09/22/2026
Top Ten Behaviors People Attribute to “Dominance”
1. Biting/aggression, especially towards family members
2. Pulling on leash
3. House-soiling, especially when accidents occur on beds, shoes etc.
4. Chewing valuable owner possessions
5. Jumping up to greet and pawing
6. Failing to come when called
7. Begging at table/pestering for handouts
8. Going through doorways first
9. Sleeping on forbidden furniture
10. Food/laundry stealing
Whenever there's this desperate grasp for “whywhywhy” a dog does something, rather than being taken by a red herring like “pack theory,” first rule out:
- because it's being reinforced somewhere in the environment
- because no one ever made a case to do otherwise (i.e., why not?)
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The dominance panacea is so out of proportion that entire schools of training are based on the premise that if you can just exert adequate dominance over the dog, everything else will fall into place. Not only does it mean that incredible amounts of abuse are going to be perpetrated against any given dog, probably exacerbating problems like unreliable recalls and biting, but the real issues, like well-executed conditioning and the provision of an adequate environment, are going to go unaddressed, resulting in a still-untrained dog, perpetuating the pointless dominance program.
Pack theory is simply not the most elegant model for explaining or, especially, for treating problems like disobedience, misbehavior or aggression. People who use aversives to train with a dominance model in mind would get a better result with less wear and tear on the dog by using aversives with a more thorough understanding of learning theory, or, better yet, forgoing aversives altogether and going with the other tools in the learning theory tool box.
The dominance concept is simply unnecessary.
-- The Culture Clash (pg 14-15) by Jean Donaldson
