Understanding the Drives of Protection Training
I have studied the art of protection training dogs since 1974. I have bred over 350 litters of protection dogs and produced over 120 dog training videos, many of them on protection dog training.
When asked, “Where do I start training a protection dog?”, I recommend these two DVDs:
Protection training, when it is done properly, is one of the most demanding and difficult dog training tasks out there. Most dogs can learn obedience, scent work, or agility. But few dogs can be trained in handler protection.
I often hear people say “My dog has not been trained in protection but I know that if someone came after me, he would protect me.” In 99% of the cases, this is wishful thinking. In fact, most dogs, when threatened, will show avoidance and run away, leaving their handler to fend for themselves.
The reason for this is based on the temperament of the dog. In its simplest sense, bite training is founded on the ability of a dog to deal with stress. A good protection dog is taught from a young age to act in an appropriate way when threatened. He is taught that to show avoidance and that running away does not solve his problem.
To be successful in this training, handlers need to have a thorough understanding of the drives that govern a dogs temperament in protection work.
These drives are:
If your goal is to learn how to train a dog in protection work, your job begins by understanding these drives and how they relate to each other. If a trainer does not fully understand drive development, he may as well not even start this work because he is never going to accomplish anything in protection training.
If you are new to this sport, you need to listen to what I am about to say about drives and then either watch my video on the subject (The First Steps of Bite Work) or go to an experienced trainer and learn from them. Every time you watch a dog doing bite work, you should be thinking “What drive is this dog in and why?”
If you can watch an experienced helper work with a dog, you need to be thinking “What drive does the helper have the dog in?”. When he switches drives, you need to try and recognize when that happens and why.
In my video, I will define and demonstrate drives by showing you dogs that have good drives and dogs that lack drive. I want the viewer to recognize when a dog has the potential for protection work. Probably just as important, I want them to understand when a dog has not inherited the necessary drive and therefore cannot be trained in protection work.
Right from the beginning, everyone needs to understand that dogs must inherit the drives for protection work. It is a genetic factor and neither a factor of training nor a factor of breed. In other words, if a dog does not have the genes for protection work, then you are not going to be able to train the drives into the dog. Just because a dog is a German Shepherd does not mean that it can be trained in bite work. That would be like saying that just because I have a horse, I think it can run in the Kentucky Derby.
The first part of the video deals with defining the drives a dog uses in protection work. We then go into the training steps for the dog, the handler, and the helper. To be effective in protection training, the handler and helper must work as a team.
The prey drive is the easiest drive to see and understand in our dogs. It can be recognized in a puppy as early as 6 weeks of age. Prey drive is the desire to chase a moving object, and to grab it and shake it once its caught. Puppies exhibit prey drive when they chase a ball or play tug of war with your pant leg or sleeve. Hunting dogs that retrieve a dummy are also demonstrating prey drive.
When you see a dog chasing a rabbit, a cat, or a Frisbee, you are watching that dogs prey drive in action. In Schutzhund or protection training, when a dog grabs a sack as the helper runs by, it is working in prey drive. When an older dog chases a helper off-leash in an escape bite or a runaway bite downfield, that dog is also working in prey drive.
When a dog is worked in prey, it does not feel threatened. Prey work is a comfortable drive for a dog to be in. Dogs look at prey work as a game. For them, its a game of tug of war. They dont feel stressed when they play tug of war.
Think of a Labrador chasing a ball. It doesnt feel threatened as it chases after its ball. When a dog is biting 100% in prey, it too doesnt feel threatened. The dogs body posture during prey drive is alert, with its tail up or wagging, (this is probably the easiest thing for new trainers to spot), there is no hair up on the dogs back while biting in prey, and it is not growling or showing its teeth. The prey bark is a higher-pitched insistent bark. A dog when barking in prey does not sound or look nervous or stressed.
During bite training, we use prey drive in two ways:
In our training, the prey bite becomes a comfort zone for the dog. Its a place in the work where the dog can calm down without stopping the work. By teaching the dog to move into its prey drive when we want it to, it learns to relax after a particularly stressful training session.
One thing to remember about prey drive is that it is extinguished or is diminished as the dog gets tired. In other words, an exhausted dog does not have much interest in playing tug. This will come into play during our training.
The difficult thing for new trainers to grasp is the fact that as training progresses and a dog gains experience, the picture of a dog working in prey drive will change.
When an uneducated person sees a dog being trained in prey, he would think that this dog is out there actually trying to kill the helper, when in fact, the dog is just playing a rough game of tug with the helper or handler.
