Monday, March 18, 2013

Alpha? No, that's just not how I roll.

Fewer things are more alarming to me when I see one faceless person on the Internet say to another "Make sure you maintain your Alpha position. Your dog must be submissive to you. On his back or on his side. Bring him down and hold him there until he submits to you."

Paraphrased, but you get the gist. You probably have heard of the "alpha roll" before, but if you haven't, it's as physical and improbable as it sounds: you physically roll the dog onto his or her back. And hold him or her there until the dog submits to your dominance. Sound like a bad idea? Yeah, I think so too. Have I ever "alpha rolled" Elka? No. And I never intend to.

See the joy in this face? I don't want to crush that.



Three big names that relied heavily on Dominance Theory were William Koehler (who wrote The Koehler Method of Dog Training, go figure), The Monks of New Skete, and most recently, Cesar Millan. Mr. Koehler has since shuffled off this mortal coil. The Monks of New Skete have, in fact, redacted their recommendation of the Alpha Roll, acknowledging that is it, in fact, a good way to get yourself bitten. And Cesar Millan....well, if you've been following my little corner of the Internet, you might intuit (or might have paid attention when I said specifically) I'm not a fan of his methods.

In a nutshell, Dominance Theory is based on observations of a captive wolf pack (and I did touch on this briefly, in my Dogs on Furniture post). In the wild, wolf packs choose their members, they don't have to just cope with the hand they're dealt. Ergo, captive wolves do not necessarily reflect the same behavior that they would without human intervention. Wolf packs are familial groups, the "Alpha" doesn't eat first, etc. etc.



The thing about submission, when observed in wolves, is that it's offered voluntarily. Think of the appeasement gestures from On Talking Terms With Dogs: Calming Signals by Turid Rugaas; a dog will voluntarily turn his head to defuse a situation. If you turn his head for him, it isn't exactly the same thing, is it? Compare this to a dog showing his belly to you of his own choice, versus forcing him onto his back and then holding him there until he stops struggling. To anthropomorphize, imagine doing something along those lines to a child. Imagine doing it to a grown up. "I would never!" you  may or may not be thinking. Well. Yeah.

There are times I want Elka to do as I say, "because I say so". I'd be lying if I said that there weren't. But most of those times have to do with safety, or manners. She must sit and wait before we cross the street, to look for cars. She may not bark excessively, so as not to be obnoxious. She doesn't immediately grab food that she finds, because it might be something bad. Or not food. Arguably, "Testify!" has nothing to do with health or safety, but it is adorable. And she does it voluntarily; we free-shaped that business, for fun. Animals, like people, will do things for fun. Dogs are not people, but they're also not wolves. Even wolves aren't what people thought they were.



That's why I wince when people suggest these kinds of tactics. For the most part, it seems that trying to follow the principle "go big or go home" with dogs backfires. An aggressive response to a perceived aggression will exacerbate a problem as a dog will escalate further or shut down (otherwise known as learned helplessness). Do you want either? Either is damaging, in different ways, resulting in the physical damage of some party, or the damage of trust. Do not recommend Alpha Rolling if the person is a stranger (and that goes for on the Internet or on the street advice, you don't know the dog either), you're not certified through any dog training program, and you're not a certified animal behaviorist. If you still want to recommend Alpha Rolls after all of that, then I recommend you evaluate how you feel about your perceived position in life. And no, we're not talking about dogs anymore at that point.

So please. If you see somebody giving this kind of advice, if you can do so kindly, mention that these sorts of methods are not recommended. Especially if you have never met a person, or their dog, and you don't know what the situation truly is. I imagine getting attacked in that manner by one's human is startling at best, and terrifying at worst. A frightened enough dog who cannot escape will bite, and the dog will carry the blame for it. Our dogs are our responsibility, people. Think carefully about the kinds of situations that we put them in. Think carefully about the kind of advice that you give and hear given.Think about the relationship you want to have with your dog; do you want her to listen to you because she wants to, or because she's afraid not to?


19 comments:

  1. Long ago, before Kol had notes, before we had any idea what we were doing, our vet taught us the Alpha Roll and oh yes, we did it. We did it every single day. Luckily, I did it terribly, terribly wrong. Instead of a dominance lesson, it became some of our most cherished bonding time, where I snuggled him close, gazed lovingly into his eyes and whispered sweet nothings in his little ears. To this day, he'll come to me, flop onto his back and we'll share some of our "Mommy & Koly flip over time". I'm so very lucky that it didn't backfire on me though. That would break my heart.

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    1. I think that's one of those cases of "If this is wrong, I don't want to be right!"

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  2. When I was in high school, my family got two puppies. My sister and I were responsible for taking them to "obedience" class. Day 1? Alpha Rolls... and hold them down! Of course we did it. Neither of us knew any better, and here was a supposed expert telling us what to do. Luckily, we were two high school girls, and we skipped more of the classes than we attended. But even at the time, it just felt mean to me. Now, I'm completely horrified! Thanks for writing this!! This message needs to get out there!

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    1. One of those rare times when skipping class was actually a good thing! It's definitely important, I think, to go with how you feel about something in cases like this.

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  3. One thing I've seen *even from professionals* that I think encourages this--people legitimately cannot tell the difference between a shut down dog and a well-behaved dog. Case in point--Silas was so stressed by his last obedience class (100% positive) that he went completely catatonic. He was sitting in the middle of the classroom floor. "Look at how good he's being!" said the trainer. "So calm!" I had to physically drag him away he was so frozen.

