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by Scottie Westfall

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How not to argue against dominance models for dog behavior

July 11, 2012 by retrieverman

This morning I happened to find one of those Cesar Millan debunking articles that makes me wince.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan of the Dog Whisperer.  Not being a Cesar lover has cost me several friendships.

That’s how much I think he’s wrong about dog behavior.

However, one of the bad things about the obviously made-up crap that the Dog Whisperer spouts is that it has resulted in a reaction that has resulted in people saying things that are just as incorrect as anything Cesar says.

And this was the case when I read this article from The Hopeful Veterinarian.

Now, this person is correct that the model for dog behavior that Cesar Millan posits is simply wrong. I agree with this entirely.

But in making this claim, the author then makes a bunch of dubious assertions.

His main theory is the pack theory. The pack theory has been debunked completely. (Here is another article about it, I have a lot more, too.) The fact of the matter is, dogs do not form packs, they instead form loose social bonds that change from day to day. Even if they did form packs, it would not affect the human/dog relationship, because dogs know we’re not other dogs. We have all the resources, anyway. Furthermore, “dominant” is not a personality trait.

Even if we were to believe that dogs formed packs like wolves (which would be ridiculous, because dogs are not descended from gray wolves, they both share a common ancestor, similar to a dingo), wolves don’t form packs in the way most people believe they do.

Now, besides being totally incoherent in terms of syntax or structure, there are several claims at the beginning of this piece that are simply wrong.

Dogs are actually capable of forming packs and working together to kill large prey.  Not all wolves form packs, and forming packs in order to hunt is likely a learned behavior.

Studies on street dogs and rural dogs living near dumps would likely show that they don’t form packs to hunt cooperatively.  There would be no need to. However, dogs that live in rural areas where there are no dumps will form packs and hunt livestock and deer.

I don’t know why many people think this is impossible, but the evidence that it happens is virtually everywhere. Just ask anyone who has sheep!

Furthermore, dingoes are dogs. Dingoes fit within the East Asian dogs on virtually every genetic study.

Dingoes do form packs to bring down large macropods and sheep.

So that entire claim that dogs never form packs is as stupid as the claim that every dog is born with an instinct to control everyone around it.

Dogs are derived from wolves, not a dingo-like ancestor. They are most closely related to Middle Eastern wolves, which are the primary ancestors of the modern lines of domestic dog.

If one wants to split hairs to make that claim work, one can say that Middle Eastern wolves look a lot like dingoes, and it is true that more-derived subspecies of wolf did descend from an ancestor that looked like a Middle Eastern wolf.

But that’s the only way you can make that claim work.

My guess is this person has read that terribly thought out paper by Janice Koler-Matznick on the origins of the domestic dog.

Virtually every expert on dog origins finds that paper’s claims to be either overly speculative or simply wrong.

Dogs are wolves. Dogs can form packs.

It does not automatically follow from those claims that Cesar Millan is correct.

His ideas are easily debunked with facts and logic, but using bad scientific studies to go after him does not help one’s cause.

Most of the apologists for this type of dominance model are very good at using these claims to show how out of touch their critics actually.

So if you’re wanting to argue against the dominance models, don’t use these claims.

They are as bad as any of the claims Cesar Millan or any of the other dominance model promoters use.

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Posted in dog behavior | Tagged Cesar Millan, dog domestication, dog pack behavior | 14 Comments

14 Responses

  1. on July 11, 2012 at 5:13 pm countrymae

    Think if anyone has ever whelped a liter they would know there are differences in littermates. I was always amazed how the personalities of each individual pup could be so strikingly differentb but similiar.
    I have likewise observed in what I prefer to call an extended family of over thirty dogs in my time. Yes and all got along with only one exception. The male who ran the fastest…I did observe a type of wolf pack behavior…but certaining nothing one could describe as pack and kill.


  2. on July 11, 2012 at 5:13 pm massugu

    Do you thing the dominance model, as applied to dogs and wolves, is actually an anthropomorphism?


    • on July 11, 2012 at 5:16 pm retrieverman

      I think it is in some ways.

      Dogs do have social hierarchies. It’s just whether they have an instinct to control each other or whether that desire is something they think about all the time that I really think isn’t supportable.


      • on July 11, 2012 at 6:03 pm DesertWindHounds

        I think it pet dogs it’s not so much anthropomorphism (I will freely admit that I am a bitch, but I do not describe myself as ‘dominant’ and my bitchiness is not a way to control others or resources) but an excuse: my dog isn’t a spoiled little asshole, he’s just dominant. I don’t get a secret kick out my dog being afraid of me, I’m just dominant. My dog isn’t an asshole to other dogs because he wasn’t raised to know how to interact with other dogs, he’s just dominant.

