Behavior Help? Dominance issues.?

Question

I've had my eski-poo for almost a year and a half. The first two weeks I had her were h**l and I tried almost every training method I knew. I volunteered at a wolf reserve and started watching them during that time. Then I started acting like the wolves (don't laugh, it's the same concept Cisar Millano uses). I came home gripped my hand around her throat and floored her. Sounds harsh, but that was almost a year and a half ago and she's been the PERFECT dog since. She now knows 15 commands all taught with positive reinforcement. Recently I bought a house and got a roommate so I'd have a fenced in back yard for her. My roommate brought two dogs with her. Her shepard has already established dominance over my dog. Her smaller dog, Eliza, challenged my Riles this afternoon and Riles challenged right back then my roommate got in the middle and got bit. Just for the record, getting in the middle of a dog fight even if it's your dog is just about the stupidest thing you can do. Here's the problem, my roommate did nothing when she was bit so I believe Riles thinks she has dominance over my roommate now. She used to see all humans as dominant. I believe that she believed she was dominant because she immediately challenged me. I repeated what I did so long ago and grabbed her throat and floored her (not hard) until she cried. I cuddled with her for about the next 45 minutes, but I believe my dominance was re-established. My roommate doesn't agree with my methods, which I understand, a lot of people don't. However, now I'm concerned that Riles is going to try to exhibit dominant behaviors toward my roommate. Riles is shut in my room when I'm gone, but when I'm home I do little things like go outside or leave the room and I can't counteract any bad behaviors with good commands at times like that. My roommate also doesn't seem to want to allow the dogs to establish their own pack heiarchy. I told her if she let them fight once it would be the end of it for a long time because a pack order would be established but she doesn't agree. I guess I need a little advice on what to do in this situation. New people don't tend to move in with wolves so I have no observations to base a reaction on. Also a note: we don't seem to have an omega in the pack, no dog is trying to be pushed out completely. Thanks for any advice.

Answer 1

One day your poor dog is going to snap and bite you or someone else and the poor dog will be blamed.  I hope your roommate has the good sense to get her dogs out of this situation immediately!

Answer 2

Your methods are smart and appropriate. Anyone who objects is a wimp who doesn't understand dog behavior. You're doing great. Do not let dogs push you around. It's more kind and loving to teach them strongly with tough love. You're doing great.

Answer 3

From what it sounds like you have a reformed dominant dog. Unless you know exactly what happened that provoked the fight between the dogs then you will never know exactly what it was, but regardless, dogs will be dogs. As far as your roommate physically breaking up the fight that is never a good idea. If it ever happened again a different method should be used. Distract them with a loud noise or even water!!!  In a "pack" the only alphas should be the humans, no matter how young or inexperienced. It is your job to make sure your dog knows (as well as your roommates dogs) that they are equal to each other and all humans are the bosses. No one dog should dominate over the others. It was probably not a good idea to move your dog in with two possibly unstable dogs in an already formed pack because it may cause your dog to relapse to her old ways to establish a place in the "new pack".  I believe that when your dog bit your roommate it was a simple mistake, her intention was not to bite the human but simply to protect herself. Your dog should willingly submit to your roommate and it is your job as her master to make sure she does so.  Unlike us, dogs are very simple in their actions we just tend to humanize them and make it more difficult.  

Answer 4

You are on the right track.  Always correct a dog immediately after he does something he's not suppose to do.  Same idea with children...never let them get away with anything otherwise they will just do it again.

Answer 5

You, sir, are a prime example of the fact that little knowledge is a dreadful thing - because your little knowledge, with the additon of Milan's psuedo c**p psychology based on Mexican street dogs, is about as inappropriate for dealing with companion dogs as newts are T-Rexs.

Get some help with this dog, stop basing your life's dreams on subjugating an animal that should be your companion and love you and want to please.

If you think throwing it down while grabbing it by the throat is a viable method of dog training, you are a true looney and take everything you see on t.v. as gospel.

Get some help, get some books written by animal behaviorists, not t.v. actors.

You are scary - no wonder your roomate is uneasy.

Well then, Mdm, your dog is not a wolf - he is a dog.   Dogs went off on a different branch of evolution over 14,000 years ago - and even if your dog were a wolf - 6 months of observing wolves would not make you an expert.   People devote their entire lives to the study of wolves and still don't claim to know everything about them.

You are still an ignorent, ill advised, self centered, misguided sorry excuse for a dog owner.   Your poor dog, what a horror, I have no doubt the poor thing will end up euthanized thanks to your ridiculous, self serving notions of "training" and "hierarchy".

You have a DOG - not a wolf pack, but you just don't seem to get it.

Answer 6

I have to agree with Rescue Member.  While you may have forced compliance initially, you can see her view of her own status was still there under the surface.  The fact that you "grabbed her throat and floored her until she cried", demonstrates all that is wrong with CM methods.  If you had truly learned anything from wolf pack structure, you would have seen that dominance is not forced in this way, rather submission is freely given by subordinate pack members in recognition of the alpha.  

Allowing the pack to establish their own heirarchy is valuable, but not to the extent that dogs need to "fight it out".  The human as the true alpha and head of the pack, does not allow fighting between subordinates.

"A subordinate wolf offers his muzzle, and when the higher-ranking wolf "pins" it, the subordinate rolls over and presents his belly. There is no force. Canine behaviorist Jean Donaldson, author of the award-winning book The Culture Clash, says, "The truth is, there is not one documented case of a wolf forcefully rolling another wolf to the ground. Nor is there one case of a mother wolf (or dog) 'scruff-shaking' her puppies."

A wolf would flip another wolf against its will only if he were planning to kill it. The same goes for a mother shaking her pup by the scruff. Both are rare events."

"Most conflicts within a pack are not severe. Some behavior may appear severe as the animals display ritualistic threatening postures, noise and fighting. Occasionally the fighting may escalate causing serious injury or death. Often several animals in the pack will "gang up" on one of the dogs involved. An interesting note... in Wolves the dominant alpha will usually break up the fight before such serious problems occur. Most of the time this happens when the dominant male places himself between the two fighting parties but doesn't participate in the fight itself."

http://www.italian-greyhound.net/packbeh...

http://www.mnforsustain.org/wolf_mech_do...

http://www.showdogs.co.za/articles/wag_t...

The flaw in the studies that initiated the "dominance" bandwagon, and subsequent alpha roll and pinning techniques, was that the initial study was perfomed with a captive wolf pack.

add:  After posting all this, I have to say the best way I have found for preserving my dog's respect for my position is through NILIF:

http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm

Add: Obviously, your methods have not worked.  And who says alpha-rolling or yelling are the only two options.