Before we move on, lets take one more look at several stages of prey drive. Each dog we see will be doing something different, but all are working in prey. If you are new to bite training, this may seem complicated but hopefully, we will help clear up the confusion as the video progresses.
In the police DPO trials, the helper does an escape and the dog chases him down and apprehends him in prey drive.
Schutzhund is currently going through a series of rule changes concerning the courage test, but the old courage tests started with the helper running away from the dog. When the dog was sent after the helper, the dog was functioning in prey drive.
While all of the dogs we just watched were working in prey, their level of prey, the intensity of the prey work, and the way their prey drive was interacting with the other drives produced different pictures.
For a dog to do police service work, serious personal protection work, or good Schutzhund work, it must have a solid defensive drive.
A dogs defensive drive is the drive to protect itself from a perceived threat. When a young dog is working in its defensive drive, it is not in a comfortable situation. The dog thinks that its in a position where it is being threatened or attacked and as a result, it is stressed. For our training, we want a dog, that even though it is unsure of its position, it will initially react to a limited amount of threat with an aggressive challenge.
This willingness to defend himself is an inherited characteristic. It cannot be trained into the dog no matter how hard you try. If a dog has not inherited the defensive gene, there is no way we are going to make this dog a protection dog. A few good examples of this are most labs, golden retrievers, huskies, or other such breeds. These dogs just dont carry the gene for protection work. The most that can be expected from these dogs is that they will bark at strangers. But when threatened, they will go into avoidance and run.
Even though a dog may inherit the defensive gene, a dogs defensive drive does not start to appear until it reaches puberty. For some dogs, this can be 1 year of age. Defense does not fully develop until a dog reaches mental maturity, this can be as late as 3 years of age, depending on the bloodline.
The picture we see of an untrained dog in defense is a different picture than what we have seen in prey work. Initially, defense is a picture of insecurity. That dogs bark will be deeper and more serious. The hair may be up on his back and he will be showing a lot more teeth in the form of a snarl.
The hair up is a natural reaction to make himself look bigger and more serious. This is a common reaction for animals; we see it with Australian lizards, they have a flap of skin on their neck that flares up to make themselves look more ferocious. Hopefully, this will scare predators away. The defensive bark is a deeper guttural bark. Once you identify it, there is a definite difference in the prey bark and the defensive bark.
In defense, dogs will often carry their tail differently than in prey. The tail will not be wagging as much and will be carried lower than in prey.
A defensive bite is also different than a prey bite. It is done with the front part of the mouth. Often dogs will grip with a full mouth in prey and then only with the front of the mouth in defense. When you hear trainers say that the grip is weakened in defense, they mean the dog is only biting with his front canines and is often chewing on the sleeve.
New trainers should think of the tail and the grip or bite as a temperament barometer. When the dogs tail is up high and wagging, the dog is comfortable with what is going on. As more pressure is added, the tail will wag less, it will come down and the grip will get weaker. If the pressure continues and the dog approaches avoidance, (which is the point where it will run away), the tail will be tucked between his legs.
The safest time to put a dog into defense is after it has reached mental maturity and after it has gone through the foundation work in prey drive.
The defensive drive can begin to show as young as 4 or 5 months of age in the form of barking at strange circumstances. It does not develop to the full extent until the dog is 18 to 24 months old and with some dogs, not until they are 3 years old.
Experienced helpers can begin to introduce a young dog to defense when it reaches puberty. This is usually around 11 to 14 months. New trainers that make the mistake of introducing defense before a dog is mentally mature enough to deal with the pressure are making the biggest mistake of their training career. Pushing a dog into defense before it is mentally mature enough to deal with the stress is the quickest way in the world to end a dogs protection career.
If you have learned anything from this video so far, make sure its this: BE VERY, VERY, CAREFUL OF DEFENSE ON YOUNG DOGS.
Some dogs have excellent prey drive but lack defense. A common example is the black lab that loves to chase balls but could never be trained in protection because it lacks defense.
Unlike prey drive, the defense does not diminish as the dog gets tired. Another way to look at it is that no matter how tired your dog is, it is still going to react to someone that is threatening him.
American bloodline German Shepherds often have some degree of prey drive, but 99.9% of them have little to no defensive drive. Thats why they cannot do Schutzhund work, much less police service work.
Working defensive drive takes a skilled helper that is adept at reading and understanding temperament and knowing exactly how far a dog can be pressured or threatened in defense before it is pushed into avoidance.
