The Concept Formerly Known As "dominance"

[BJean]

Actually I think the problem comes with a definition describing a relationship, where that defintion does not take into account what a dominant dog actually is.

Have you read the article lilli, I'm curious?

Yes I have read the article, including the excerpt below.

In reality, there is no such thing as a 'dominant personality'. Dominance is a relationship between individuals, not a description of a temperament.

Just because a supposed expert claims something, does not make it correct.

There are other experts who claim the opposite.

I'm one to listen to the expert with the actual field experience in that particular area.

I'd like to know how many contact hours she has spent working with bloodlines / breeds known for producing dominant individuals.

ie: working line GSDs/rottis/malinois; Anatolian; Central Asian; Caucasian.

RE the Anatolian, Central Asian and Caucasian

experienced breeders/owners will tell you that dominant personalities exist; long time breeders in Siberia and Kazakhstan

base their breeding on this for the work their dogs have to do.

Photo of izcim in Kazakhstan with some dogs.

Their lives are so entwined as to be inter-dependent

Edited April 10, 2010 by lilli

[corvus]

Just because a supposed expert claims something, does not make it correct.

There are other experts who claim the opposite.

I'm one to listen to the expert with the actual field experience in that particular area.

I'd like to know how many contact hours she has spent working with bloodlines / breeds known for producing dominant individuals.

ie: working line GSDs/rottis/malinois; Anatolian; Central Asian; Caucasian.

She's not just a supposed expert. She has a PhD in ethology. If I remember correctly her PhD was on human verbal communication with animals. She looked at people all over the world that had been working with animals for generations to see what kinds of noises they made to their animals. She has been taking on aggressive dog cases for a long time. You may have noticed that she didn't by any means deny that there are individuals that tend to get what they want, or individuals that tend to approach with dominant signals, or individuals that seem to be natural leaders. What she was saying about dominant personalities is that it's not what dominance means. It describes a single interaction, not an entire personality. I see what you are saying, because I have been quite happy to describe some dogs as having aggressive personalities, but McConnell's point is that we have to be strict with how we use this word because it seems so easy to misuse it and consequently cause problems for dogs. Some people like having dogs with dominant personalities and look for them. Those people are going to be quite comfortable with calling a dog dominant in general, but most of the rest of the world has been taught to believe that a dominant dog is big trouble. I think it is for this problem that McConnell (and others) have been trying to get across that describing a dog as dominant is not the correct use of the word. McConnell's latest blog entry considers the problem of what we should call dogs that we would otherwise call dominant.

[Prydenjoy]

She's not just a supposed expert. She has a PhD in ethology.

Agreed. I read her book, it was very interesting. I have a lot of respect for what the lady has to say ;)

[Zug Zug]

Some of the discussion above seems to focus on 2 different ways of understanding dominance.

One being 'dominance is a relationship between individuals' - i.e. dominance/submissiveness exist on a spectrum and are therefore exhibited to various degrees by all dogs.

The other being 'a dog is either truly dominant or it's not' - i.e. you're not really dominant unless you exist right at the edge of that spectrum.

I would have thought the first approach was more correct, and better describes why some dogs exhibit dominance in some situations (and social groups) but not in others (where there may be another more dominant individual at play). One of the points of debate is to what extent dogs consider humans to be part of their dominance relationships, and to what extent we are external to their hierarchy of relationships. For my part, I think if we share a home we share a hierarchy - but I think Patricia McConnell would challenge that view.

My interpretation of Patricia McConnell's writing is that she actually wants to bring the word 'dominant' back into the language we use. In her book she complains that it's essentially become a dirty word, mainly due to misuse and resulting mistreatment of dogs (example: alpha rolling dogs), and that we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater by dropping the word (and therefore the concept) from our discussions about dogs.

The way I read her writing, she thinks we do need to understand dominance to really understand dog behaviour.

[Erny]

Some of the discussion above seems to focus on 2 different ways of understanding dominance.

One being 'dominance is a relationship between individuals' - i.e. dominance/submissiveness exist on a spectrum and are therefore exhibited to various degrees by all dogs.

