Canine Dominance: Is the Concept of the Alpha Dog Valid?

This is a good read: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201007/canine-dominance-is-the-concept-the-alpha-dog-valid
- by Stanley Coren, Ph.D.

Of course wolves are not dogs, so let's look at a recent (2010) piece of research by Roberto Bonanni of the University of Parma and his associates. They looked at free-ranging packs of dogs in Italy and found that leadership was a very fluid thing. For example, in one pack, which had 27 members, there were 6 dogs that habitually took turns leading the pack, but at least half of the adult dogs were leaders, at least some of the time. The dogs that were usually found leading the pack tended to be the older, more experienced dogs, but not necessarily the most dominant. The pack seems to allow leadership to dogs, who at particular times seem to be most likely to contribute to the welfare of the pack through knowledge that can access the resources they require.
-Stanley Coren, Ph.D.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201007/canine-dominance-is-the-concept-the-alpha-dog-valid

The ideas expressed in that paragraph is an opinion/observation I have written about in the past: our dogs seem to yield to their elder - they "respect their elders".

On YouTube, and on many forums, as well as in person, I get asked (at least once a week) "what do you do to get your dogs to get along so well?" or "who is the alpha?"... My answer has always been that I see no strict social hierarchy, and if I was forced to find one I would have to say it was one that followed the rules of seniority. That is the only pattern I have seen among our dogs.

Its interesting to me that the same type of logic was found to be true in "free-ranging packs of dogs".

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Comments

  • edited July 2010
    He summarizes it really nicely (IMHO):

    Perhaps it is time to revise our dog training and obedience concepts to something along the ideas proposed by advocates of Positive Training. In that view, controlling the dog's behavior is more a matter of controlling the things that a dog needs and wants, such as food and social interaction, rather than applying force to achieve what the science suggests is an unnatural dominance over the dog. If you manage and dispense important resources, the dog will respond to you out of self interest. So this approach to behavior modification has the same effect as forcefully imposed dominance in controlling the dog's behavior. However, instead of dominance based on physical power and threats it is more similar to establishing status. One can agree to respond to controls imposed by someone of higher status, but this is done, not out of fear, but out of respect and in anticipation of the rewards that one can expect by doing so.
    -Stanley Coren, Ph.D.
    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201007/canine-dominance-is-the-concept-the-alpha-dog-valid

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  • edited November -1
    That is wonderful! I'll read the full article tonight.
  • edited November -1
    Excellent article... My favourite quote is "The dog will respond to you out of self interest." That is a ground breaking sentence right there! I would much rather my dog respond to me out of it WANTING to versus because it is AFRAID not to.

    Thanks for posting!
  • edited July 2010
    Good read. I first have to put out there that I love Parma, Italy. THE BEST gelato is there behind the Basilica. Beats the whole rest of Italy out! Love that gelato. Don't tell my family that owns multiple gelatorie though. And their JFK Jr. Gardens are beautiful.

    Back to the article. It gave a really nice succinct history on alpha and its origins. I appreciate that because it does show how out of date it is. Also, the Cesar bashing...nice!

    I'm with Casey on one of my favorite quotes being the dog will respond to you out of self interest. At the same time that I think that I am also reminded at how many people are almost offended when I say that. It's like I'm saying that their dog is selfish and doesn't really love them or something. I would like to know how people think on here of that statement.

    I'm also with you Casey. I never want my dogs to be afraid of me. Especially sensitive Koda.

    My other favorite part, was definitely the showing "submissiveness" to elders. I have always noticed that most dogs do this. I have never once seen dogs fight for "dominance" or to become the "alpha" dog. I have seen some argue cause they are just a**holes though.
  • edited November -1
    Thanks for the link....really interesting! Esp. the part about how outdated Lorentz's training ideas were (ie. based on German training of military dogs from last century...

    I'm really just astounded how firmly people hold onto the view of the alpha though, even when you show them plenty of studies that disprove it. What is it, I wonder, that people find so appealing about the idea of the alpha? Or is it fear? Fear that the dog will "take over" if they don't "show them who is boss"? I really don't understand why people who are otherwise intelligent and clearly love dogs seem really fixated on the idea of alpha.
  • edited November -1
    Not sure if this belongs in a separate thread but...

    When people talk about a dog being "Alpha" I always get a very cartoon-y mental image. Like something out of the animated film "Balto" where all the dogs clearly know there is a leader, they go to him for advice, follow his rules, etc. etc. sort of like how a "President" is to a country. Me dad is often saying how these animated films & cartoons are ruining kids brains, that they'll start thinking animals really talk to eachother like the way humans do & have conversations.

    & a part of me wonders...do people who believe in the "Alpha" theories think dogs [ or wolves, or whatever ] really believe animals communicate in such a way? That one dog says, "I'm Alpha. Obey me." then all the dogs just follow his "rules" that he dictates to them???