As we progress through training, the dogs view of the helper changes. Initially, in prey work, the helper is a friend that plays tug or a person that is always trying to steal the prey. Then in defensive training, the dogs view of the helper changes to a person that brings stress to his life. The helper now threatens him and is someone to be suspicious of.
As the defensive training progresses, the dogs confidence level increases (if he is genetically capable). He is taught how to defeat the helper in every circumstance. These many experiences slowly change the dogs view of the helper. He begins to see the helper as a fighting partner, as someone to get mad at, and not someone to be nervous about. When this begins to happen, we say that the dog is developing fight drive.
We define fight drive as the interaction of prey and defense where the dog carries the forwardness of prey with the intensity of defense.
The of a dog working in fight drive is an adult dog with a great deal of self-confidence in all environments and every circumstance. Its a dog that does not look or act insecure during his protection work. The level of intensity during bite work is very high. The dog will display a tenacity towards fighting that is not seen in younger, immature dogs.
The only way that a dog can gain fight drive is through experience and training. They dont just wake up one morning when they are 3 years old and have fight drive. Dogs need to go through a sound foundation of prey drive development and then, at the correct time, they must be introduced to a step-by-step defensive training program. It is important to understand that only dogs with good genetics and proper training will develop fight drive.
An interesting fact is that dogs with strong prey drive develop the best fight drive We also see dogs with dominant temperaments develop fight drive.
When you hear people talk about fight drive being defense, they are not exactly correct. The difference in the two drives is the way in which the dog views the helper and the comfort level of the dog during the work.
Remember this distinction: A dog with fight drive views the helper as a fighting partner. When he sees the helper, he gets mad, he wants to take the fight to the helper. New trainers are going to have a difficult time differentiating between a dog that barks in prey versus a dog that barks with the intensity of defense and a dog that is barking in fight drive. Dont worry, this is only normal. Every new trainer goes through this confusion. It took me a long time to get this clear in my head. As you gain experience, your skill at recognizing these drives will improve.
Avoidance is most commonly used in obedience training. It is a drive we do not want to bring into protection training.
When the stress level becomes too high for the nerves of a particular dog, it will turn and retreat. When that happens, the dog is in avoidance. Some people think of avoidance as a drive. I prefer to think of it as a form of defense. It is defense in the extreme. After all, isnt the safest defense an effective retreat?
Once a dog is put in full avoidance, it instantly learns that this is an easy way to deal with pressure. It can take months to bring a dog back to the point you were at just before he broke and ran.
When we talk about avoidance, we also need to talk about being hesitant. There is a difference. Being hesitant is when a dog takes a step back to evaluate whats going on when he is stressed. This usually happens with young dogs that are raised to a new level of stress. Being hesitant is not bad. In fact, it is actually good. When the dog overcomes his hesitation and learns how to deal with the new situation, it becomes a stronger, more confident dog.
A dog in avoidance will tuck its tail between its legs, lay its ears back, get its hair up on his back and run. A dog that is unsure will not have its tail between its legs. It may come down a little but it will not be tucked. He may look a little confused but he will not look afraid. There is a difference here.
Trainers need to develop the skill to recognize the difference between being hesitant and avoidance. During later stages of training, we will intentionally put a dog in this unsure area and make him learn how to fight his way out of it.
Statistics show that nearly 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year and that only 1 out of 5 of those bites require urgent medical attention. It is important however to analyze the reason behind that bite.
Some signs to look for if you encounter a strange dog, an injured dog, or even your dog, is direct eye contact. This is the dogs way of challenging you; they are in charge and they are in control. Their tail will be up and they will be sniffing. They will bear their teeth, growl or even bark. Their legs will be apart and they will push their chest out to make himself appear more threatening or bigger. Their ears will be up and alert.
A dog is always capable of biting given the circumstances. Many dog bites can be prevented if we use common sense in dealing with strange dogs. We are all guilty of seeing a dog and wanting to instinctively pick him up or pet him. You do not know this dog or how he may react to a stranger invading his space so abruptly. Take a beat and think before you react. If you have young children this is a vital lesson to teach them when dealing with any animal.
These are some of the main signs a dog will show when they are about to bite:
If a dog inflicts a serious bite, the next step will be with an animal behaviorist for evaluation. The dog will then be trained to react differently to changing stimuli. If the trainer deems the dog safe to return home, this is wonderful news.
