Dominance.

Here's a word that gets thrown about far too much Dominance.

One word. Far too many explanations.

“He's trying to dominate you.”

We've all heard it.

The dog pulls on the lead.

Dominance.

The dog won't get off the sofa.

Dominance.

The dog growls when you move its food bowl.

Dominance.

The dog ignores a cue.

Dominance.

The dog walks through the door first.

Definitely dominance.

Apparently, if you have a dog who occasionally does something you don't like, there's a reasonable chance they're secretly planning a coup.

But here's the problem.

What do we actually mean when we say “dominance”?

Because somewhere along the way, the word stopped being a useful description of a social relationship and became an explanation for almost anything a dog does that we don't particularly like.

And that's where things get messy.

Dominance isn't a personality type

One of the biggest problems with the way the word is used is that we often talk about dogs as though they are dominant.

“He's a dominant dog.”

“She has a dominant personality.”

“That's a very dominant breed.”

But dominance isn't really a personality type.

It isn't a permanent character trait that some dogs are born with, like having a particular coat colour.

In behavioural science, dominance is generally used to describe a relationship between individuals concerning access to a resource, rather than an explanation for why an individual behaves the way it does.

And that distinction matters.

Because a dog isn't simply “dominant” in every situation.

A dog might consistently control access to a particular resource around another dog while being completely deferential in another context.

Social relationships are complicated.

Dogs are complicated.

Humans have an irritating habit of wanting everything to fit neatly into boxes.

Dogs didn't agree to that arrangement.

The old wolf story

A huge amount of modern dog-training mythology can be traced back to an idea that wolves are constantly fighting to become the leader of the pack.

The classic picture is simple.

There is an alpha at the top.

Everyone else is below them.

The dogs are constantly trying to climb the ladder.

Therefore, if your dog challenges you, they're trying to climb above you.

It sounds wonderfully straightforward.

It also isn't a particularly good description of wolf social behaviour.

Early research into captive wolves contributed heavily to the “alpha wolf” idea. But the circumstances in which those observations were made were not representative of how naturally formed wolf families typically live.

Wild wolves are generally family groups.

Parents and offspring.

Not a collection of unrelated wolves desperately fighting for control of the household.

That distinction matters because the original “alpha” model has had a remarkably long afterlife in dog training.

Even though our understanding of wolves and social behaviour has moved on, the myth remains.

And then we put the wolf story onto dogs

This is where things really start to go wrong.

A dog growls when you approach its food.

“It's being dominant.”

But perhaps the dog is worried you're going to take the food.

A dog jumps on the sofa.

“It's trying to dominate you.”

Or perhaps the sofa is comfortable.

A dog pulls towards another dog.

“Dominance.”

Or perhaps the dog is excited, frustrated, curious, fearful or simply hasn't learned how to walk calmly on a lead yet.

A dog refuses to come when called.

“Dominant.”

Or perhaps the environment is more rewarding than the behaviour we've asked for.

Notice what has happened.

We've taken a behaviour and attached a story to it.

And once we've attached the story, we stop investigating.

Dominance can become a behavioural full stop

This is the part that concerns me most.

Imagine an owner says:

“My dog growls when I try to take his toy.”

If our response is:

“He's being dominant.”

we haven't actually helped them very much.

We've named a theory.

We haven't explained the behaviour.

Now compare that with asking:

What happens when you approach?

Does the dog stiffen first?

Does he move away?

Does he freeze?

Does he guard the toy from everyone or just certain people?

Has someone previously taken things away from him?

What happens if you trade the toy for food?

Is the dog relaxed at other times?

Now we're actually learning something.

And perhaps we discover that the dog isn't attempting to establish himself as ruler of the household.

Perhaps he's worried about losing something valuable.

That's a very different problem.

And it requires a very different solution.

Three dogs on the sofa

The sofa isn't a throne

I have lost count of how many times people have been told that allowing a dog on the sofa will make them dominant.

Apparently, somewhere between the cushions, your dog has discovered a path to absolute power.

But dogs don't generally need to control the furniture in order to overthrow the government.

If your dog is lying on the sofa, the first question I'd ask is:

Why do they like the sofa?

It's warm.

It's comfortable.

It smells like you.

They can see what's happening.

They've learned that being there is pleasant.

Perhaps all of the above.

None of those explanations require a canine political agenda.