    As if you think about it, the "Alpha" theory seems a bit anthropomorphic. I agree that dogs communicate to each other, but I don't think it's in the way humans do. [ through a language with words & meanings & metaphors & symbols ]

    A part of me wonders if the "Alpha" theories started as we, as humans, are constantly trying to make everything around us like us...it's been shown that humans need a leader. [ just look at any country's government, or a business, or a corporation, or a school, etc. there is at least one leader ] & for the most part, we as humans, have a pretty strict "leadership" hierarchy. There are regular people on the bottom, then senators, governors, vice president, president, etc. Or in a corporation...there's part-time, full-time, supervisors, managers, store managers, general manager, district manager, area manager, corporate...

    For the most park these "roles" don't move. Most people can move UP the "hierarchy" but when you move "down" it [ demoted ] many tend to get shunned for it, & the demoted person usually doesn't stick around long for shame / embarrassment / etc. [ unless the demotion was voluntary ]

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    Whoo. Sorry for the ramble. But I did think it was a very good article, & after having this monster puppy in my life, I look at him & think how could anyone every beat the shit out of him hoping to be "Alpha?" Does he get on my nerves sometimes? Yes. Does he drive me nuts sometimes? Yes. But a time-out is 100000x more effective then a good beating.

    The concept of following seniority is interesting tho...sort of reminds me of my & Brian's families. [ culturally, chinese & arabs follow seniority ] lol ~
  • edited November -1
    We went to see "Despicable Me" this weekend and saw a trailer for an upcoming cartoon movie "Alpha and Omega" about a couple of wolves. This concept just keeps being reinforced to the general public, getting the word out- the belief out- just gets more difficult...
  • edited November -1
    I seem to recall that humans are fixated on the "alpha" theory because primates do have a strict hierarchy, which is determined through violent means most of the time. I haven't done research into it myself, so this could also be false. But it makes sense to me that our "monkey brains" apply our methods and ideals to other animals in order to understand them. It's the same as personification/anthropomorphism.
  • edited July 2010
    Creepy coincidence. That's kind of what I was talking about Chrys...we talk about imprinting in dogs all the time when they're young. But the same thing applies to us humans too. When you're a kid you see this "alpha" stuff in cartoons & movies, as you get older you see it applied in dog training, & even in our own society...after a while, that's all you know. When someone comes along with a different mindset----something totally different then what you've grown up on, were told be "professional" trainers, what you've seen in [ outdated ] documentaries, the way your parents raised dogs...kind of hard to believe something that was taught to you your whole life as solid "fact" is "incorrect."

    I wonder how long it will be before the "Alpha" theories become extinct.

    [ never heard of that film, just looked up a trailer...anyone else think those wolves look really weird??? LOL ] ~
  • edited November -1
    I just came across this page that looks like it has lots of interesting links on this (and other) issues. I haven't read everything yet, but thought it might make an interesting addition.

    http://www.4pawsu.com/dogpsychology.htm

    re: alpha and omega.....WTF? Those are some odd looking wolves all right! *lol*
  • edited November -1
    To me, looking at the way more primitive primates form social structures for clues as to how/why we humans behave in society is akin to looking at wolves (or other wild canine) for clues as to how/why domesticated dogs behave in domestic social groups - which is to say, its a flawed concept. JMHO

    We discussed in this thread how humans have evolved to "default" to believing (opposed to disbelieving), and how humans have evolved to seek patterns in our environment as a tool for survival. This pattern seeking has become a fixed thought model in our cognition, which is still present in us today. We see it in both a superficial level and a survival level in our thoughts and choices. To me, that is the most logical reason I have found for why humans tend to blindly adopt, and seems to find comfort in, the alpha/dominance model for dog behavior: an alpha/dominance hierarchy is pattern, and therefore us humans can build a mental-model for it, and store it in our minds easily. Because of this, its very easy for us humans to comfortably understand and subscribe to it.

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  • Just thought I'd bump this thread and add a couple of things. In the last issue of the The Whole Dog Journal, Pat Miller had an article called "Alpha, Schmalpha" which was about the idea of canine "dominance" which of course she rejects. In this Jan issue, she has a letter noting a book that also addresses the issue of dominance in canines. The book is called Part Wild: One Woman's Journey with a Creature Caught Between the Worlds of Dogs and Wolves, and available on Amazon. I downloaded the sample chapter, read it, and bought the book. The author, Ceridwed Terrill, studied wolves, and does a good job of including a lot of scientific background is what is essentially a memoir about how she failed a wolf-hybrid she owned as a young woman.

    It is more memoir than science writing--it also discusses the abusive relationship she was in as a young woman at the same time she got her wolf-dog--so be prepared for that, but the opening chapters were beautifully written and pretty searingly honest--it was clear this writer is not going to let herself off the hook for mistakes made. Miller notes that the book does an excellent job of explaining why wolf-hybrids don't make good pets, and also does a good job of debunking the dominance/alpha stuff.