Dog Possessiveness Can Cause Dog Bites
Protection of property is a common issue and “property” in this case can be anything from toy, food, territory or even a human being. Guard dogs and herding breeds tend to be the worst offenders but this behavior can arise in any dog. Start training early to minimize this kind of possessive behavior. Teaching the “Leave it” command works well in preventing toy aggression. Food aggression can be avoided by teaching your dog to wait while you put their food down. Teach them to sit or lie down and then remove their food and then put it back. Approach the food bowl and occasionally add treats to the food so they understand that someone approaching the bowl is not a bad thing. Teach children not to bother dogs that are eating or enjoying a treat such as a bone.
Fear is usually directed towards strangers such as veterinarians and postal workers or in unfamiliar situations. Never approach an unfamiliar dog and teach your children to do the same. Fear bites can occur when a dog is startled at home therefore teach children never to sneak up on a dog or bother a sleeping dog. Early socialization is important so that the young dog is exposed to many different people, animals and situations minimizing the risk of a phobia developing. For example, make your first visit to the vet a simple social visit to get a feel for the clinic and meet the veterinary staff. Leave some treats and a note in the mailbox asking your postal worker to give a treat to your puppy.
Dog BITES Its Owner! How I Fix It Quickly!
“When I’m training a dog I develop a relationship with that dog. He’s my buddy and I want to make training fun,” says Dr. Ian Dunbar. “Training a dog to me is on a par with learning to dance with my wife or teaching my son to ski. These are fun things we do together. If anyone even talks about dominating the dog or hurting him or fighting him or punishing him, don’t go there.”
Dr. Dunbar is perhaps the world’s most respected authority on dog training and behavior, combining sound scientific theory and gentle common sense implementation. He was “dog whispering” long before Cesar Millan.
In part one of this interview, Dr. Dunbar, founder of Sirius Dog Training in the San Francisco Bay Area, talked about the crucial importance of early training and socialization for young puppies. Here in the conclusion, he shares the nuts and bolts of training dogs of all ages, including some counter-intuitive advice about bites.
A disclaimer: Dr. Dunbar is a trained professional with decades of experience, so use caution and common sense when applying any of his methods, especially with a “reactive” dog or a dog you don’t know. When in doubt, consult with a professional trainer. For more information, please refer to Dr. Dunbar’s many books and videos, as well as his information-packed website, DogstarDaily.com
Ian Dunbar: I grew up on a farm and my grandfather quit school when he was 12, but when it came to common sense and animals, he was the smartest person I’ve ever met, before or since. He taught me that to touch an animal is an earned privilege. It’s not a right.
With every animal you have to build its confidence around people because people do some crazy and stupid things. You don’t want a 1,000 pound horse taking on a person, because the person is going to lose. This is common sense animal handling. This has disappeared from dog ownership and we have to bring it back.
ID: Training is about giving your dog social savvy and confidence so that your dog is cool in your house and you can walk him so that he can greet anyone.
Manners: Come, stay, sit when greeting people. You can teach that in a couple of days.
Behavior: Chewing, digging, barking, house soiling. The longer the dog has been doing it or the older the dog, the longer this is going to take.
ID: If a dog is fearful and you pick it up at three months of age, it’ll take a week to resolve this problem. A five-month old dog? It’ll take you three-to-six months. An eight-month old dog? Probably a couple of years. And the dog is never going to be what it would have been in terms of being confident around people
ASJ: Is part of the problem that people let the puppies get away with everything and don’t get serious about training until they’re almost full grown.
I know you’re all going to go Awwwwwww. But here’s what I see. Underneath is a bladder and bowels and teeth. He’s deceptively cute, but he’s filling up with urine that needs to be deposited somewhere. And we have these teeth, and this little puppy soon have massive teeth like this. And I show them a picture of an adult dog’s mouth.
Everything your puppy does, I want you to visualize him doing that as an adult animal doing that. If it’s not appropriate simply say, “Puppy, we don’t do that here. We don’t jump on people or grab their trouser leg or bite their hair or growl when they’re taking a bone. Why? Because that would be one hell of a problem if an adult dog did that.
But it is the most difficult thing to sell, that prevention is easier, quicker and safer than cures. My whole life has been about preventing these utterly predictable and all too common problems. But it’s a difficult sell.
ID: This all started when I had a malamute puppy and they told me I had to wait until he was six months to a year old to take him to training class. I thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard. I have a malamute and if I wait until then the dog will be completely uncontrollable. So I started my own puppy kindergarten classes and they became instantly successful, and it spread round the world.
