Is Your Dog Dominating You?

After watching many episodes of the Dog Whisperer, I have noticed that most behavioral problems are caused by one of two things, either lack of leadership on the owners part, or lack of proper exercise for the dog.

The most common problem is an owner who is dominated by their dog, most of the time the owner is unaware that this is a problem. If you have more than one dog then you must be Number One, and the dogs number two. There is no "pecking order" in a pack. There is one leader and the rest follow.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
1. Do you ever catch yourself saying something like "Oh, my dog won't do that" or "My dog won't allow me to do that"
2. Do you walk your dog or does your dog walk you?"
3. Do you allow your dog to jump up on you to greet you?
4. Is your dog overly aggressive to other dogs or people?

If you answer yes to any of these questions then your dog "owns" you probably also have some sort of behavioral problem with your dog.
Remember dogs either want to lead or be led, it doesn't matter which. They are happy and content in either role as long as that role is clearly defined. Any good trainer can teach you the proper techniques to assert your authority over any dog. Dogs have a keen sense of recognizing how the leader should act, including body posture and voice intonation.

The second problem I have frequently noticed adddressed on this show is lack of proper exercise. This results in a bored dog who will then dig holes, tear up things, or exhibit neurotic behavior like compulsive tail chasing. Many breeds need to work or at least be assigned an important job. If you have a working breed, hearder, or other active breed you are asking for trouble if you expect it to be a docile house dog.
If you don't have time to exercise you dog regularly and at a level to really work your dog then at least walk your dog every day. To increase the workout for you dog consider a backpack with added weight like water bottles. Consult a trainer to determine the best regimen for your dog.

 

Good post Dukesdad, I can honestly say that i can answe no to all of the questions my dogs dont even watch people while they are eating the dogs will actually leave the room.

Would be great to see what others answers are.

Mike

 

Luther is odd so I can say yes and no to those things. For the first question, he does most everything I ask of him, unless he doesn'T know it yet, but he does have things he won't do, like swimming, so I am not sur if that is a yes or a no? Most of the time he walks good for me, but if it has been a busy day, then it is half half, which Iknow is my fault bc I feel guilty I haven't spent enough time with him so if he is excited I let him be. I don'T allow Luther to jump on me unless I have asked, like if I come back from vacation I am happy to see him or if a giant dog wants to play with him and he is afraid I will pick him up (but is that so bad?) But I hate it when dogs jump on people (even if there are little ones) so I really try to discourage it, although some people I know (my fi and his mom) think it is so adorable and encouragte it and give him treats for it (AAARRRGG) But he is never aggressive to anything, I almost worry he is too submissive.

 

I know that sebastain owns me but we are working on it today he did not throw a fit and jump and bark when i got my purse to leave so it's getting better. I think he is calming down now that he is fixed. After the babies are gone my son and i are going to take sebastain and jasmine to training classes at the new pets mart they are opening (walking distance from my house ) he didnt bark like crazy and jump all over me when i came home last night either sometimes when he doesnt do these things i think he doesnt feel good or something lol

 

I will be brave and be the first to admit there are still some issues with my dogs. But if anyone can remember my first post and how much my dogs were out of control, I'd say they've come a long way. They no longer destroy my house, yard, and belongings. This listen to basic commands. They don't get on furniture.

But I have a problem with Reese jumping on people when they come to visit. (Out of excitement) He use to do it non stop, but now it's just once and then when he's commanded, NO, DOWN, he stops. My goal is not to have him do it at all. He has stopped jumping on me.

I have a problem with Grace and walking. She's definately in control there. We are now getting ready for the "Gentle Leader" lesson. I need to plan how and where I'm going to do this. I don't want her breaking away from me.

So, yes, we all need to do more work still. But we've made some great progress.

 

Hmm, very interesting things to consider..

I'm not sure now that I question some of those things.

I have a Siberian Husky, they're very smart, too smart for their own good, but also very stubborn. If they don't see a point to it they're not going to do it. They're escape artists and mine has found a way to open the latch on her gate and let herself in the house through the garage. Very sneaky little girl she is. She doesn't do anything bad once she's in the house, she just goes to my room (because she's learned how to open my door too) and plops down on her bed until I get home. I don't leave her outside too often though, it's just too hot here for her and she's never been destructive or had an accident even as puppy so why not.

