As two dogs get more familiar with one another, they will learn to look for specific signs that predict how the other is going to react to any given action. For example, if a puppy is brought into a household that already contains an older dog who likes its food but has little interest in toys, the puppy will learn that trying to steal food gets a warning growl but that grabbing a toy from under the other dog’s nose doesn’t. Thus a harmonious relationship should build up between the two, in which each knows and respects the other’s preferences and quirks. The way this happens need not, and probably does not, involve highly sophisticated intelligence on the part of either dog; simple learning is probably sufficient. If there are three or more dogs in the household, however, it is likely that each dog can rely on its observations of the other two interacting, as well as its own interactions with them, as part of the information that it can use to predict how they will behave in a particular situation.
Importantly, when dogs are learning about other dogs, they don’t do so in the same way that humans do when we’re establishing our own relationships. Dogs are unlikely to be able to associate events (unless they occur within a few seconds of each other) or to perform mental time-travel. We have no evidence that dogs can actually think ahead in order to predict what another dog will do next or even recall specific incidents from the past that involved that dog. Rather, they seem to continually refine simple “rules of thumb” that enable them to get along with one another: “Avoid that other dog when he’s eating” or “Playing a tugging game with this dog is fun because he lets me win sometimes, but it’s not fun with that one because he always wants to take the toy away.”
Further observations of dogs’ interactions can provide more clues about how they manage their own behavior when encountering other dogs. Each cycle of refinement of dogs’ “rules of thumb” has a slightly smaller effect than the previous cycle; or, to put it another way, the first few encounters can be crucial in determining the form of a “rule.” Thus, for example, if the older dog had been unwell or in pain when the puppy first came into the house, it may have responded by snapping at the puppy when it came near. The puppy, in its next few interactions with the older dog, might then recall the tinge of fear that it felt in those first few encounters. If by then the older dog was well, and able to behave in a more friendly way, that fear would soon be forgotten. However, transfer this scenario to a dog that the puppy meets only occasionally, perhaps a neighbor’s dog, and the fear may become a permanent fixture of the relationship. Not only that, but the puppy may generalize its fear to all other similar dogs: “Medium-sized brown dogs with bushy tails make me scared.” This feeling may become very persistent if nothing happens to counteract it, emphasizing the need for owners to be careful when introducing a puppy or young dog to other dogs. It can also explain why two otherwise quite well-behaved dogs fight when they first meet, if each has previously developed a fear that is triggered by the appearance of the other. A Labrador that has previously been attacked by a small brown terrier will start to feel anxious whenever it sees a similar dog, and this will quickly become evident from its tense body posture. Moreover, if the terrier that has unwittingly triggered this anxiety has a history that makes it fearful of black dogs, and neither is in a position to back down (e.g., they meet on a narrow path), then both may try to alleviate their fear by turning to anger and attacking each other.
Dogs that live in the same household can usually overcome such setbacks; they literally learn how to get along, in ways that the theory of “dominance” overlooks. To observers, the relationships that arise can look like a set of “dominance relationships,” which taken together look like a “hierarchy.” In my study of French bulldogs, one of the bitches could be described as “dominant” because the other bitches usually (but by no means always) deferred to her. But we have no evidence that the dogs themselves saw it this way. It is much more likely that the other three bitches in the group, one her own daughter and the others older, unrelated animals, each individually remembered her as being grumpy toward them when food appeared. Recalling this would not make them anxious, because their owner saw to it that they got enough to eat, so it would not—and, indeed, did not—cost them anything to give way.
The ways that dogs interact with each other when they meet can thus be explained without reference either to “dominance” in general or to the captive wolf-pack model in particular. Even in groups of dogs that live together, what might appear to be a hierarchical structure is almost certainly a projection of our preconceived notions of canid relationships. There is no evidence to support the notion that all dogs are motivated by the desire to achieve “status” over other dogs; although some dogs undoubtedly appear more competitive than others, in all likelihood they are just more strongly motivated to compete for things they happen to value highly—toys, for example—without being even slightly aware that they are thereby achieving something that we might (misleadingly) label “status.” Of course, we cannot be certain that wolves have this capacity either, so it’s quite possible that their “hierarchies” are also apparent only to us, and not to the wolves themselves. As predicted by the RHP model, each individual dog (or wolf) is likely to be using its experience of previous encounters to gauge how to behave, each time it interacts with another of its own kind; these “rules of thumb” enable it to coexist comfortably with every other individual in its group. The range of experiences each individual can call upon will vary depending on how familiar it is with the other dog, but whether the other individual is totally unknown or a lifelong companion, the dog will use what information it has available to judge the other’s behavior and proceed in the safest but most effective way possible. Consideration for its own safety will inhibit aggression, which is dangerous to both parties, while its experience of previous encounters will cause it to focus on gauging whether the other dog appears interested or uninterested in the resource in question. Thus the majority of encounters between dogs pass without incident, with neither of the participants knowing or caring that their “status,” as some experts would have it, may have been affected.