        People accept that human beings are complex and behavior is nuanced. They don’t want to accept that dogs are the same way.


  3. on July 11, 2012 at 5:57 pm Pai

    Even ‘pack dynamics’ are part of a family unit, it’s not some anarchy where only the most bossy and aggressive survive. The cubs defer to their parents, with inter-sibling status behaving much like any other family, with ups and downs and fights and all that. It’s not a constant free-for-all fight for ‘status’.


    • on July 11, 2012 at 6:21 pm DesertWindHounds

      I have been keeping twenty plus dogs for a long time. Right now most of my dogs are intact and they fall into two categories: related dogs, unrelated dogs. Among the related dogs (my old matriarch is now dead), there is an older litter, a younger repeat breeding, and two litters of cousins (one from an older bitch, one from a bitch from the repeat breeding.) These dogs have a rigid hierarchy; the older litter is clearly in the parental role. The repeat litter doesn’t disrespect their older siblings. Ever. The cousins are subordinate to both older litters, but they do not have a formal hierarchy among themselves. Within each ‘tier’ you can have a free for all, however.

      What it comes down to, is that ‘pack’ behavior is a survival trait for wolves. The raising of puppies by the parents and any older siblings and the sacrifice of resources to the pregnant and nursing bitch is a trait that is essential to genetic continuity. Dogs have not been raised to maintain these instincts, they aren’t dependent upon them for survival, so their presence in dogs is basically a relic. (I have seen lines of dogs that produce bitches with no mothering instinct, or dogs with no mating instinct. Don’t breed for it and you will lose it.) We can look at these relic instincts and say, “oh, wolves do that”, I see them a lot among my own dogs, but it is a mistake to go to extremes and say ‘dogs act just like wild wolves’ or ‘dogs never do this or that.’ (It is an especially egregious mistake to base dog behavior on data that is false, but Scottie has already covered that.)

      I had a friend who owns another breed at my house once, and she looked at my dogs all wandering around together, and said, “I could never do that with my dogs. They would have non-stop fights, and once they’ve had a tiff over something, they hold grudges.” The lesson in that is that while behaviors that have strong survival advantage will persist and be *predictable* in a population, once you remove that survival advantage, that necessity, you get a mishmash of relic, novel, and abnormal behaviors, and can no longer ‘compare’ populations.

      One would not ever look at dog behavior and try to extrapolate how wolves would act from that. Same thing for wolves and dogs. It is more appropriate to look at dogs as what they are, dogs, and more importantly, as individuals.


      • on November 27, 2012 at 3:59 pm UrbanCollieChick

        I’m in total agreement with all of this! A domestic animal with a long history of selective breeding by man, for different emphases on different instincts, originating from a wild animal that did form smallish packs ( if you go by the modern middle eastern wolf, the hunting packs seem to say anywhere from a pair to less than 6 or so on average), equals a slew of personalities with different desires and motivations. I think that’s something that mankind should be able to emphasize with and that does not have to be anthropomorphism.

        WHat IS anthropomorphism is when someone thinks their dog is on the sofa because he has PLOTTEd, in advance, to take over the house and mastership. McConnell said about this “Maybe your dog just likes the couch because it’s soft and cozy.

        She also said the current word on “dominance” is who has access to resources, and that if you put 20 behaviorists in a room and they will all disgree on everything.


  4. on July 11, 2012 at 8:00 pm countrymae

    I am with you 100 percent. Dogs are individuals just like ourselves. A good breeder is forever conscious of this as they study ftheir dogs for thier next breeding.. I am not thrilled with one size fits all either.


  5. on July 11, 2012 at 10:54 pm Jen Robinson

    It’s easy to debunk Cesar Milan as a theorist, cause he isn’t one (I can’t remember . . . does he even graduate from high school . . . no way is he an academic) and his theories aren’t worth a pile of beans. The pack / dominance spiel is a story line, cause TV needs a story line. Wannabe Dog Whisperers are often rotten dog trainers.

    But the guy sure knows how to move and how to get a dog’s respect and attention. I read one article that cast him more as a dancer / soccer player, with an amazing intuitive grasp of how to use movement to communicate with a dog. They advised paying no attention to his words and watching what he does . . . and being aware that dogs have no interest in theory, but are very sensitive to body language.

    My lines (Labbies) are definitely pack animals, but the pack is generally bound by cooperation, play, grooming, lying on one another, etc.. Assertion of dominance is rare, and when I’ve had seven or eight dogs, I’ve never been able to say who is dominant. One will be first at the food bowl, another first when it comes to play, yet another (of the girls) will be inclined to take over mothering when anyone has pups.