I've never thought her as dominant before though. I found it natural of her to think we're mushing off the horizon when she has her harness on but after a firm no and a tug she's usually good. She was very submissive as a puppy in her litter, she was the runt :cry:

She doesn't jump on me though, she'll let me do anything to her like put in her eyedrops (she has glaucoma in her right eye :cry: that was a result of one her infamous escape acts to try to follow me when I left that involved climbing a 5 foot fence and falling on the side of her face, my poor baby) and move her while she's sleeping or take her food or toys away. She insists on following me everywhere, she has a pillow that she drags with her from room to room depending where I am just so she can always lay at my feet. She is definetly a watch dog though. She doesn't like strangers coming in our house and will run to me and let me know when someone is coming up the driveway or at the door, she'll howl the second she hears someone and barks at anyone coming in our house unless it's family members or friends that she's been socialized with before.

She always knows when I'm mad at her though, and won't look me in the eye or walk straight towards, she'll walk in like a curve to me and try to snuggle and wimper. If I move away she'll just scoot closer and closer until she's on my lap and crying, by then I'm usually laughing and hugging her for being so silly. Maybe that's the wrong thing for me to do, but how can you stay mad at them??

 

The only one I have to answer yes to is ? #3.
Yes, not only I allow them to jump to greet me, but it's become sort of like a ritual. Everytime mommy comes home we jump on her to kiss her!!!
.. and I have to admit to it, I just love it... I don't know if I really want to break this habit... :mrgreen:

 

1) Natalie will no longer allow me to cut her nails. However, I do not think this has anything to do with her "dominating" me. I cut a nail too short twice and now she is afraid of getting her nails cut....before that it was never a problem.
2) Natalie and Sebastian walk good once they get past the excitement of getting to go for a walk. If Natalie is very excited and energetic she does tend to pull me down the street. If she is well exercised prior to the walk she walks very good for me.
3) Both dogs are not allowed to jump on me but I still have some issues with them jumping up on stranger that enter the house but outside of the house they don't jump up on strangers.
4) Natalie is very friendly with strangers and other animals. Sebastian is sometimes aggressive towards strangers but this is due to fear from lack of socialization in his previous home IMO. He has made quite a bit of progress over the past 2yrs in this area though.

 

Dogangel, something you can do is to put the jumping up on command, like call it "hugs" or "give me hugs" or something like that, and pat your chest. Then when you come home you can ask for hugs, but your guests won't get them unless they ask as well.

 

:mrgreen: Jamiya,

They never jump on guests. Not even on anybody else in the family (in fact, my hubby is a little jealous about this...). And when I get home I always tell them "Give mommy a kissie-kissie!!!" ... that was at the beginning... now they jump on me before I even say anything... I guess they know they're supposed to give mommy her kissie-kissie.... :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

Well that works, too! What happens if your husband asks them for a kissie kissie?

 

Well, they're happy and all come to him wagging their tails (I should rather say wiggling their butts...he-he), but doesn't get any kissie-kissie!!!!! :wink: Those are only reserved for mommy!!!! :kiss_heart:

 

Nala is really submissive when she goes up to my husband. It sort of annoys me, actually! With me, she feels free to misbehave, even though I am the one that trains her, feeds her, and demands her compliance with obeying commands. Sheesh. Men!!

 

Hello All,

My dog jumps up at people when they come over to visit, we are working on this... But the funny thing is that she doesn't jump on me, but she does my daugther, but not my husband.
Any idea's on what that means?

 

She knows you and your husband are her leaders but she thinks she is the leader with your daughter and strangers. Your daughter may also encourage this behavior and as dogangel said ,she enjoys this behavior. The problem is that visitors to your house may not so the dog should learn to be invited to jump up like Jamiya suggested.

 

i was thinking about a few things today since this topic..

one issue, i have a guest room in my house, and my dog has always been told to stay out of this room, or more specifically, stay off the bed. now, she will never dare jump on my bed unless i give her the command to do so. but i find that when i'm in another room or part of the house, she'll come charging out from the hallway and i know that means she's been on the guest bed. it's not that she likes to sleep on it, or that she has any reason for going in there, but she knows she's not supposed to go in there. when i'm not looking she'll go running in there, jump on it for a second then take off running back out of the room and then lay back down in whatever room i was. it's always obvious what she was doing. but i can't figure out why? almost like she's doing it just to see if she can, or if she's trying to be a little rebel. i don't know if it has anything to do with dominance, or if she's trying to challenge me? is it really that big of a deal, should i be punishing her harsher for this or enforcing it more? the problem is, i can hardly ever catch her in the act, only catch her running out of the room, and because i didn't catch her doing it i always figure it's too late to scold her.

and then another thing, i was just playing with her earlier today and she was growling at me. my friend kept saying how bad it was that my dog did this, and that it meant she was aggressive??