But what about dogs that push other dogs around?

This is where we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Dogs absolutely have social relationships.

They compete over resources.

They negotiate.

They avoid conflict.

They use body language.

They learn which individuals are more likely to give way over particular resources.

There can absolutely be patterns of social control between dogs.

That's real.

But calling every pushy, rude, confident, assertive or inappropriate behaviour dominance doesn't magically make it dominance.

And even when a dominance relationship exists, it doesn't automatically tell us why the behaviour is happening.

Context still matters.

Sometimes controlling behaviour is actually the job

Now, before we go too far in the other direction, there is an important distinction to make.

Yes, you can absolutely have dogs whose behaviour is naturally more controlling, assertive or socially forceful than others.

And some dogs have quite literally been bred for it.

Take a Border Collie.

We wouldn't normally look at a Border Collie staring at sheep, stalking them, moving around them, blocking their path, changing their direction and controlling their movement and say:

“What a dominant dog.”

We'd probably say:

“That's a very good sheepdog.”

Because that's the job.

Border Collies have been selectively bred for generations to influence the movement of livestock.

The stare.

The stalking movement.

The positioning.

The ability to control direction.

The pressure applied through body language.

These aren't accidental behaviours.

They're part of what makes the dog exceptionally good at what humans have bred it to do.

And this is where I think the word dominance can become particularly confusing.

A dog can absolutely display behaviours that control the movement or behaviour of another animal without that automatically meaning the dog is attempting to establish social dominance.

A Collie doesn't need to believe it is the “alpha” of the sheep flock.

It has a job to do.

Am I the Alfa?

Dogs come with jobs built into them

This is something we sometimes forget when we talk about dog behaviour.

We have spent generations selectively breeding dogs for particular purposes.

Retrievers retrieve.

Pointers point.

Terriers chase and grab things that live underground.

Sighthounds chase things that run.

Livestock guardian dogs guard.

Hounds follow scent.

Herding breeds control movement.

And those behaviours don't simply disappear because the dog has moved from a farm into a three-bedroom semi-detached house.

Sometimes the dog still has the job.

We've just forgotten to tell them what their job is supposed to be.

A Border Collie that repeatedly tries to control the movement of children running around the garden isn't necessarily trying to dominate the children.

It may be expressing a very strong behavioural tendency that humans have spent generations deliberately creating.

The behaviour makes sense.

The environment doesn't.

And that's a very different problem.

Breed matters — but breed isn't destiny

This is also why I think breed history deserves a place in behavioural assessment.

If I see a Border Collie intensely focused on movement, I'm going to consider herding behaviour.

If I see a terrier obsessively trying to get to something moving underground, I'm going to consider predatory behaviour.

If I see a livestock guardian behaving very differently towards an unfamiliar animal entering its territory, I'm going to consider the job that dog was bred to perform.

That doesn't mean:

“It's a Collie, therefore it does this.”

Dogs are individuals.

Genetics aren't destiny.

Environment, learning and experience matter enormously.

But pretending breed history doesn't exist isn't particularly helpful either.

The dog comes with a history, even when we don't know the individual dog's history.

Sometimes that history is written into what humans have selected them to do for generations.

Control isn't automatically dominance

This is probably the distinction I want to make most clearly.

A dog controlling another animal's movement isn't necessarily the same thing as a dog attempting to establish social dominance.

A sheepdog controls sheep.

A livestock guardian may control access to territory.

A mother controls access to her puppies.

A dog may control access to a resource.

A confident dog may influence the behaviour of another dog simply because the other dog chooses to give way.

These are all different things.

If we call all of them “dominance”, we've actually made the word less useful.

And that's the irony.

The more behaviours we put under the dominance umbrella, the less the word tells us.

Dominance isn't the opposite of fear

This is another common mistake.

We sometimes talk as though dogs are either:

fearful

or

dominant.

But real behaviour isn't that tidy.

A frightened dog can behave aggressively.

A frustrated dog can behave aggressively.

A dog can be confident in one environment and frightened in another.

A dog can be perfectly comfortable with people but uncomfortable around other dogs.

A dog can be socially skilled in one relationship and completely hopeless in another.

Behaviour is not a multiple-choice questionnaire.

What about “showing your dog who's boss”?

This is where the dominance idea has caused some genuinely unfortunate advice.

If the dog challenges you, challenge the dog.

If the dog growls, punish the growl.

