Leadership is a grossly misunderstood concept. Leadership is often associated with words like “dominance”, “alpha”, “authority”, “respect”, and “challenge”. Rarely, if ever, is it associated with the word “trust”. Which may explain the tremendous lack of demonstrated leadership present in today’s human society!
Leadership is a role that requires the earning of trust from followers. Trust cannot be demanded. Force (the tool of the Dominator) creates resistance. Trust can only be given, not taken. Leadership, unlike "dominance", requires followers to CHOOSE to follow. Trust is broken in a heartbeat, but repaired, re-earned, only over a long period of time--not hours, but days, weeks, even months or years. Sometimes, it's irreparably broken.
An individual dog always has the right to choose whether to follow another dog or not. Even the most severe aggression will not force an individual dog to follow a leader it does not willingly choose to follow. It is only the benefit offered by the leader that encourages a follower to follow.
Whether we are referring to corporate management, family structure, or canine management, the basic principles of effective leadership remain the same:
To lead is to set the example. To design structure of activities. To plan. To create expectations. To minimize conflict. To intervene and mediate conflict. To consider the best interests of all parties when creating boundaries or structure. To listen as often as speak. To compromise your own ego, your immediate interests for the benefit of all parties, putting the needs of your followers before your own. A good leader builds willing cooperation.
To “dominate” is to bully. To ignore the needs of your followers when it conflicts with your own personal interests or desires. To repress free will. To have one-directional conversations. The product of domination is conflict, since only one party’s will or desire is considered, but all parties have needs. The “dominator” forces “cooperation” (compliance).
Among households with canine family members, lack of leadership is a common cause for serious problem behaviors. Failing to plan is planning to fail, they say. Responsibility for leadership issues is often shifted to the dog, calling the dog "dominant".
While a dog may have strong leadership tendencies or even capabilities, it is the yielding of follow that creates a leader. When a human or another dog reacts, rather than initiates, that individual is following. Interestingly, this "reaction" is the very hallmark of application of "dominance" techniques-- wait for the dog to screw up, then intervene. Who is leading who?
Waiting for the car to run off the road before steering is obviously a bad idea. But somehow "because dogs aren't like us", this approach is often attempted.
Sadly, I've seen a well-intentioned "positive" approach used in the same way. The dog jumps up, THEN the person asks for a SIT. This is ineffective for so many reasons, now "positive" training has been misidentified as the cause of ineffectiveness.
The key to leadership for your canine pals is developing the ability to read the current situation, anticipate what behaviors come next, identify "crossroad" moments when steering is needed, and a toolbox full of ways to elicit the behavior you want BEFORE an undesirable behavior emerges.
I'm often asked by folks with dogs displaying aggression toward other dogs what to do if the dogs get into a fight, again, reflecting the "follow the dog" backwards approach. Some people are looking to use the fight to "teach their dog a lesson". Others are simply trying to prevent injury to the dogs.
Returning to our model of leadership as steering the car, PREVENTION is the key strategy to address accidents. Maybe there's that 1-in-a-million race car driver out there who can adeptly intervene WHILE the car is crashing--maybe. But if you were that 1-in-a-million dog owner who could effectively intervene while your dog was in a fight...your dog wouldn't be in a fight to begin with!
Once you've "crashed the car", once you've missed the "crossroad moment" where you needed to steer the behavior in the correct direction, once the dog has jumped or barked or lunged -- the dog's learning is out the window. You may be able to use the moment to learn how to handle such a circumstance, but the dog's learning for application to future interactions has ceased.
By learning to lead effectively, you will not see the "crashes"!
LOOK FAMILIAR? This article is a reprint from a post on my blog "that dog whisperer lady" http://mswhisperer.blogspot.com Drop by!
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Leadership
Bravo - so well written, I agree 100%! ..........I kaughed weh I watched a CM episode the other day and he told an owner of a Cocker Spaniel type dog that had an obsession with tissues, the dog was being dominent over her (this dog showed no sign of aggression of anything, just loved tissues- puh-lease!