The other being 'a dog is either truly dominant or it's not' - i.e. you're not really dominant unless you exist right at the edge of that spectrum.

I would have thought the first approach was more correct, and better describes why some dogs exhibit dominance in some situations (and social groups) but not in others (where there may be another more dominant individual at play).

But if that's the case, what would you make of a statement saying "the dog comes from a lineage of dominant dogs" ??

My interpretation of Patricia McConnell's writing is that she actually wants to bring the word 'dominant' back into the language we use. In her book she complains that it's essentially become a dirty word, mainly due to misuse and resulting mistreatment of dogs (example: alpha rolling dogs), and that we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater by dropping the word (and therefore the concept) from our discussions about dogs.

;) ..... Her opinion (although I was unaware of it) is the same as what I have always upheld.

[corvus]

..... Her opinion (although I was unaware of it) is the same as what I have always upheld.

Her opinion is clear in the blog entries under discussion. Maybe you should read it seeing as you are participating in the discussion.

Moosemum: ***I did not read that in a scientific paper,but an article written by a bloke who adopted a wolf into his family in the 70s.He observed a wild wolf family pack to try to get a better understanding of pack dynamics and how a wolf could fit into his own family.

In the group he observed there was one pup who was overly aggressive with its littermates,constantly and viciously attacking them.

The male was seen to discipline this pup several times before killing it.

I have heard similar stories from native americans and people in a position to observe,but nothing I can provide a direct reference to,sorry.

My own bitch killed and devoured a pup at 3 days old.In the beginning it was treated as all others.I noticed at 2 days old it moved in a very frienzied manner when ever disturbed and examined it for any physical defects or abnormalities and could find nothing.Eating and defecating normaly,but mum grew more upset at its behaviour till I started to wonder should I remove it.I went back out to look again and mum had already disposed of it.

Okay, fair enough. Anecdotal evidence is worth exploring. My friend was telling me recently that mother dogs will bring crying pups back to the den in the first few weeks of their life, but stop doing it quite suddenly. I think there are windows in which things like killing and eating puppies occurs if there is something wrong with the puppy. What was wrong with it is pure speculation, though. That kind of thing is seen quite often in nature. For example, birds will abandon a nest in the first few days of building if they are disturbed much, but after that it's not nearly so likely. There's a lot of threshold stuff in animal behaviour. They were talking about it on Catalyst last Thursday with group decisions. Cool stuff.

[Erny]

Her opinion is clear in the blog entries under discussion. Maybe you should read it seeing as you are participating in the discussion.

And perhaps I've been a bit too busy to do that, just yet, Corvus? Are you saying that anyone who hasn't read the blog entry yet is not to post here, even if the post does appear to have some relevance? Why do you have to sound rude/arrogant when it's not even called for?

ETA: Or perhaps it's just the way I've read it, sporting as I am a stinking headache ?????

Edited April 11, 2010 by Erny

[moosmum]

Well I agree I have been misusing the word "dominance".

A better description for what I've been calling a dominant dog might be a highly intelligent,decisive dog.An intitiator able to make quick judgments and act independently.Or some thing along those lines

But thats a lot of words and I sure can't think of another to say all those things. Thats, about the only way around it.

Dominance is often the way those qualities are expressed for results. Acts of Domince should not form the whole basis of the description.Its an act,not the dog.

So it seems a new descriptive word is needed here. If enough people can ever agree we are describing the same thing.

[Erny]

Well I agree I have been misusing the word "dominance".

A better description for what I've been calling a dominant dog might be a highly intelligent,decisive dog.An intitiator able to make quick judgments and act independently.Or some thing along those lines

But thats a lot of words and I sure can't think of another to say all those things. Thats, about the only way around it.

Dominance is often the way those qualities are expressed for results. Acts of Domince should not form the whole basis of the description.Its an act,not the dog.

So it seems a new descriptive word is needed here. If enough people can ever agree we are describing the same thing.

What about "learnt dominance" or "relational dominance" or "learnt relational dominance" ? :p

ETA: I have known a good number of dogs that I would not regard as dominant no matter which way you look at it, yet could be described with the words you have used above.