    Also, a lot of people don't *want* a dog who "behaves" in the active sense. Ask most people what a good dog looks like, and they'll give you a list of "don'ts." Good dogs don't bark, don't jump on people, don't hump your leg, don't chase other dogs, don't chew shoes, don't eat garbage. Once they get that, people stop asking why or how the dog is doing it.

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    1. I'm very disappointed in that trainer. I guess part of it is excusable because s/he might not have been concentrating only on Silas, and didn't quite realize that was the point he'd gotten to. But I get the impression you would have reflected that part of it.

      I think thats a good point...we want to know what a dog doesn't do.

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  4. The thing that kills me is so many trainers in my neck of the woods still believe this sh*t. I was told to use it with Sampson and I did (once) but he was already so much stronger than I was and it totally didn't work. Thankfully I found other ways to train.

    I want my relationship with my dogs to be joyful and fun, not scary. And I want my dogs to run happily to me instead of walking slowly or cowering in fear. You can be sure I speak up and inform people when I hear about this kind of stuff.

    Thanks for writing a post about it.

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    1. I agree with you, I also want my relationship with Elka to be joyful and fun. I assure you, my speaking up about it has apparently made certain members of said Doberman board to think I'm a meanyhead. Many, many others agreed with me.

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  5. Make sure you maintain your Alpha position... Yep, I did it :o) We had such a guy in tv who was throwing his keys and a chair to a dog to lead him in "his" position - this guy was such a nightmare...

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  6. What a great post! One of the (main) reasons I quit working with the rescue group I helped a couple of years ago was because the ONLY trainer they would allow any of the foster volunteers take the rescue dogs to was a lady I referred to as "that Gestapo trainer". I think I mentioned before how she had a 6 month old Doberman drooling from gagging on his choke chain when she was forcing him into a "down" position. It was simply horrifying. Not just that the dog was being abused - but by how calm and matter of fact the trainer was about her defense in her methods. This is still the only trainer they will allow anyone to use. Their stance is that dogs need to do what they're told no matter what - and training treats are bad. Does she get results? No doubt about it. But I never returned with my foster. I don't believe in methods that crush the spirit of a dog and cause fear. That's not the kind of bond anyone should want with their dog.

    The strangest thing to me is someone told me they did the alpha roll on their dog and were bitten and laughed about it. It did not deter them from doing that again at all. I guess it proves you really can't fix stupid.

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    1. I can understand having specific trainers that foster volunteers must use, because you don't want it to be just anybody. But the trainer you describe is exactly the "just anybody" that I personally would avoid.

      At least they laughed about it instead of getting more angry at the dog? I guess? Oh boy.

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  7. Heh well we have used this method. Yes on all three Chessies. It does work, despite what the naysayers think. I alpha rolled Thunder when he was 18 months old and 85 pounds and you know what...he never tried his dominance on me again. We came to a good understanding. I do agree about not taking training advice from people you don't know on the net, (and that goes for all kinds of training advice).

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    1. I guess what it comes down to is you should use methods that you are comfortable with and that work for you and for your dogs.

      Taking advice from strangers can be on par with taking candy from 'em ;)

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  8. I feel like a good majority of what I see these days is pressure the human feels being in public with a misbehaving dog. People see themselves through what they think others are seeing. So, the dog misbehaves. And then there are no repercussions. GOD FORBID! I felt a lot of pressure to correct Elli for "bad behavior" in the obedience ring (sniffing a Figure 8 Human-Post's foot) during the exercise. I chose not to, but many people take the advice of strangers just out of pressure, embarrassment, and feeling like they're losing a battle every day due to bad behavior. It sucks.

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    1. I agree, there is pressure from humans, dog-savvy and otherwise.

      The other day I walked Elka from the library to the bank to do some business. She was a TOTAL nutjob, just out of her mind with excitement at the world. I could tell a lot of people were looking at me, with my whacked out Doberman....but I was laughing too much to care, because it was just so ridiculous. Perhaps they were expecting some Alpha action? I don't rightly know.

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  9. We call that thing Doggy Down and it works
    Benny & Lily

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  10. While I think it can be used properly and carefully by kind, knowledgeable persons, the only dog I've ever taken in who was "alpha rolled" before he came (and I should have paid attention to my Spidey sense), turned out to be both human and dog aggressive. In fact, before I could get him boarded and back to whence he came, he led my lovely Pit Bull along in killing my beloved hound mix girl. I hate that dog; I lost two good dogs because I was ignorant, tentative, and couldn't believe a hound would be that aggressive. I tell people, NO DOG from Silverwalk EVER needs to be alpha rolled - EVER. I still grieve that horrific day. I now listen to my Spidey sense.

    This is a crucial post. Put it up as one of your best. Thank you.

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    1. I'm so very sorry about your hound girl :( That's such a sad and scary situation.

      It's interesting how often we humans will ignore a gut feeling due to our "rational" brains telling us otherwise. I think that we need to listen to our guts far more often.

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  11. Great post. And I'm so sad that many people still fall for this.

    I used to attend a dog play group at the SPCA. A woman who was fostering for a local rescue kept alpha rolling the Golden Retriever she was caring for. Even if all the bogus info about dominance was true, this happy go lucky pup was not at all dominant.

    It was hard to believe anyone could be so blind.

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