    I'm enjoying it quite a bit as a memoir, and will report back on my thoughts about it!
  • If you actualy read the study, Effect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership
    behaviour in free-ranging dogs, that this article is basied on you will that they use dominance, formal or agonistic, to determine liniar hierarchy. Dogs that recived the most displays of submissive behavior also tended to be hibitual leaders, meaning when they moved more than 10meters or more from the pack 2 or more dogs would move with them more often than they moved when another dog moved away from the pack, this to me really only confirms the hypothis of sub packs in a larger pack, not disproves they hypothis of Alpha Dogs. This study was not intended to show where the concept of alpha was true or not, but to show wether or not there is a sharing of decision making process on when to move in a pack. I did find it interesting that in two of the three packs studied one dog was almost always a leader, and rarely to never follower, Alpha? mabe but this data is not designed to confirm or deny that. In the third pack there is definitly no leader, but they say that this pack was in state of high un-stableability during the study.

    This study does a good job of showing what they hypothitsized, that not one single dog controls all the movement of a pack, but please realize that movement can be as little as 10 yards. So for me this dosn't confirm or deny alphas, but gives evidence to the idea of sub- packs in a larger pack.
  • @Jfunk, do you have a link to that study?

    There's been pretty compelling evidence, some of it linked in some of the articles above, some of it elsewhere, that the alpha theory doesn't work for wolves, let alone dogs, especially since there has also been studies that show that dogs don't even form true packs. The theory of alphas and dominance has been pretty throroughly disproved.

    Anyway came back to report on the book, which is pretty good, sad, and worth reading,but not, to my mind, too much about theories of dominance at all. It is very much about wolf-hybrids though, and why having them is a bad idea. At first, it took some patience from me, because the author keeps very much to a writing voice that is tied to the time of action, so she doesn't always tell us til much later that she recognizes she was making terrible mistakes--like in her assumption that only a wolf hybrid would be well suited to wilderness treks.

    The really interesting parts of the book, though, are the way she does, in other places, blend what she learned later about wolves and theories of domestication of the dog. Many years after having the wolf hybrid, she does A LOT of research on wolves and hybrids, and even goes to Russia to meet and learn more about the foxes in the famous project about how long it takes to "genetically domesticate" an animal.

    So it's a really good mix of memoir and other information. And the memoir part, the story about her wolf hybrid, is just devastating. I read it straight through last night.
  • edited January 2012
    Thanks for the bump up Sad people still believe in this crap. I like the seniority sounds reasonable.

    My dad is into the whole alpha thing he trained k9 for army and coarse they used choke collars and those type training it might have changed in training now, but that's how he did it. :\

    None his tricks worked with Bella only positive or time outs.

    Sadly I think dad yelling at Bella is why she is no longer good at being off leash her flight instincts are way high and she will run at slightest thing like if she was being to rough with Saya she yelps Bella gets scared and runs or I sneeze or something she runs could also be due to her thyroidism or combo of both.. :\

    He no longer yells at her, but she was a young dog then and it made a huge impression on her poor thing was shaking like an abused dog that was hit when he yelled at her.

    I know that's bit off topic, but it goes show aversive can be harmful not helpful at least in my opinion.

    Saya she has never gotten yelled at or anything and she is a nice out going pup, and actually does well off leash.
  • his is a link

    http://client.vediamo.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/comportamentoanimali-data/b_documents/pubblicazioni/LeadershipSito.pdf

    I wont get into the argument of wether alpha and dominance are valid theories in dog traning there are just as many studies that show they are as there are that show they arnt, I know what I have experienced and go with that.

    @Saya yelling should never be used in dog traning, they are not hard of hearing. Yelling will do nothing but raise the anxity level of the dog, and more then likely exasperate the problem. If a correction is issued it should be un-emotional, matter of fact, and then moved on past.
  • @shibamistress--thanks for bumping this thread. These are actually really good reads. :)
  • @jfunk - You wrote: "I wont get into the argument of wether alpha and dominance are valid theories in dog traning [...]" [sic]

    Putting aside the argument of whether Alpha/Dominance theories are valid in wild or domestic canine behavior or social hierarchy is one thing, but how would it apply to dog training at all? Dog training is based on learning theory and social structure plays no role in it.

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  • @jfunk I agree I wished he never yelled at him, but thankfully he never done it again after my mom had a long talk with him. It was his fault for sleeping on the couch. He should have just ignored her if she bothered him on it. I talked to him about it too, but being his kid and him the parent he thinks he knows more..

    Thankfully Bella is doing better in behavior department and is back to normal basically.

    I wasn't the one yelling at her just clearing that up sounded like you were correcting me on my training methods. I don't believe in yelling to get what I want in my dogs. I guess I worded things wrong thought it sounded like my dad yelled at her maybe not.. anyways corrected it by writing dad yelling at her instead of his yelling at her.

    Like I said Bella has improved much better since my mom had a long talk with him. Her recall is doing better been doing tons of recall training and hiding games she loves to play that I have her stay I hide behind big tree, bush, shed, compost bin etc. and she finds me and gets treats or her favorite toy.

    I think a lot of it comes from how humans think..

    My dad have made comments on how well Saya listens to me more and how she behaves so well and how my training methods are good, but then he still talks like his way is still better. So even with Saya showing example how well positive reinforcement works he just won't fully believe.
  • @Saya sorry if you thought that was directed at you, I understood that it was your father that yelled at Bella, I to worded my reply wrong. I ment only to confirm what you where trying to tell you dad about his training methods.
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