What is Canine Dominance?

"The confidant dominant dog that wants what another dog has will stand over the dog with tail wagging. The lower ranked dog will give it up. The dog with no social skills growls and slobbers then gets into a fight"

This is so interesting to me!!! Is this in your eyes always a "dominant" gesture? My little Hemi does this all the time when she wants what someone else has. Everyone that witnesses it thinks she is quite the annoying dog because the other dog after being beat in the face by her tail for a while will get up and leave the "prize". I'm not sure if she has ever done it to her mother who is definitely the boss around these parts. I will start paying attention. Very interesting and not something any "dog" person has ever interpreted that way, but makes absolute perfect sense.

If Hemi does this all the time, she is well reinforced for the behavior. If I am giving you what you want all the time; I'd say that makes you dominant over me or just a spoiled brat about to get your butt handed to you. Which do you think it is?

The only dominance ranking I see as static is the hierarchy of who gets the three resources. The rule there seems to be if you can kick my butt, go first. I'll wait.

Stormy, who never gets to breed the girl, is smarter than most of the other dogs around here. He is the leader/dominant dog in the neighborhood. He nips Bluto, the Akita on the nose like a man might correct a boy. Bluto takes it, but when it comes to sex; guess who wins?!

So if you are smarter than me, is that dominance? Maybe, we need better terms. Until then.......

Dominance/leadership is not a bad thing; I fear we put that color to it.

You say that Hemi's mom is the boss dog, what does her dominance/leadership style look like?

Thanks Tric for entertaining my recent questioning mind. I wonder a lot about aggression. Recently there has been a trend in golden retriever "show" people to claim how friendly and perfect their goldens are. They have a close friend of mine worried that his dog had an abnormal temperament because he growled at another male dog. These people claim their dogs never growl or posture and their males could run with any other intact male without a second thought. This seems like abnormal behavior to me. What do you think?

Well socialized intact males can and do get along.

Not all normal dogs like each. Grrr, go away I don't like you is not bad dog behavior in my book. As a trainer I will watch the context of the behavior for repeats, which may mean problem looming. I'd just distract; ask for a sit or a watch me, then reinforce.

The dog that acts out snapping or lunging, that's the problem dog.

I read somewhere that most dog fights involved an adolescent dog. Dogs this age are still unskilled in their language and from what I read post puberty the testosterone level is one and a half times what it will be for the rest of their lives. In beings with such powerful olfactory abilities, that could be a reason for a dog not being liked.

A dog that tells me he doesn't like something gives me an opportunity to shape behavior away from the problem. If a dog plays with kids then growls, he tells me he is sick of them. Tyr, my Rottweiler was like that. He got tired of kids after a while. I taught him to go to his spot/ blanket instead of growling. He was a great dog who never hurt a child.

The growl is verbal in a species that as per Dr. Temple Grandin thinks in pictures, so that makes it an important communication. Personally I like a dog to tell me how he feels.

I can't read the very subtle signals yet. This is getting long, so in another post I'll tell you about the night a gang of a dozen visited Stormy's spot, my house.

Just keep loving those doggies!