My girlfriend has a rescue dog that has bit her twice. Her trainer advised her to Alpha Roll the dog to correct it’s aggressive tendencies. What do you recommend?

Question

My girlfriend is sharing a house with 2 other girls. One of the girls owns the house, and she also owns a Vizla (a 3-year-old dog from a rescue). I understand the dog was abused by a prior owner. The dog has bitten the owner twice, once in the hand (about two weeks ago) and on both her cheeks (two days ago). After the first bite on the hand, the owner sought advice from a dog trainer that advised her to assert an alpha roll by ignoring the dog, not feeding it for a couple days, and then having a physical confrontation with the dog. It seems that ever since the trainer's advise, the dog has been very aggressive towards the owner by growling at the owner, ignoring the owner, and acting quite depressed. The dog owner also owns a cat, and the dog has had the cat in its mouth and was seemingly attempting to toss the cat until my girlfriend directed the dog to put the cat down. The dog hasn't acted hostile towards my girlfriend or the other roommate, but that may change soon because the owner has requested (under the trainer's advise) that my girlfriend and the other girl ignore the dog as well. Is the dog trainer giving the dog owner good advise? Is this a proper Alpha Roll? What should the owner be doing?

    Bob

Accepted Answer

I plan on putting this email on my web site as an example of idiots giving stupid advice. We have here a self proclaimed expert not only giving bad advise but very, very dangerous advice. This is a perfect example of people who own problem dogs not knowing who to listen to and in the end, listening to the wrong person. So here is what needs to happen:

Give this lady a copy of this email. Tell her to go to my web site and read what I have written. She needs to believe that what I am telling her is correct. So she can read anything she likes on my website.
Do not do any "Alpha Rolls," this is the best way in the world to get your face bit off. Any trainer who recommends an Alpha Roll on any adult dog is a danger to society and should be banned from all dog training. They take computers away from hackers, they need to take dogs away from incompetent trainers like this.
Tell your friend to read what I have written about these kind of dominant dogs. I have a great deal of information on my web site that deals with issues of dominance and overly aggressive dogs. There are many reasons for both of these behaviors. I would suggest that you spend some time reading the follow things on my website:
- My List of training articles
- Read my article titled Dealing with the Dominant Dog
- Read the Questions & Answers
- Specifically spend time reading Q&A on sharp, dominant, and aggressive dogs
- This dog either needs serious obedience training with a prong collar or it needs to be put to sleep. If you would like to learn something about the principles of obedience training a dog, read the description for my Basic Dog Obedience video. You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of dog training.
- This dog is more likely a product of poor breeding than being beaten. The most common statement I hear from people is that they "got a dog from a humane society and it has so many problems because it was beaten by the previous owner." The fact is that 99% of these dogs have poor temperament because of their genes. They were given up because their temperament was so bad the previous owner could not stand them either.
- Last but not least, give a copy of this email to the idiot that gave her this advise. With a little bit of luck this person will have a brain in their head and realize they have been giving stupid, dangerous advise and change their ways. Somehow I doubt this will happen.