This is the last thing I want to do in my career. I want to wind the clock back earlier. I want people to know that puppy class is brilliant, but it’s too little, too late. (For more about the importance of puppy socialization, see part one of this interview with Dr. Dunbar.)
ID: It’s very good to look for a trainer as you’re looking for the puppy, to help you choose the puppy, and have an in-home consultation the first day you have the puppy.
ID: The best place to go is the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, they’re the largest pet dog trainer association in the world. They have a trainer search and you can just punch in your zip code.
ID: You have a broad spectrum of trainers. You have some brilliant ones and some real dunces. When interviewing a trainer I would start by going to the website. Again, common sense prevails. Are they using methods that seem okay with you? If you like what you see, call them up and see what they’re trying to teach. Don’t be afraid to ask questions: How many dogs have you trained? Can I meet them? Can I meet your dogs? Can I walk with your dogs?
ID: I’m always results based, so I would go and audit a puppy class. The very first dog training class I went without my dog. I thought “Some stuff is good, but some stuff I’m just not going to do with my dog.”
I explained that to the trainer, although I let her off the hook by saying I wasn’t feeling well and I might need to sit down.
That was my way of saying I don’t want to pinch my puppy’s ear to get him to retrieve or jerk him or hang him or roll him over on his back.
Ian Dunbar: Training is not one hour a week on Thursday evening. You go to a class so that you can be with a trainer and they can see what you’re doing and if they see if are any problems they can nip them in the bud.
ASJ: There are a lot of gimmicks in pet training, but your methods are quite straightforward.
ID: Training a puppy is like raising a child. Every single interaction is a training opportunity. When they greet people nicely that you say “Good dog, you were very good greeting that elderly gentleman or that little girl.” Or “I like the way you sniffed that dog’s butt.”
ID: You don’t train a dog in a training hall, jerking his neck or even giving him food treats. You train him using life rewards. You ask him to sit and you let him come up on the couch. You ask him to sit and you pet him or give him a tummy scratch.You ask him to sit, you throw a tennis ball. You ask him to sit and you let him get in the car. Before you know it, when you say “Sit” the dog says “Good call. I love it.” When you do this, you end up with a dog that enjoys doing what you what you want him to do.
ID: I don’t want to have an argument with a dog. But you do have to get the dog to understand that you can’t run up to people and knock them down. You can’t steal people’s sandwiches. You can’t growl at them and bite them.
But the way we educate is by explaining things to them calmly, and rewarding them. This is what’s really missing: Rewarding them for getting it right. We don’t reward enough when the dog gets it right.
ASJ: If you miss that window of opportunity it can take a long time to train an older dog.
ID: We just adopted a 10-month old Beauceron, a outdoor dog. I told my wife it’s not going to be house trained, not chew-toy trained, it will probably be a deer chaser. It will be crazy. It will have no manners. It may not be socialized.
We found out it was socialized to dogs and people, but all the other stuff was true. How long did it take to house train it? I would say we’ve just about done it. A year. A year of constant work with a ten-month-old dog.
ASJ: But if you’re patient, you can train a dog to do pretty amazing things.
ID: My wife couldn’t believe it, but I have “no pee” zones on the walk. If we’re walking on someone’s lawn I say “no pee.” I don’t want him peeing on the lawn. It’s rude and it destroys the lawn. But as soon as he’s left the lawn I show him he can mark a telegraph post.
ASJ: So how would you deal with a puppy that, say, growls when you take away his bone?
A smart person, when they get a dog, is going to say, “I’ll bet money that this critter will bark and chew things and protect his bone.” An intelligent person would feed the dog only from chew toys so he’s being continually rewarded for lying down quietly so he doesn’t develop a recreational barking habit, and, of course, understands that you dont want to steal his bone.
ID: If we haven’t done that, and the puppy growls at me I would just say “Give me that bone, you fool.” A four-month old puppy is not going to kill you. I would just let him know that growling is inappropriate, “May I have the bone please?”
I’d say come here, and sit and I’d give him a treat and I’d give him the bone back and I would ask him for the bone again, in exchange for a treat. Now the dog thinks “These people are very interesting. They’re not trying to steal my bone. They’re just very polite. They just want to hold my bone while I eat a tastier treat and then they give it back.”
That’s the short-term approach, which is simple with a small puppy, and not so simple with an older dog.
ID: But the long term is that this puppy feels the need to growl and snap at you—a person–this puppy feels insecure around you. Oh, my word, You’ve got to do some catch-up. He needs to understand that you’re not going to hurt him, you don’t want to steal his bone. You’ve got to give him some confidence.