we play tug of war with her favorite toy all the time. but i'm at fault because i started it by making noises and little woofs at her and in return she makes them back while we play, it's just something we always did. huskies are very vocal and she likes to howl or imitate what you say or sing, and when she wants to go out she makes this same funny howling sound every time. but growling is really the only noise she can make while she's biting a toy, and i started it, but is she really trying to be mean to me like my friend said?

if i say drop it or bring it she'll do it right away. i just hope we didn't do anything wrong by trying to "doggy talk" to her i never thought of it before, it was always just funny and she even takes breaks in between to get hugs or give kisses so i don't think she's being bad. maybe my friend just doesn't know what she's talking about? :roll:

 

Natalie and Sebastian both growl when I play with them...its not in an aggressive manner though. I think if someone else heard them doing this they would probably assume they were being aggressive unless they were familiar with my dogs. I've witnessed Sebastian growling aggressively and its not the same as he does when he's playing.

 

1. Not with any of the 5.
2. Goo- pulls on leash, Haley- pulls on leash, Annie- pulls on leash, all 3 allowed to do so, but will stop if told to wait. Casey and Joey- pull sometimes, but not bad.
3. If you were allowing your dog to jump on people, it wouldn't be a case of your dog dominating you :wink: but... Goo- nope (though every so often she'll get excited about going for a walk, jump up and knock me in the eye, she never puts feet on me :roll: ). Annie- nope. Haley- yep, not too often with us anymore, and she won't jump on kids, but she often tries to jump up on visitors, though she's getting better. Casey- nope. joey- nope.
4. Goo- it has 4 legs and doesn't live with us, it better keep its distance, she's afraid of strangers. Haley- even housemates are fair game if she feels like a round or two, but she's not usually aggressive with strange dogs right off the bat, total suck around people. Annie- aggressive to most strange dogs and if there's a fight here, she's right in the middle (she's got decent manners around dogs though, and we're still working on it), doesn't care about people. Casey- no dog or people problems. Joey- no dog problems, shy around strangers. Dog aggression is normal in the first two's breed, we're lucky they get along as well as they do. the third is just a freak of nature, product of bad breeding. No amount of correction or domination is going to make any of the 3 like other dogs.

But, it's also known that even the alpha dog in a pack is not a control freak. Such a dog would probably be overthrown by the rest of the pack and not stay a leader for long. Our dogs do have a pecking order (though we humans have ultimate say, dogs will naturally sort out hierarchy amongst themselves), Goo at the top of both groups, and just watching them interact on any given day, the other dogs seem to walk all over her (sometimes literally :lol: ). When push comes to shove though, she is clearly the one in charge, and the others (with the exception of Haley on one occasion) immediately oblige her. To elaborate, the other dogs can steal Goo's food, her toys, even knock her out of the way while running to get out the door, and won't get more than a disgruntled grunt from her. Yet if one invades while I'm playing with her on the floor, she'll turn around and give them a roar that usually sends them scampering for cover. Getting out the door first, food, and toys aren't important issues for her, and don't warrant a correction in her eyes, attention from her people IS and does. The most dominant dog imagineable may get through life with never an issue if the right button is never pushed.

Re: jumping up... With Haley, I've been standing on her leash when someone comes up to pet her, leaving enough lead not to pull her down, but not enough for her to jump, then ask the people to not pet her until she's sitting. Standing on the leash keeps her from jumping up (I'm only 110 lbs, and Haley's 55-60, so most people should be able to do this without their dog pulling them off-balance), and I hold off the reward (being petted) until she's sitting. I've only recently started this (the jumping had lessened for a while, but started back up again a few months ago), and still forget sometimes to do it, but she has been progressing nicely.

And both the APBTs growl when playing tug, some dogs are just very vocal. They also have a different play growl from their serious growl. I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you and her know it's still a game.

 

Gwen, I don't think play growling while playing is a problem. If your dog was baring her teeth at you and growling in an aggressive way, then yes you have a problem. But many dogs vocalize when playing and people who aren't familiar with it can be scared by the sounds. Nala and Bonnie sound like they are killing each other (and Bonnie even bares her teeth, which used to make me nervous) but they are just playing.

 

Duke and Freckles also play snarling, growling teeth barred, and neck grabbing rough and tumble. You would think they are really fighting if you didn't know they were playing. I don't know how they don't actually hurt each other. I am affraid that they might break a tooth but I have been told that rarely happens. You should see the looks they get at the dog park when they start running side by side fighting each other. If I am near someone who is looking at them I just tell them it's brotherly love.