Alice White
First, you need to figure out what a dominant dog is. In today’s cynological times, newfangled dog handlers believe that the concept of “dominant dog” is a myth, that dominance is not characteristic of a domestic dog, and that it does not tend to dominate at all. That is, you need to understand what meaning the questioner puts into the concept of “dominant dog” here and now. If aggression towards the owner and family members is implied, then behavior correction specialists believe that the dominance of the dog (if any) can manifest itself without aggressive behavior.
The question also does not determine the age, gender, breed, and conditions of the appearance of the “dominant dog”. It is one thing to raise a supposedly dominant puppy and another thing to raise a dominant adult dog from a shelter. And raising a dominant Chihuahua is not at all like raising a Rottweiler or Mastiff.
The term “training” is also ambiguous. This is definitely not training !? By raising a dog is meant the formation of norms of social behavior that guarantee a conflict-free existence of a dog in a person’s family and his society (entrance, yard, street, village). In addition, upbringing includes the mental, physiological and ecological development of the dog.
If we mean a puppy that has just been acquired, then the meaning of the term “training” is understandable. However, it is completely unclear whether the puppy is dominant or not. And if we are talking about an older dog, which has already been diagnosed with dominance, then we can only talk about re-education. And that’s another story, other methods, and ways.
If, raising a dog, the owner one day finds out that it is dominant, then he has already lost. Why? Because with his direct participation and with his connivance, what happened happened. Giving advice in absentia in this case is pointless and even dangerous. To solve the problem, direct communication with the owner is required. It is necessary to look at his cynological eyes. It is necessary to assess the level of the owner’s cynological knowledge – his cynological worldview and change it in the right direction. It is necessary to assess the mental and physical characteristics and capabilities of the owner. They also need to be changed, but this is not the competence of the training instructor. That is, it is often necessary to re-educate not only the dog and not so much the dog as the owner. And this cannot be done in absentia.
To train, and even more so to re-train, a dominant (aggressive) dog, a person-educator / re-educator needs deep cynological knowledge, cynological experience, the strength of temperament, fortitude, perseverance, the ability to achieve his own, and even sufficient physical strength.
There is only one piece of advice: find a live behavioral coach.
The specialist will assess how dominant your dog is and how dangerous he is, assess your capabilities – both mental and physical. And taking into account the breed, gender, age, the experience of your dog (and even taking into account the composition of your family) can give appropriate recommendations.
As you know, in medicine, the doctor does not treat the disease, but the patient. So is the training instructor: he does not correct dominance – he corrects the behavior of a particular pair of “man-dog”.