  6. on July 12, 2012 at 4:46 am alectorix

    No comprendo su continua postura:
    No César Millán, no César Millan, no César Millán.
    Entonces…¿Qué hacer con perros problemáticos?.
    Saludos.
    PD.Hechos y no palabras…


  7. on July 12, 2012 at 7:06 am leashedForLife

    alectorix,
    i think U comprehend just fine –
    PLENTY of other trainers work with problem behaviors,
    & please note: it’s the = behavior =, not the dog, which
    is the problem.

    Reward-based trainers who work with reactive dogs
    [whatever form the reactivity takes: aggro, anxiety,
    panic / bolting, hyperexcitement, ____ ] at least do
    not make the dog’s behavior WORSE post-B-Mod –

    according to many folks in CM/DW’s area of So-Cal,
    & others who’ve worked with far-distant dogs he had
    already “cured” using aversive tools & confrontational
    techniques, post-CM/DW behavior was considerably
    more-complex & much harder to address.

    IOW:
    every trainer who has worked with a dog who has
    “issues” that was previously already worked with by
    CM/DW would have preferred to work with the dog’s
    ORIGINAL presenting problem-behavior –
    so far as i know; all the trainers that i’ve seen comment
    on working with Post-CM/DW problem behaviors have
    stated that they’d rather have the BEFORE version –

    not the ‘improved’ [worsened] version, as seen after
    CM/DW had finished with that dog, as the dog was
    much-more wary & worried about ppl, on top of the
    original complaint of whatever problem behavior,
    & often exhibited new & complex side-effects, due to
    the harsh handling, aversive tools, & ‘dominate the
    dog’ confrontational techniques.


  8. on July 12, 2012 at 7:16 am leashedForLife

    domestic dogs’ primary tool for getting
    along with other dogs is not dominance, but
    = deference. =

    Dogs defer to one another, based on all sorts of
    complex factors from age to length of tenancy,
    sex, & MOST IMPORTANT, who wants what –
    & how badly the individual wants it.

    the dog who’s mad about tennis-balls is DEFERRED
    TO by the other dogs who share that household –
    even by total-stranger k9s at the beach, if they have
    any decent grasp of body-language & social signals:
    it’s obvious to any dog who innocently approaches
    “their” tennis-ball that the value of the ball to the dog
    who is mad about them, far outstrips any possible
    desire for that ball by the stranger –
    who appropriately backs-off & yields to the mad-dog’s
    obsessive devotion, & finds something or someone
    else to play with.
    That’s deference – the dog social-lubricant, used every
    day in multiple contexts, in single-dog households with
    humans & encounters with other animals, & in multi-dog
    households with same-home dogs, other-home dogs
    they meet off their turf, & dogs who visit their home, as
    well as humans & other animals.


    • on July 12, 2012 at 10:58 am mcfuzzylugs

      Leashed, yes thats a good point

      I think of course that dogs have personalities and some are more laid back, some more shy, some more pushy etc
      and they learn if their behaviour works to do more of it
      So if a dog defers to another dog and avoids conflict then he is more likely to do that again
      If a dog bullys another dog into giving up something they want – and it works – then they are more likely to do that again
      So if someone sees their dog as dominant cos they have all the toys/food/fuss whenever they want them and the other dogs let them then yes you could have a ‘happy’ pack like that – in that there wouldnt be fights

      But humans are a pretty hirarchical bunch and if you saw behaviour like that in a kid at school you wouldnt smile and say ‘hes the dom one, he should have all the toys cos then the others learn their place’
      You teach him to play nicely – the same with dogs, you can choose not to reward ‘dom’ (bullying) behaviours and your dog learns they dont work and stops being a bully


      • on July 12, 2012 at 2:03 pm leashedForLife

        Lugs,
        i’m not talking about BULLIES – who are by defn,
        rude, overbearing, obnoxious, harass others, etc.

        i’m talking of the everyday way that dogs DEFER to
        another dog, who wants X – whatever it is – *more*
        than they themselves do.

        Dogs also have a primary law of property:
        Them what has it, keeps it. That’s why a 6-WO pup
        can give an adult-dog a hard stare, & the grown-up
        will avert their gaze & leave the pup in possession of
        the bone / food / chew-toy, ___ .

        Dogs don’t have pockets – whatever they leave
        lying about, is generally fair game; whatever they
        HAVE in their mouth, or on the bed by them, or
        lying under their gaze nearby, is “theirs”.
        Few dogs will mess with others’ stuff- altho if they
        can get them to abandon it, they will swoop down
        & snatch it instantly. Messing with others’ heads to
        make them walk away from the object of desire is
        fair play; simply snatching or intimidating into the
        surrender of an object, is not-OK.



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