If the dog gets on the sofa, remove them.

If the dog takes something, take it back.

If the dog ignores you, make them obey.

Because apparently the answer to a relationship problem is to win.

But here's the thing.

Your dog doesn't need to lose for you to win.

Training isn't a power struggle.

At least, it shouldn't be.

If I need to physically overpower my dog to make a behaviour happen, I've probably missed several opportunities to teach the dog what I actually wanted.

And if the dog is frightened, frustrated or guarding a resource, adding confrontation can make the underlying problem considerably worse.

So should we never use the word?

I'm not sure I'd go that far.

Words can have useful meanings when they're used precisely.

The problem is that “dominance” has become so overloaded that we often have no idea what someone means when they use it.

If somebody tells me:

“That dog is dominant.”

my immediate question is:

“What does the dog actually do?”

Because that's where the useful information is.

Does the dog repeatedly displace another dog from a resource?

Does another dog consistently move away?

Is this happening across contexts or around one specific resource?

Is the behaviour mutual?

Is there conflict?

Is there avoidance?

Is the relationship stable?

Is this a breed-typical behaviour?

Is the dog carrying out a behaviour that humans have deliberately selected it to perform?

Now we're having a behavioural conversation.

The danger of labels

This brings us back to something I talk about probably far too much..

Labels aren't automatically bad.

They can be useful shorthand.

The problem starts when the label becomes the explanation.

“Reactive.”

“Dominant.”

“Stubborn.”

“Anxious.”

“Aggressive.”

“Naughty.”

Each word can contain a tiny piece of useful information.

But none of them should stop us asking:

What is the dog actually doing?

Because if we aren't careful, we start seeing the label rather than the dog.

Perhaps the better question is “why?”

Your dog gets on the sofa.

Don't immediately ask:

“How do I stop my dominant dog?”

Ask:

“Why does my dog want to be on the sofa?”

Your dog growls when you approach its food.

Don't start with:

“How do I show it who's boss?”

Start with:

“Why does my dog feel the need to warn me away?”

Your dog ignores a cue.

Don't immediately decide:

“He's challenging me.”

Ask:

“Has he actually learned this behaviour in this environment, and does he have a reason to choose it?”

Your dog pushes another dog away from a toy.

Don't immediately declare:

“Dominance.”

Ask:

“What's happening between these two dogs?”

And if your Border Collie is trying to control the movement of everything that moves?

Perhaps the question isn't:

“How do I stop this dominant dog?”

Perhaps it's:

“What part of this behaviour is the dog genetically wired to perform, and how can I give that behaviour an appropriate outlet?”

That shift might seem small.

It isn't.

Curiosity beats certainty

This is probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned working with dogs.

I don't need to know everything immediately.

I need to be curious enough to find out.

Sometimes the most useful thing a trainer can say is:

“I don't know yet.”

Because “I don't know yet” keeps the investigation open.

“It's dominance” can close it.

And once we've decided we know why a dog is doing something, we're surprisingly good at finding evidence to support ourselves.

The dog becomes the villain in the story we've already written.

I'd rather watch the dog.

Look at the context.

Look at the history.

Look at the environment.

Look at the relationship.

Look at the breed and what it was bred to do.

Look at what happens before, during and after the behaviour.

Then make a hypothesis.

And be prepared to change it when the evidence tells me I'm wrong.

Perhaps the next time someone tells you your dog is “dominant”, you don't need to argue with them.

Just ask:

“What do you mean by dominant?”

And then listen to the answer.

Because if the answer is:

“He gets on the sofa.”

“He walks in front of me.”

“He doesn't always listen.”

“He growls when I take his food.”

“He pulls towards other dogs.”

“Well…”

None of those behaviours, on their own, require a dominance explanation.

And that's the point.

We don't help dogs by finding the most dramatic explanation.

We help them by finding the most useful explanation.

Sometimes that means recognising a genuine social relationship between dogs.

Sometimes it means recognising resource control.

Sometimes it means recognising breed-specific behaviour that humans deliberately bred into the dog.

And sometimes it means recognising that the behaviour has absolutely nothing to do with dominance at all.

The goal isn't to prove that we're right.

The goal is to understand the dog.

And sometimes that starts with something as simple as changing the words we use.

Because a dog isn't a dominance problem.

It's a dog.

And that is a much more interesting place to start.