Good leadership with a dog is to be a benevolent leader, trying to force a dog just makes it un-happy and confused.
exactly right
I've just added your blog to my favorites list.
I agree 100% with everything posted here, more importantly, you said it very well. This is a concept I've been trying to explain to people for a long time but the importance is in communication and you've explained it perfectly, far better than I’ve ever managed to. I'm going to jump into a horsey example for a minute here...
In a wild or domestic horse herd all horses follow a leader. The leader is the horse which has most often in the past demonstrated good judgment and strong leadership qualities. For horses these things include, finding the best grazing, shelter, water and relative safety from predators when the herd or a member of the herd is in need of one of those things. Because horses (and wolves for that matter) travel large distances every day leadership is a little more literal. They actually physically follow the leader around all day.
People seem very quick to deny any similarities between horses and dogs based on the obvious species differences (pack VS herd, predator VS prey, omnivore VS herbivore) when in reality both situations require very similar leadership although their basic needs are somewhat different. Both are family groups willing to follow the example set by one designated individual so long as that individual has demonstrated strong leadership in the past. Horses literally trust the lead mare with their lives. Dogs trust you with their safety and well-being. I believe respect does factor in but respect cannot be forced, it must be earned and you have to keep on earning it. There CAN be trust without respect, but there cannot be respect without trust. Being a reliable leader is a laborious process requiring that you continually earn your right to lead by consistently predicting and meeting your followers needs. This means leading them to food, water, shelter and safety but also leading them to rewards, fun, praise and praiseworthy behavior. If you feel the need to 'dominate' your dog odds are good that there is nothing wrong with his following skills, it's your leadership skills that come into question. If a previously obedience trained dog begins to act “dominate” (Refusing to get off the couch, refusing to come when called, ignoring your ‘sit’ commands, anything else you feel like attributing to dominance on that particular day...) I’d say it’s usually for 2 main reasons. 1. Obeying you has no relevance to him. There is no real life reward included and the dog fails to see the benefit in doing as he’s told, nothing especially good ever comes of it. 2. Because he’s been made to do things (like get off the couch) in the past without any sort of relevance or reward to him he no longer trusts your leadership. (Aka. Getting off the couch was a dumb idea, all I got out of this was floor. You make stupid decisions that don’t benefit me, I don’t want to follow your lead.) There’s a cure! Guess what it is? Positive reinforcement, especially with real life rewards like fun play time. (You have great ideas! I love it when you ask me to do stuff, it always ends well for me!) :D
Been there with the horses
Well said Desiree. I got into horses about the same time that I got into dogs. I did what I usually do and went to the nearest library (I was in the Army at the time) and picked up every book on dogs and horse that I could lay my hands on. (I've always been a bit of an autodidact) Working on ranches and seeing how many horses were treated, and dogs too for that matter, I knew there had to be a better way.
Many years prior to majoring in psych in school, it was easy to discern the two major groups of training/teaching animals what it is you expect out of them. I have come to realize that it really is a "brain thang" which keeps many people from the gentler and kinder approaches. And that for a certain sub group, nothing will change that.
It was classic back then that in order to train a horse to go into a trailer, you had to whip him enough that he went into the trailer to avoid the whip. I was only 20 at the time but even I figured out that feeding the horse near/by/in the trailer and it would be a non issue. Same with just about every aspect of horse training and dog training in the early 70s. I wasn't the brightest bulb on the porch, but using choke collars and such just seemed so negative and against my own sense of fairness. I believe a lot of this is just hard wired in us.
Fortunately I came across Rudd Weatherwax's book on dog training, which communicated what I was trying to accomplish much better than I could have ever come up with on my own. I was doing clicker training and "capturing" behavior 20 years before I knew what those terms really meant.
In a nutshell, if every behavior that compulsion or punitive based trainers use aversives to train away can be done the same or better using positive modalities, why would anyone favor the use of force. (Rhetorically asked)
I asked that same question of parents who were recieving parenthood counseling and it was quite amazing the responses I would receive. Keep it positive, keep it fun.