GEORGE NEWS - As part of an educational drive, he will answer readers' questions once a week, either in George Herald or on the Neuro Paws website and their social platforms. This way it could also help others facing similar problems with their pets.
Describe your challenges in a short email and send it to neuropaws@gmail.com. Every week, he will select a question to answer.
This week he tells us more about the dominance theory, which was the prevailing approach for many years, but has been proved to be detrimental to the owner-dog relationship:
What is the dominance or pack theory? Where did it come from, and is there any scientific evidence behind it?
Is your dog pulling on a leash because he wants to 'dominate' you? Does he want to be your alpha leader? Do you need to pin your dog on the ground when he is naughty because you need to show him that you are his alpha leader?
Over several decades, professional dog trainers, biologists, and dog owners all over the world were influenced by a standard methodology.
This concept of 'dominance' training was, and still is, very popular in the media and certain TV shows.
Fortunately for our dogs, modern research of dog psychology and knowledge of dog development has proved that the pack theory or dominance theory is inaccurate for many reasons. Let us take a look at where it all started. So, where did things go wrong?
In 1947, a Swiss animal behaviourist called Robert Schenkel started to study wolves. He went to the Zoological Institute at the University of Absel, where he looked at the interaction between wolves in captivity.
He observed that some wolves would fight over food, and others would be terrified to come near the food when they were being fed. He observed wolves showing aggression, and the biggest wolf always got his way. He labelled this wolf the alpha wolf.
He also observed that this 'dominant' wolf had the first choice of a female. Therefore, he labelled this female wolf the alpha female. He observed that some smaller, weaker wolves hardly fed at times, and they were labelled omega wolves.
At the time, it seemed to him like a wolf pack consisted of a 'dominant' wolf that led the rest of the pack, and the other wolves had to abide by his rules. So, is this really the case?
About 40 years after Schenkel released his findings, a wolf expert called Robert Mech started observing wolves in the wild in Canada. This time, he observed wolves in their natural habitat and not in captivity.
His observations were very different from Schenkel's, and he proved Schenkel wrong. His observations suggested that wolves live as a family unit. The previously believed alpha pair was the breeding pair, and the rest of the pack mainly consisted of offspring.
The breeding pair were the only wolves reproducing in this pack unit to prevent inbreeding between other family members. He also observed that all the family members fed together during mealtimes. The breeding pair also made sure that they hid some of the leftover food for the pups as they had to feed more regularly.
When one of the siblings was ready, there would be ritualistic 'fights' to ensure that he was ready to leave, and then, he or she would leave the pack to find a mate and start their own pack or family.
Because wolves and dogs were believed to be closely related (this is a new story for another time), dog trainers took Schenkel's work and started using it as a baseline to train dogs. Instead of building a good relationship with dogs, they used the 'dominance' theory to show the dogs that they were inferior to humans. Unfortunately, this belief became popular very quickly, and because of social media and specific TV programmes, it is still popularised. If it is on TV, it must be true, right?
Today, thanks to science, we know better, and we have found better ways to train dogs.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, we now understand that each dog is unique and may respond differently to training methods. Attempting to show a dog who is boss by pinning him to the ground or through other methods is damaging the dog-owner relationship and may lead to fear, anxiety, and possible aggressive behaviour from the dog.
Instead of using punitive methods, modern dog training uses positive reinforcement to modify behaviour. We can reinforce or reduce the frequency of behaviour by simply controlling the consequences of such behaviour without causing fear or stress while building an excellent owner-dog bond.
We choose now to focus on reinforcing behaviour we like rather than correcting behaviour that we don't like. We also now know that dogs do experience many of the emotions that we as humans do, so we also consider that when working with dogs.
Like us humans, dogs will not be able to learn should they be overly stressed or fearful, so such dogs need to be handled differently from confident dogs, for example.
Many times, even behavioural problems might disappear once a scared, fearful dog starts feeling more confident, and a confident dog is less likely to engage in fights with other dogs than a fearful one.
Dog training and behaviour modification used to have a blanket approach, but today, we know that not all dogs are the same, and different things might motivate different dogs. We also use this fact when training dogs. Dog training has become a science, and modern training methods create good inter-species relationships.
Do what is best for your dog, and refrain from using outdated training methods to reduce unwanted behaviour, as it might have severe consequences in the end, and that is unfair to our beloved pets.
Article by George van Huyssteen (DipCABT. CCAB. CABTI, MHERA qualified)
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