A fine Saturday morning at the park was soured for me (and I’m sure for the other party as well) when an incident of dominance was misinterpreted as aggression.
My 4-year-0ld Golden Retriever Chaz and I were passing by the main gate when an owner entered with her 5-month-old male Golden, still on a leash. As is typical, the area was a bit crowded with dogs and people, and Chaz immediately ran over to the puppy and began to wrestle with him. I pulled him off and joked to the owner that Chaz likes to teach puppies their place. Not much response from the owner, so we just walked away and headed further into the park.
A while later, we ran into them again on the nature trail north of the lake. Chaz was about 50 feet ahead of me when he spotted the puppy, now off-leash, and ran over to play. I saw the puppy wrestle and play for about 10 seconds, then Chaz wrestled him to his back and held him down with his mouth on the puppy’s neck.
The owner immediately went over and pulled Chaz away. I was then told that my dog was “aggressive,” which led to a 10-minute discussion on the difference between dominance and aggression and what to expect when you have an adolescent male puppy at a dog park.
What Chaz had done to the puppy was the normal, natural behavior of an older, dominant dog. He was instructing the puppy on his place in the pack hierarchy, forcing him into a submissive posture by using an inhibited bite on the throat. Socialized dogs know exactly how much pressure to use and when a bite hurts and when it doesn’t. When an older dog puts a puppy into a submissive posture, he is looking for the puppy to stop squirming and wrestling and fighting back. Once the puppy is still, the well-socialized dominant dog will walk away, having succeeded in teaching the puppy who’s boss.
In the wild, adults teach puppies that they are not allowed to be dominant. They would never let a whelp lead their pack any more than we would elect a 13-year-old as President.
As a confident puppy gets older and bigger, he will resist being dominated and will wrestle back more and more–that’s what much of the play is about that we see between dogs at the park. Eventually, dogs will learn that they have choices–they can submit and be still, or they can wrestle and chase and run with dogs that are trying to dominate them, or they can give warning signs and tell the other dog to go away.
Unfortunately, the puppy we met this morning never had a chance to learn anything positive from the encounter with Chaz. He didn’t get to learn how to be still and submit, nor did he learn that it’s fun to wrestle and run and resist submitting, nor did he learn that he can tell another dog No.
While I understand the urge to protect our dogs from harm, there’s also harm in over-protecting them. I’m concerned that this Golden puppy may develop a fear of dominant dogs, because that’s what he’s learning from his owner, and that he’ll grow up to be a submissive adult, which means he will be picked on for the rest of his life. Or worse, he could develop fear aggression and live a lifetime incapable of safely meeting strange dogs.
A couple years ago, Chaz and I frequently saw a Golden puppy at the park named Nico, who was maybe 9 months old when we first met him. Chaz and Nico would wrestle incessantly, and Nico, being the smaller dog, would invariably end up on his back in the submissive position. As the months passed, though, the dynamic changed. Now, Nico weighs about 15 pounds more than Chaz and has learned to tell Chaz to bugger off. They don’t wrestle anymore.
I often hear experienced dog park visitors say, “The dogs have a way of working things out.” I think this is true about 90% of the time, and it’s only the rare occasion that owners need to step in. Certainly if there’s a mismatch in size, for example, and a large, dominant dog might hurt a smaller dog due to sheer weight, then the owners should intervene. If the dominant play becomes too harrassing or is escalating into real aggression, then intervene.
Otherwise, in my opinion, we should let dogs do what Mother Nature has instilled in them. And part of that natural behavior is sorting out where each dog will be in the hierarchy of a pack that is constantly changing. The rough play that results–where dogs may be put into an uncomfortable position but no real harm is inflicted–is an example of dominance, not aggression.
Well put, Devon…
I’ve worked long and hard at socializing my uncastrated male westie and learned to speak dog myself in the process. Sounds like you have, too.
This is the key problem I see with city dogs loose anywhere – the dogs themselves don’t know how to speak “dog” and many owners just throw them in the deep end. Of course there will be mixed reactions and that will be multiplied by how many illerate dogs are in the mix.
For instance, when possible I will take my dog off-leash when meeting another dog, especially a male dog. Hopefully the other owner will do the same and they sometimes do and it’s a great thing to behold their little rituals of strutting and sniffing (males together) or sniffing and playing (male-female). If I kept him on-leash the tension would be tripled and there would be dominant stares, growls and perhaps even lunging.
Many owners assume their dog is not friendly with other dogs while walking on-leash and it is simply that their defenses have to stay intact because they are limited within their natural fight or flight response. They cannot flee, so they feel they have to stand their ground.
Hopefully the other owner, given some time, will reconsider your food-for-thought and have a better understanding to build upon with his dog.
Thanks for sharing this incident with us!
Blessings, Belinda
Left by belindaloo on January 13th, 2008