Unfortunately, the idea that dogs see everything in terms of “status” has been embraced most emphatically in interpretations of relationships between dogs and their owners. In the popular conception of these relationships, the dog perceives the owner as just another member of the pack—and as an obstacle to the dog’s accumulation of “status.” By encouraging owners to believe that their dogs will, at some point, try to “dominate” them and take control of the household, this idea promotes the use of “status reduction” techniques, and physical punishment if these fail. But if the dog has no concept of “status”—and we have reason to believe it doesn’t—then none of these techniques is going to achieve precisely what is intended. Some (especially the punishment) will alter the dog’s behavior, but not necessarily in the desired direction.
Many dog trainers still rely heavily on the idea that most dogs try to control the human families that adopt them. In this way of thinking, dogs must conceive of humans as members of their own species, albeit rather strange two-legged ones, and their behavior toward people must therefore be derived from what occurs in wolf society; this has been termed the “lupomorph” model.7 There may be some truth in this model; after all, if it were completely false such that dogs think of humans as completely distinct from them, then dogs would have to have evolved a totally novel set of behavioral responses toward humans, at an early stage in domestication. But that conclusion seems implausible, given how much overlap there is between the ways dogs interact with humans and the ways they interact with each other. Still, some dog trainers have taken to the extreme the notion that dogs think of humans as being similar to themselves.
The model adopted by many dog trainers has generally followed the outmoded view of dogs as constantly struggling to assert dominance, over their own kind and hence over humans as well.8 In order to account for the generally harmonious nature of most dog-owning ho
useholds, these trainers assume that some dogs automatically “respect” the superior status of their human pack members, possibly because they come to realize that humans are smarter than they are or, alternatively, simply because the humans evidently function like parents in providing food. However, they portray other dogs as attempting to achieve, or actually achieving, dominance over one or several family members and repeatedly exhibiting aggressive behavior in order to affirm their position in the pack’s “social hierarchy.” In this view, the undivided attention that dogs give to their owners and families is unwavering surveillance for an opportunity to increase their position in the hierarchy.
Many dog trainers and behavior experts still wholeheartedly support this concept—despite the fact that science has almost completely repudiated it—and have even come up with rules designed to thwart dogs’ supposed attempts at domination. According to these trainers, the “dominant dog” constantly gives himself away by his body-language. If he puts his chin or paw on his owner’s knee, it means he thinks he’s taking control of his owner’s behavior and, therefore, is on the road toward becoming the pack leader. To forestall this attempt at “domination,” they go on to say, owners should always move the dog’s paw or chin off their leg. However, for some reason such trainers make exceptions for small dogs: Those who are accustomed to sitting on their owner’s laps do not necessarily think they’re dominant. As an additional measure to prevent dogs from assuming “dominance,” owners are urged always to go through doors and gates in front of their dog.9 Some trainers have even come up with elaborate lists of “commandments” that are supposed to stop your dog from thinking it’s dominant over you. One such list is as follows:10
1. Do not allow your dog to eat its meal until you (the top dog) have eaten first.
2. Do not allow your dog to leave the house (den) before you (the top dog) have passed through the doorway first.
3. Do not allow your dog to climb onto the sofa or bed (only top dogs are allowed to rest in the cosiest places).
4. Do not allow your dog to climb your stairs, or to peer at you from the top of the staircase.
5. Do not allow your dog to peer into your eyes.
6. Do not cuddle or stroke your dog.
7. Do not interact with your dog unless you are involved in some kind of training.
8. Do not greet your dog when you come home from work or from the shops, etc.
9. Do not greet your dog first thing in the morning; it should be the one to greet you (the top dog).
10. Do not allow your dog to keep the toy at the end of a game; it will interpret this as winning.
The effects of these “commandments” vary greatly, but none of them are especially constructive. Indeed, if dogs do not have a concept of “status,” and there is no evidence that they do, some of these recommendations will be either harmless or incidentally beneficial to the dog-owner relationship. (For example, many owners prefer not to encourage their dogs to go upstairs or to sleep on their beds with them, though there is no evidence that allowing either would in itself have any effect on their relationship in general.) Others, however, such as the admonishment against cuddling or stroking the dog, seem aimed at taking much of the pleasure out of keeping a dog, turning dog-keeping from a joy into a challenge.
