Getting Along: A Demystification of Dominance - a podcast by Ty Brown

With this post, I want to talk about myths surrounding the topic of dominance.


Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of truisms like “You can’t let your dog on the couch,” “You have to eat before your dog,” “You need to make sure your dog moves out of your way when you’re walking, rather than stepping around them,” or “You can’t play tug-of-war with your dog—and you definitely can’t lose.” You’ve probably heard some of these things too.


Many of those tips are actually just myths. If you’re doing the right things with your dogs—establishing a good relationship, teaching obedience, instilling impulse control—then there is a decent chance that inviting your dog onto the couch or losing at tug-of-war is perfectly fine. It’s not wrong to eat before your dog, but there are so many things that are far more right.


We give a social hierarchy checklist that we give for our clients, which outlines things like keeping your dog off the bed and making sure that you walk through doorways first. Those recommendations are absolutely true when they need to be, and there are two specific situations when they need to be true.


The first situation is an owner who isn’t following through on obedience training in the way that they should. They aren’t promoting the correct relationship with their dog, and as a result they need to use these little tips to keep their social hierarchy in the right place: owner as the leader, and dog as a happy follower.


However, some people need this checklist because their dog is, by nature, more dominant than most. “Dominant” is itself kind of an overused buzzword, but in this case it refers to a dog that’s willing to push to get their way. Most living creatures—including dogs—don’t want to upset the balance of a social situation. They realize that if they’re too pushy, things might not go their way. But some dogs are more dominant and will do whatever it takes to get their way. Those kinds of dogs need their owners to follow this checklist: stay off the couch, walk without pulling, wait at doors, don’t jump on people.

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