves as instructed because they are frightened of the consequences if they don’t, rather than because they enjoy the outcome of behaving in this way, due to a trusting and rewarding relationship with their owner.

It's better to use rewarding training techniques

Of the two scenarios, it is obvious which dog will be happier and have a better quality of life, enjoy interactions with people and enjoy living and learning with people.

Training a dog by positive reinforcement (rewarding desirable ‘good’ behaviour) results in a confident dog who behaves in a particular way because they enjoy the benefits of doing so, viewing their owner as a stable and reliable source of positive interactions and outcomes.