dog experts debunking dominance

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"If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

Since the 1980s, the idea of "dominance" has become overwhelmingly popular in thinking about dogs.  While dominance would certainly appear to be relevant to dogs, ideas about this have been simplistic and sometimes just plain baseless.  Ethologists tell us that much of the discussion has been based on inaccurate observations of captive wolves, incorrectly extrapolated to wild wolves and then misapplied to the distinctly different critter, the domestic dog.  For a good discussion of the problems with dominance theory, see Carmen Buitrago's article Debunking the Dominance Myth.

Reality TV-style dog training guru Cesar Millan has made "dominance" a household word, but legions of authorities in the worlds of dog training and dog behavioral studies have much to say about the problems with his approach.  For more on this, see articles by widely published dog trainer Victoria Stilwell and by animal behaviorist, trainer and author Patricia McConnell, in the September/October 2011 issue of Bark.  The issue is also discussed in a recent Bark interview with John Bradshaw (see http://thebark.com/content/qa-dog-sense-author-john-bradshaw). Another dominance detractor is Alexandra Horowitz, the well-known scientist and author of  the new book on doggie cognition, Inside of a Dog.

Jean Donaldson's 12- year-old classic on dog training using behavioral principles and positive reinforcement, Culture Clash, is brilliant, logically tight, scientifically rigorous, passionate and often very funny. It includes a short discussion on dominance. Now, with Ian Dunbar, she has produced a DVD critiquing the Millanesque idea of dominance, Fighting Dominance in a Dog-Whispering World.