At its base level, communicating with animals is fairly simple on a one to one basis. Needs must be met, comfort and safety assured, fear addressed and removed, and then communicate away! But for some reason when we start discussing animal learning and training, words become loaded, temperatures rise and the semantics of how we describe what we're doing becomes all important.
Words like leader, dominant, submissive, command, cue, positive, negative, respect or phrases like 'purely positive', 'only treat based' or 'negative reinforcement only' all carry emotive loads and can be wielded as tools of superiority over people who adhere to 'opposing' training points of view.
When we start talking about management styles and words like shoes, barefoot, harness, prong collar start coming into play, the temperature rises further.....
In the grand scheme of things, I would say, that as long as fear is nowhere around, confusion is nowhere around and the animal is treated with dignity which includes the allotment of a management routine that maximises their free time as exactly that - free to live as nature intended as much as possible, we're probably on the same page.
I also know that my laissez faire attitude to other people's opinions comes from a place of never ending learning and a desire to be the very best animal communicator/people teacher/animal psychologist/animal trainer I possibly can be. To do that I have to listen to other people's experiences. I then apply my own filter of 'does what they're saying adhere to my principles of fairness and treating all life with respect'? and 'can I learn anything from this person?'. If my answer is no to either of those questions, I may not want to hang around with that person, but there's NO point in me trying to alter their view by criticising them. They treat animals in a way that is indicative of their level of learning and life experiences.
No more, no less.
Now let's take a look at words I like to use to describe my relationship with the animals in my life.
If I have a young animal in my life, I see myself as their mentor in human society. If they want (or have) to live in human society, it's my job to ensure they understand as much as possible what is to be expected of them and how to behave in various situations. The more situations I can take them into and teach them what to do with, the better they should be able to survive should I disappear. They will become flexible, adaptable and will not need me. That's my goal for them.
If I was to have to live in their society, I would have to learn their rules. Which is why people embedded with animals are often very adept at seeing things those that aren't, don't.
I try to stay away from the words dominant and submissive if possible (in part thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey). It can be useful to describe an animal's position in a herd or group as dominant or submissive when you're describing it as a set of behaviours you're more or less likely to see from that animal.
I do tend to prefer describing intimidating behaviours and appeasing behaviours. Some animals do learn they can use intimidation to get what they want or need in some situations. There is usually a good deal of give and take in familial living situations though, and relationships tend not to be constantly linear.
I also don't think it's sensible or fair to describe a dog that's guarding his house or family as 'dominant'. He's not. He is using intimidation to get the outcome he wants. But he's not trying to 'dominate' anything. He wants the intruder to piss off and the way dogs get that to happen is by getting bigger, louder and nearer to stuff they want to piss off.
It's also not useful to ask someone to 'dominate' a dog. How would you even do that? Using it as a verb isn't helpful I don't think, more so perhaps as a noun describing a transient occurrence, but people can't really dominate a dog. They can constantly intimidate him, but that's no basis for a relationship with a companion animal.
Let's talk a minute about the 'Alpha roll'. A daft thing for a person to do to any animal really, but without being well versed in exactly what you're looking for, how much pressure to apply to a situation and when to release it, means the act can only result at best in an unconfident dog that probably hates you and given the choice would leave, or at worst, a dog that is afraid of and will bite human hands when they approach.
I imagine people have seen a dog pin another dog on the floor and tried to emulate that. The nuance and communication that goes into (usually an adult dog pinning an impudent youngster), is vast and cannot be reliably interpreted. When does she let him up? At what point did he do the right thing to be released? Or is it a matter of long enough to get her point across? What was the pup's misdemeanor that so greatly offended in the first place? Some things I think should be left for intraspecial comms only.
One instance in which the term dominance is bandied about is during humping behaviour in dogs. For me, it's just one of a million things "Steve dog' can do to 'Dave dog' and most of the time, young dogs like to practise all their behavioural moves if they can possibly get away with it without getting bollocked. Humping in young dogs tends to have a goofy, playful quality to it and looks like practising, and unless it's during actual mating, can often appear when dogs are over excited and don't quite know what to do with themselves.
Rather like: 'Me Steve dog excited and horny. Steve do a hump.' type feel.
Another time the term dominance is bandied about is to describe a dog that is intolerant of other dogs approaching. What I'm seeing more and more now, is dogs that don't understand the rules of dog society. They don't know how to approach a strange, adult dog without causing offence. The only way they can learn is by getting it wrong. Unfortunately for them, some adult dogs are more tolerant than others of rude young dogs ignoring all their 'Do NOT engage' body signals, and pitch in anyway. Then when they meet a socially able and intolerant dog who has already told them NOT to engage, and they do so anyway, they will be on the sharp end of a severe bollocking (99%% of the time which results in no injury - the teeth will be guarded and the message is loud, but usually not life threatening). Then the young dog's people overreact and the even is indelibly marked on the young dog and he becomes labelled as 'timid' or 'aggressive' and the intolerant dog is labelled as dominant aggressive. Not so. Just intolerant of rudeness and fools!
So here I am, merrily falling into a trap I set myself and getting all hot under the collar and using capital letters.....deep breath. Sorry.
So, to sum up for this bit of semantics - some animals learn they are able to push other animals around to their own benefit, or that they can push otherwise unafraid prey animals into a fight/flight response, which can then turn into a predatory sequence leading to death of the running animal. But we've all seen the impossible to intimidate cat, or the completely unafraid house rabbit humping a cat, this things are all learned and are never set in stone. Prey animals equally can learn they can intimidate in certain situations - horses are likely to learn pretty quickly if they can move a person around, or if they cannot.
These things are hugely important to all animals, including people - who wouldn't stand up and greet the Queen personally if she was to arrive at their house? Who would then dare to ask her about her private tax position held in publicly funded office.....? And why not? To play with that question, we must now scuttle off to the next post about respect......
If you haven't died of boredom, see you over there! :)
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