If your dog could talk: dominance, the misunderstood concept.

by Pascale Saravelli, canine educator and co-director at Social Dogs.

"I'm not trying to be in charge."

Your dog jumps onto the sofa. "They're trying to dominate you."

They walk through the door before you. "They're trying to be the leader."

They pull on the lead. "They're challenging you."

For decades, many everyday dog behaviours were explained as attempts to climb a supposed family hierarchy. The idea was simple: if we didn't become the "pack leader," our dog would try to take over. But the story behind this theory is far more interesting.

Dr. L. David Mech sits in his office at the Gabbert Raptor Center, on the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus, where he was preparing for the International Wolf Symposium, held from 11–14 October 2018. Behind him hangs a photograph of "The Old Man," a wolf Mech studied on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut (Canada). Mech was the symposium's keynote speaker, at a gathering that brings together wolf experts from around the world. (Photograph: Deanna Weniger / Pioneer Press).

In the 1960s, American biologist David Mech studied wolves living in captivity. He observed hierarchical relationships between unrelated animals and popularised terms such as alpha male and alpha female. Those studies became hugely influential, and many of their conclusions were later applied to domestic dogs.

As research progressed, however, so did Mech's understanding. From the 1980s onwards, he spent years observing wild wolves in their natural habitat. What he found was very different. Rather than groups of animals constantly competing for leadership, wild wolf packs were typically families: a breeding pair and their offspring of different ages. In 1999, Mech published a paper recommending that the term alpha should no longer be used to describe wild wolves.

So why do we still hear so much about dominance? Partly because simple explanations are appealing. It's easier to believe a dog pulls on the lead because they're trying to be in charge than to consider they may simply be excited, frustrated, anxious, or eager to reach an interesting scent. Behaviour is rarely explained by a single cause.

César Millan's television success brought the world of dogs to a wide audience. However, many animal behaviour professionals now consider that much of his methodology has been superseded by advances in behavioural science and that some of the techniques he promoted are considered animal abuse.

For many years, books, training methods, and television programmes also helped popularise these ideas. One of the best-known examples was Dog Whisperer, presented by César Millán, which introduced millions of people to canine behaviour. Since then, however, scientific research has continued to evolve, and we now know that many of those interpretations do not reflect our current understanding of dogs.

This doesn't mean dominance doesn't exist. In ethology, dominance describes a relationship between two individuals over access to a particular resource. It is not a fixed personality trait, nor is it a catch-all explanation for everything a dog does. A dog may display a dominant relationship in one specific context and not in another. Using dominance to explain every everyday behaviour is an oversimplification that modern science does not support.

Today we know that dogs don't make decisions based on who is in charge of the household. Their behaviour is far more often shaped by their emotions, motivations, past experiences, and learning. A dog may climb onto the sofa because it's comfortable. They may rush through the door because they're excited to explore. They may guard a toy because it is valuable to them, bark because they're afraid, or jump up because they're delighted to see someone.

Before asking "Who's in charge?", it's far more useful to ask: "What is this dog feeling?"

That small shift in perspective can completely transform the way we live with our dogs.

You've probably heard phrases like "Don't let them go through the door first" or "They need to know who's in charge." Modern ethology, however, invites us to see these situations differently—not as a struggle for power, but as an opportunity to better understand each dog's emotions, needs, and learning.

Did you know...? Dogs are remarkably skilled at interpreting human gestures. Numerous studies have shown that they readily follow a pointing finger or the direction of our gaze—an ability that comes more naturally to them than it does to wolves, even those raised by humans. This suggests that thousands of years of living alongside us have shaped dogs to cooperate with people rather than compete with them.

Understanding a dog isn't about proving who's in charge. It's about understanding what they need.

Bibliography.

• Mech, L. D. (1999). Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 77(8), 1196–1203.

• Mech, L. D. (1970). The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species. University of Minnesota Press.

• Bradshaw, J. W. S. (2011). Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You A Better Friend to Your Pet.

• Overall, K. L. (2013). Manual of Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Dogs and Cats.

• Serpell, J. (Ed.) (2017). The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behavior and Interactions with People. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press.

• Hare, B., Brown, M., Williamson, C., & Tomasello, M. (2002). "The domestication of social cognition in dogs." Science, 298, 1634–1636.

• Miklósi, Á. (2015). Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition. Oxford University Press.