08-15-2016, 09:57 AM
I'm not saying that dogs shouldn't be trained or disciplined. Just that the pack leader theory has been discredited. Positive reinforcement is now the preferred model. For instance, clicker training is useful in associating obedience with immediate reward.
I couldn't immediately find the scholarly article that I had in mind but THIS LINK pretty much covers the same territory. As the author says:
That experiment that showed that dogs seek help from humans but human-socialised wolves don't has also been replicated with cats and dogs. Cats will try to do it on their own but dogs seek help.
The laundry list of don'ts makes me think of one of my son's school friends. He had a little fox terrier that was trying to play with him. He told him off, wrapped his arms around his chest and turned his back on him. He told me he'd been reading a book written by Martin McKenna, yet another self-styled dog whisperer who also goes by the name 'The Dog Man'. Like César Milan, his main qualification is that he says he realised he was like Dr Doolittle early in life as he just knew instinctively how to talk to dogs. Like Milan, he says everything comes down to dominating dogs like a pack leader. I borrowed the book and found a lengthy list of don'ts which includes not looking at your dog when it looks at you and not stroking your dog when he wants attention. According to him, every time you do, your dog scores another win. This poor kid had been following this idiot's rantings and he was missing out on the fun of having a dog!
César Milan uses physical means to dominate dogs. One of his brilliant tips is to stand beside your dog when it does something wrong and swing your far leg behind the other one so that you drive your heel into your dog's stomach/chest. He says this catches your dog by surprise but doesn't hurt it. He also is a master of the dog roll. If a dog's being naughty, he wrestles it so that it's on its back and holds it in that position until it calms down. He theorises that mother dogs do that but he doesn't have much evidence to suggest that dogs learn if humans do this instead. He does suggest you should leave this technique to professionals like him as dogs tend to bite him because they don't like it.
I have trained my dog pretty well. It's just that Samoyeds are a stubborn and independent breed that some suggest are more like cats than dogs. They have a mischievous nature and love forcing you to repeat your commands as if they have no idea what you're saying. But I went into it with eyes open as I love their spirit. When people ask me whether they can be trained, I tell them that training can go really quickly as long as the human is a good learner. You find out what will work with each individual and adjust. They're definitely not the sort of dog you'd get if you want to impress people with its immediate and unquestioning obedience.
They are smart though. He immediately took to the dog-door when he came in as a 2 month old pup and toilet trained himself in a week. I can walk him off lead on busy streets and he waits for a signal to cross the road. But he knows what he wants. The incessant barking only happens if I ignore "The Look". If I get up and follow him, he'll show me what he wants and I won't hear a peep. I used to try to tell him off when he took off with the laundry and put him into the naughty corner but it didn't change his behaviour. So I learnt to go along with the game and used the fact that he was clamping down on the clothing to stroke him all over his muzzle and face (which I enjoy more than he does). So everybody's happy! That's what you have to do as a dog owner. The bonding process is as much about finding out what they like as it is about getting your dog to do what you want.
I couldn't immediately find the scholarly article that I had in mind but THIS LINK pretty much covers the same territory. As the author says:
Quote:Just as, more than six decades ago, Schenkel extrapolated his wolf studies and applied them to domestic dogs, so too have many carried the notion of the "alpha wolf" over to dog training. Certainly, just as parent wolves hold dominance over their cubs and human parents hold dominance over their children, owners hold dominance over their dogs. Until my pup gets himself a credit card and a pair of opposable thumbs (and stops dissolving into delighted wiggles every time I tell him what a good little man he is), I'm pretty much the boss in our relationship. But some trainers take the idea of pack rank to the extreme; dog owners are given a laundry list of rules of how to maintain alpha status in all aspects of their relationship: Don't let your dog walk through the door before you do. Don't let her win a game of tug. Don't let him eat before you do. Some (famous) trainers even encourage acts of physical dominance that can be dangerous for lay people to execute. Much of this is a legacy of those old wolf studies, suggesting that we're in constant competition with our dogs for that pack leader position.
But, you might ask, mightn't domestic dogs behave much like wolves in captivity? Despite being members of the same species, wolves (even human-reared wolves) are behaviorally distinct from domestic dogs, especially when it comes to human beings. Take the famous experiment in which human-socialized wolves and domestic dogs are both presented with a cage with food inside. The food is placed inside a cage in a way that makes it impossible for either wolf or dog to retrieve it. The wolves will inevitably keep working at the cage, trying to puzzle out a way to remove the food. The dogs, after a few seconds of struggle, will look to a human as if to say, "Hey, buddy, a little help here?" Even if the hierarchical ranks were some innate part of lupine psychology, dogs have behaviors all their own.
That experiment that showed that dogs seek help from humans but human-socialised wolves don't has also been replicated with cats and dogs. Cats will try to do it on their own but dogs seek help.
The laundry list of don'ts makes me think of one of my son's school friends. He had a little fox terrier that was trying to play with him. He told him off, wrapped his arms around his chest and turned his back on him. He told me he'd been reading a book written by Martin McKenna, yet another self-styled dog whisperer who also goes by the name 'The Dog Man'. Like César Milan, his main qualification is that he says he realised he was like Dr Doolittle early in life as he just knew instinctively how to talk to dogs. Like Milan, he says everything comes down to dominating dogs like a pack leader. I borrowed the book and found a lengthy list of don'ts which includes not looking at your dog when it looks at you and not stroking your dog when he wants attention. According to him, every time you do, your dog scores another win. This poor kid had been following this idiot's rantings and he was missing out on the fun of having a dog!
César Milan uses physical means to dominate dogs. One of his brilliant tips is to stand beside your dog when it does something wrong and swing your far leg behind the other one so that you drive your heel into your dog's stomach/chest. He says this catches your dog by surprise but doesn't hurt it. He also is a master of the dog roll. If a dog's being naughty, he wrestles it so that it's on its back and holds it in that position until it calms down. He theorises that mother dogs do that but he doesn't have much evidence to suggest that dogs learn if humans do this instead. He does suggest you should leave this technique to professionals like him as dogs tend to bite him because they don't like it.
I have trained my dog pretty well. It's just that Samoyeds are a stubborn and independent breed that some suggest are more like cats than dogs. They have a mischievous nature and love forcing you to repeat your commands as if they have no idea what you're saying. But I went into it with eyes open as I love their spirit. When people ask me whether they can be trained, I tell them that training can go really quickly as long as the human is a good learner. You find out what will work with each individual and adjust. They're definitely not the sort of dog you'd get if you want to impress people with its immediate and unquestioning obedience.
They are smart though. He immediately took to the dog-door when he came in as a 2 month old pup and toilet trained himself in a week. I can walk him off lead on busy streets and he waits for a signal to cross the road. But he knows what he wants. The incessant barking only happens if I ignore "The Look". If I get up and follow him, he'll show me what he wants and I won't hear a peep. I used to try to tell him off when he took off with the laundry and put him into the naughty corner but it didn't change his behaviour. So I learnt to go along with the game and used the fact that he was clamping down on the clothing to stroke him all over his muzzle and face (which I enjoy more than he does). So everybody's happy! That's what you have to do as a dog owner. The bonding process is as much about finding out what they like as it is about getting your dog to do what you want.