Some of these “commandments” have been investigated scientifically, but none of those examined were supported by the research. In one study, dogs were allowed to win tug-of-war games played with a person over and over again; understandably, this made the dogs more keen to play with people than when they were forced to lose every time, but there were no signs indicating that the dogs became “dominant” as a result. In another study, owners reporting that they always let their dogs win games were found to be no more likely to have disobedient dogs than owners who always insisted on winning, whereas dogs whose owners liked to play contact games, such as rough-and-tumble, were noticeably more attached to their owners than those who were usually kept at arms’ length. Not only were dogs that had been allowed to break the ten commandments listed in the example above not in control of their owners’ behavior, but they were also no more aggressive, which they should have been if their owners had inadvertently given them the green light to take over the household.11
There is one more problem with the dominance theory of training, and it’s especially significant: Even if wolves themselves are inclined to dominate each other, it seems unlikely that domesticated dogs would have retained this desire to dominate. Even if we believe that dogs can only perceive us as if we were other dogs (or wolves), and even if we accept the dubious assertion that canids have a drive to dominate other canids, there is no logical basis for assuming that they would automatically want to control us. Domestication should have favored exactly the opposite: dogs who passionately want us to control them. It seems very likely that, in the early stages of domestication, any dog that tried to take control of the human family that it lived with would have been rejected in favor of one that was more biddable. Thus even if there are some wolves who do have this hypothetical drive to dominate their “pack,” and this character trait is heritable, it seems highly unlikely that wolves with this trait would have contributed significantly to the ancestry of the domestic dog.
It has become abundantly clear that the model upon which many people are training, managing, and simply interacting with their dogs is fundamentally wrong. The traditional “lupomorph” model is contradicted both by the current conception of how wolves actually organize their lives and by the logic of the domestication process—and since it doesn’t explain dog-dog social behavior adequately, it is also highly unlikely to be of any use in explaining relationships between dogs and their owners. Nevertheless, this model is still promulgated by many dog trainers, who use it to justify their methods. These trainers frequently portray owners as misinterpreting their dogs’ motivations and promote the “dominance” model as the only way to restore healthy relationships. At the very least, this approach saps the joy out of dog ownership; at worst, it is used to justify physical punishment as an essential component of training. Many people now think that these punishment-reliant training methods are unnecessarily stressful for the dog. While they may appear superficially effective, such methods often don’t work well in the long term, for reasons that are abundantly clear to those scientists who study how animals learn.
CHAPTER 4
Sticks or Carrots? The Science of Dog Training
Currently, dog training has a high profile in the media; evidently it makes for good TV, as evidenced by the rise of celebrities like Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” and Victoria Stilwell, presenter of “It’s Me or the Dog.” But there is tremendous disagreement among dog trainers about the best approach to shaping dog behavior. A number of high-profile trainers and behaviorists continue to promote the idea that dogs are pack animals and that many can be controlled only through the application of “dominance” theory and the use of physical punishment. For example, Cesar Millan writes: “Dogs have an ingrained pack mentality. If you’re not asserting leadership over your dog, your dog will try to compensate by showing dominant or unstable behavior.”1 Or this from UK “Expert Dog Trainer and Canine Behaviourist” Colin Tennant: “Most dogs will strive to dominate any other dogs or humans with whom they come into contact by body language and/or growling, biting or aggressive physical bullying.”2
Others, such as Karen Prior, Patricia McConnell, and Jean Donaldson, radically disagree with this approach, rejecting the wolf-pack analogy and advocating training dogs as if they were any other animal. Furthermore, they emphasize that training should be based around rewards and abhor the unnecessary use of physical punishment. Dr. Ian Dunbar, one of the originators of this approach, states that compliance, the goal of all dog training, is most often achieved through positive training methods, specifically the lure-reward methods—using treats and praise—that he pioneered. Dunbar, a veterinarian and dog and puppy trainer with more than twenty-five years of
experience, bases his methods soundly on dog psychology, backed up by a doctorate in animal behavior from UC Berkeley and a decade of research on communication and behavior in domestic dogs. The debate between the two camps has at times become heated, even personal. For example, Dunbar has said of Millan: “He has nice dog skills, but from a scientific point of view, what he says is, well ... different. Heaven forbid if anyone else tries his methods, because a lot of what he does is not without danger.”3
These differences of opinion are not just of interest to the dog trainers involved—they have real effects on the welfare of dogs. Every year, many dogs are abandoned, even euthanized, because they have come to behave in unacceptable ways. In many cases, these behavioral problems are the result of inept or inconsistent training. For this reason, it is essential that we try to understand how dogs really learn, and thus which training methods and philosophies are most effective. Getting training right is essential both to the welfare of dogs and to the peace of mind of their owners.
The notion that dogs are wolves under the skin still pervades much of dog training today, despite having been abandoned by the scientific and veterinary communities and an increasing number of dog trainers. The “wolf-pack” approach promotes two interdependent ideas: that dogs, because of their ingrained “pack mentality,” can be controlled only if their owners adopt the role of pack leader, and that the most reliable way to ensure this outcome is by the use of physical punishment. Both of these ideas go back to at least the nineteenth century but were given added reinforcement, or so it seemed at the time, by the studies of captive wolf packs that were conducted in the middle part of the twentieth century. Now that a more accurate picture of wolf society has emerged, based on family ties, the credibility of both ideas has been seriously undermined, yet they are still widely promoted.
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