Again, prevention is the best approach. If between eight weeks and 12 weeks we had 100 people giving this puppy a bone and taking it away, you’re not going to have this problem with this dog.
ID: The question is not “Is the dog reactive?” Most dogs, like most people, are reactive.
If it causes damage you’re pretty much screwed. It means the dog did not develop bite inhibition in puppyhood. And there’s no way to teach the dog bite inhibition safely. And there’s no way to teach the dog bite inhibition toward dogs and other animals at all.
There ain’t no cure. The only thing you can do is manage it, keep him indoors and never let him off leash. Or euthanize him. I grade bites on a scale from one to six and once you move from a three to a four, there’s nothing you can do for this dog. He’s going to die.
ID: The importance of puppy class is that puppies bite other puppies in play and they learn that their bites hurt because they have needle sharp teeth. So they learn to inhibit the force of their bites before they develop strong jaws. If they don’t learn that, the dog is screwed. There’s no magic here.
ID: I’ve adopted three dogs in my life, Ashby, Claude and Zou Zou. And all of these dogs did the same thing when I first met them did the same thing: they bit me.
When we were going up to meet Zuzu the Beauceron, we agreed to meet at a dog park. Midway through the visit, I said to my wife, “Just so you know, Zou Zou bit me.” And she said “Ah, thank goodness.”
ID: The rationale there is that she’s a 10-month old adolescent and she bit me in play. I’m happy about her bite inhibition. If she hadn’t have bitten me I wouldn’t have known. What would she do if she reacts? Would she hurt someone? Would she break the skin?
ID: It’s the good news and the bad news about bites. It’s bad that it happens, because the dog is upset and stressed and lacks confidence and it felt the need to bite. That’s bad.
ID: When I met Ashby, I fed him some food. He took the food and he bit me.
When I met Claude he was going to be euthanized the next day because he had bitten someone at the San Francisco ASPCA. I looked at the woman’s arm and there wasn’t any damage at all. So I went in to see him and started pushing his buttons, which was pretty easy. Touch his collar, you get bitten. Touch his butt, you get bitten.
He bit me four times. I said “Great, we’ll take him.” Why? The bites don’t hurt. We have a dog who’s scared and reactive, but he’s safe. And he’s proven safe. Four times he’s gone off and he hasn’t caused any damage.
Think of a human analogy: Let’s say you go into a biker bar and you insult a guy’s motorcycle. You can have two kinds of reactions. One can be “You’d better not say that again.” That’s cool. The other one is he pulls a knife and stabs you.
In shelters, I’m convinced they kill all the wrong dogs, and adopt out dogs that aren’t tested. If the dog snaps, they’ll euthanize it. I think—he snaps, thank goodness he’s only snapping.
ASJ: What about these trainers that are always talking about “pack order” and “being the alpha dog” even though you’re a person?
ID: Training is training. If you want to train a dog to be friendly with people or sit or shush, let’s do it.
But instead we get into these wooly topics. It’s all sexy psychology. People love to think you have to pretend you’re a wolf to train your dog. Or it’s a pack thing. Or pretend you’re the dog’s mother. It’s like people are scared of common sense.
Aren’t dogs pack animals? Actually no. Domestic dogs live in houses often alone. Shouldn’t we treat them like their mothers or like wolves, and bite them on the neck and wag our tails or lift our legs to pee? This stuff is ridiculous. The dog knows we’re not its mother.
ASJ: So we don’t need to be dominant and have our dog be submissive to us ?
ID: The whole dominance thing is so misunderstood. I spent 10 years researching the development of social hierarchies in domestic dogs. I’m probably the only person in the world who spent 10 years doing this as part of a 30-year study.
Dogs don’t dominate each other physically. Where did this crap come from? Allen, I want to bang my head against a brick wall. It insults the dog. Their social structure is so intricate.
Physical weight is important in puppyhood but after 10 weeks old it has to do with your personality, your confidence, and, yes, your age. That’s how we develop hierarchies. We don’t have an adult dog squishing a puppy. It doesn’t happen.
ASJ: Do you think that dog owners can see through these fads and come back to that kind of common sense animal handling that your grandfather taught you?
ID: I have so much faith in the general public when they’re educated. They control the market. So I ask them common sense questions like “Do your really want to hurt your puppy? Do you really want to hurt your dog?” Armed with that knowledge they ask questions of the professionals—the breeders, trainers, and veterinarians. And bit by bit I think it’s slowly going to change how people think.