Letting Go of the Dominance Paradigm

If the photo above of the 3 dogs offends you, then I would invite you to look at your own personal inner feelings around sexuality and dominance. I see natural dog behavior! I took the photo above and this behavior (social overture)lasted 30 seconds without any human interference. I then signaled all 3 dogs to sit. You cannot change the dog, but you can affect their emotional state at the moment. In this example they went from an aroused to calm emotional state. Your dog Mirrors your emotional state.

You cannot teach a dog not to react to the world around them, but you can teach them what to do at the moment thus satisfying and relaxing them.

One of the constant bits of advice you'll hear from most trainers is: "you have to be your dog's pack leader." This idea has a lot of appeal for most people. "Yes!" they think. "That's what's wrong with my dog. He doesn't see me as his pack leader!"

I am of the belief that any dog with aggressive behavior simply has never been aloud to naturally be a dog... which means we need to let our puppies BITE, use their teeth that God gave them, rather than fearing that if we play tug or do not correct them that they will turn aggressive. How you play tug and when you play tug is very integrate in the growing nature of your dog. I have been re-educating people since 2000 with a different perspective and finally science has validated my instincts...

According to David Mech, the world's leading experts on wolves, real wolf packs don't have pack leaders, at least not in the traditional sense. The idea that they do came from studies done on captive wolves, culled from various sources, who didn't know one another, and behaved more like rivals than pack mates.

http://www.unleashyourself.biz/documents/LettingGoofDominance.pdf