I've been reading The Thinking Dog by Gail Fisher. In chapter 2 she talks about dominance (pack leader) training vs reward training. I'm interested to hear what you guys think about what she says. Here are a few quotes from pg 31 that outline her point:

"While a social hierarchy can exist and influence behavior between dogs, such a hierarchical relationship is not relevant to our interaction with our dogs. Dogs don't think we're funny-shaped dogs, and they're not in competition with us."

"When you get right down to it, the concept of dominance - of a dog vying for power and control over a human - doesn't really make sense. What would a dog gain from dominating us thta he doesn't already have? We feed, shelter and care for our dogs. What's missing?... The issues that come into play in human dominance and control are irrelevant to our relationship with dogs."

"The apparent dominant behavior of a dog toward a human is simply pushiness that earned a reward. A dominance hierarchy may exist in a multi-dog pack, but inter-species dominance does not. Reinforcement, not social status, is what motivates our dogs' behavior with us."

"Since training through domination undermines your dog's willingness to think, it's important to understand why domination training is not the best way to achieve better behavior."

So, my question is - where does the pack leader mentality fit in here! I always thought that even when we do marker training, it takes some amount of 'respect' from the dog for him to want to work with us. Don't we teach what the 'boundaries' are in our homes with the whole pack leader style of teaching? Just curious to see how you guys look at this topic.

I think that some of what I am interpreting what Fisher says in that quote, is related to dominance as it is used in compulsion training (always a correction, never a reward...). THAT does not make for good training, as many here believe. Power over bonding doesn't really make sense. I have not read the book, tho

I haven't read this book, but I did read "Inside of a Dog"* and the author works from the same concept in regards to owner/dog dominance issues.

As we all know, most dog don't really want to be in charge, but many may still display some dominant behaviors without leadership. Some dogs may even willingly take the subordinate role, but push for promotion every now and then. My dog is certainly like this, and I can tell you for sure that its not a matter of me ever unknowingly rewarding the behaviors or letting them slide.

I also think that really dominant dogs DO exist, but are probably rare enough that its a nonissue for most people.

So I do believe in pack structure between owners and dogs. But I think some people either take it as gospel or have a serious, potentially dangerous, misunderstanding of it.

For example, there is a guy I know who has a completely out of control dog. He never really disciplines the dog, and I don't think he has ever seriously worked on training him. Every once in a while he will get fed up and will alpha roll the dog.

I also know somebody who has an Akita puppy that they alpha roll on a regular basis, basically just because they are afraid of someday living with a full grown Akita.

I don't really know either of these people well enough to suggest hat they do anything different, I'm hardly educated enough on dogs and dog training to stick my nose in. But because of these people I have no problem with a popular author questioning dominance hierarchy.

*BTW, I would definitely recommend "Inside of a Dog". Its a really well written and interesting book.

Marcia,

In compulsion training there is a reward, verbal and sometimes physical praise.You don't correct your dog until the dog clearly knows the behavior and refuses to do it. Your verbal praise is the marker,instead of the clicker. The difference in compulsion training vs. reward training there is no food reward,only verbal praise.

 Quote: lisa harrison

In compulsion training there is a reward, verbal and sometimes physical praise.You don't correct your dog until the dog clearly knows the behavior and refuses to do it. Your verbal praise is the marker,instead of the clicker. The difference in compulsion training vs. reward training there is no food reward,only verbal praise.

Ahh, then I meant "yank and crank" which in my mind was compulsion...thanks for clearing that up. I was simply relying on the dictionary hence my confusion.

compulsion |kəmˈpəl sh ən|
noun
1 the action or state of forcing or being forced to do something; constraint : the payment was made under compulsion.
2 an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way, esp. against one's conscious wishes : he felt a compulsion to babble on about what had happened.
ORIGIN late Middle English : via Old French from late Latin compulsio(n-), from compellere ‘to drive, force’ (see compel ).

Many people call compulsion "yank and crank".

We like to call it the balanced scale approach. Your dog does something good, he gets verbal praise.If he deliberatly does not obey a command once he clearly knows it, then he gets a leash or remote collar correction.

I've actually never heard my method of training called "compulsion" until I came to this site. I was told this by my fellow forum members!

 Quote: lisa harrison

Your dog does something good, he gets verbal praise.If he deliberatly does not obey a command once he clearly knows it, then he gets a leash or remote collar correction.

So back to the book "The Thinking Dog" and this quote:

"Since training through domination undermines your dog's willingness to think, it's important to understand why domination training is not the best way to achieve better behavior."

I see this kind of training (domination), as described, as being punitive and different than reward training with corrections once skill is obtained. But, again, just my interpretation of the passage.

Also, back to the original post, I don't see some of the pack structure activities as being dominant in a negative sense: just helping the dog learn how to live with people...

Here's something I've been thinking about lately.

Training is training, whether you're training for a new job, teaching kids, or training a dog. At the end of the day nobody wants to be berated while learning.

Examples.

1) You're learning a new task at work or possibly a completely new skill. Do you want to have the instructions clearly explained to you in an environment where you can make and learn from mistakes or do you want your trainer screaming over your shoulder for every mistake you're making before you even know what you're doing?

2) You're teaching your kid how to vacuum properly. You can either wait until said child is finished, commend them on what they did correctly and then point out the areas that need improvement or you can scream "NO, YOU IDIOT, YOU DID IT WRONG!!!" at them for missing that spot over there.

3) You can train your dog to sit by using marker training or by pulling up on the leash while simultaneously pushing down on its butt.

All of these are related at the philosophical level because there are comparatively few instances were drill instructor training methods are favorable.

Alll good points which I was actually thinking while reading that book. I think where I sit is that a dog does need a leader who has expectations and enforces them or they will feel insecure and take the leader role. Someone has to be boss. But we can be boss without dominance in the form of corrections as punishment training. We can train with rewards, expect them to sit for their meals, sit before going out the door, sit in order to get pet, etc. That way they know who's boss, but they afraid of us. The thing I kind of disagree with this author on, I think, is the statement she made about the dog not needing to take the leader role away from us because they get everything they need and so they don't need that role - I think they will take it if we don't!