Edited April 11, 2010 by Erny

[moosmum]

Adaptive relational dominance?

Edited April 11, 2010 by moosmum

[moosmum]

Well I agree I have been misusing the word "dominance".

A better description for what I've been calling a dominant dog might be a highly intelligent,decisive dog.An intitiator able to make quick judgments and act independently.Or some thing along those lines

But thats a lot of words and I sure can't think of another to say all those things. Thats, about the only way around it.

Dominance is often the way those qualities are expressed for results. Acts of Domince should not form the whole basis of the description.Its an act,not the dog.

So it seems a new descriptive word is needed here. If enough people can ever agree we are describing the same thing.

What about "learnt dominance" or "relational dominance" or "learnt relational dominance" ? :p

ETA: I have known a good number of dogs that I would not regard as dominant no matter which way you look at it, yet could be described with the words you have used above.

Yeah,I left out the dominince bit:rofl:

[corvus]

Her opinion is clear in the blog entries under discussion. Maybe you should read it seeing as you are participating in the discussion.

And perhaps I've been a bit too busy to do that, just yet, Corvus? Are you saying that anyone who hasn't read the blog entry yet is not to post here, even if the post does appear to have some relevance?

Gah! See that's exactly the problem! It's so frustrating. It's not relevant if you're not on the same page. This is exactly WHY McConnell wrote it and published it. It's kind of like a slap in the face to post it and have someone come on and go off on a dominance tangent, suggest to them a couple of times that they read the blog under discussion because their arguments don't really relate to what is on the blog, then have someone finally have to quote part of the blog for them so they can go "Great! I agree!" and then apparently I'm the rude one for suggesting again that they read the blog. And you wonder why I sometimes come off a bit short and arrogant?? I thought I was actually being quite restrained and polite. And this is me being frustrated. If you find that rude and arrogant, please consider my point of view. Is it so unreasonable to ask you to read the blog we are discussing? Please? It's really good! I promise it's worth it.

*deep breath*

As for consistently dominant behaviour related to personality, I think you describe the personality aspects relevant to what you're trying to say. How often do you need to boil down a dog's personality to one word? Erik is alternatively "enthusiastic", "very motivated", "pushy", "an obnoxious twat", "outspoken", "enterprising", "far too clever" or "overly confident" depending on what exactly I'm trying to describe. When people meet him and think he looks fun and ask me what he's like to live with I usually say "He's a firecracker", which sums up nicely all that energy and enthusiasm as well as the attitude. I wouldn't say he's dominant because we have it managed pretty well and it doesn't really feature in life with Erik. If given the opportunity, he would take whatever he wanted whenever he wants, but he doesn't have that opportunity, so the word isn't really a good description of his personality. That's the way I see it, anyway.

McConnell has added a third entry to her blog that talks a bit about the problems of finding words to describe dogs we used to describe as dominant. The message I took home from it was that it's not something we really have words for at the moment. I figure, considering different people interpret "dominant" as incorporating different traits anyway, it's probably not that useful.

[Erny]

Gah! See that's exactly the problem! It's so frustrating. It's not relevant if you're not on the same page. This is exactly WHY McConnell wrote it and published it. It's kind of like a slap in the face to post it and have someone come on and go off on a dominance tangent, suggest to them a couple of times that they read the blog under discussion because their arguments don't really relate to what is on the blog, then have someone finally have to quote part of the blog for them so they can go "Great! I agree!" and then apparently I'm the rude one for suggesting again that they read the blog. And you wonder why I sometimes come off a bit short and arrogant?? I thought I was actually being quite restrained and polite. And this is me being frustrated. If you find that rude and arrogant, please consider my point of view. Is it so unreasonable to ask you to read the blog we are discussing? Please? It's really good! I promise it's worth it.

*deep breath*

Corvus .... you are being somewhat melodramatic . Be careful not to hyperventilate. I responded to someone else's post within the thread. Not yours. I'll read the blog when I can. But not because you told me to or because you decide that you find frustration in people not doing what you say.

Edited April 11, 2010 by Erny