The Top Dog is the Dog on Top – Of Furniture?

About ten years ago I attended an aggression seminar offered through Calgary’s continued education program. Our instructor was an ex-cop, and obedience trainer with a couple of decades experience. Not particularly harsh or unreasonable, he was traditional, Koehler-style, and like many others also accepted the dominance-hierarchy theory as truth. “The top dog is the dog on top”, he said and pointed out that height seeking - a dog who wants to be above or on the same level as his human, indicates dominance. Hence, he advised that ideally no dog should have bed and sofa access, and especially not the one who shows dominance in other ways, like being reactive or “generally disobedient”.

Not much has changed since. There are numerous articles and books, written by renowned dog experts and behaviorists, that explain why dominance is rarely the root of behavioral problems, but despite that many layowners and trainers still believe that a dog’s place is on the floor, spatially below the person. But here is the problem: in real life the mental “where the dog should be” often doesn’t transfer into according and consistently enforced rules, and that is because snuggling up with the beloved hairy sidekick is very pleasing for the human.

In the olden days, while the master found pleasure in the arms of his mistress, the dog kept the lady of the palace warm at night, and attracted her fleas and lice during the day. Not only was he tolerated on the lap and in bed, but wanted there. Nowadays, we can buy blankets to keep us warm, and most of us aren’t pest infested, and perhaps the whole flea and lice thingy is a myth anyway, but the fact is that people’s longing to cozy up with someone alive is innate. Today, our homes are warmer, but our society colder. The modern human lives in a fast-paced and anonymous world, but is still touchy-feely needy and seeks an outlet, and that’s where the dog comes in; he slipped into the role of preferred soul companion, confidant, lean-on, and receiver of all those velvety emotions. And because we have so many different breeds these days, not just the traditional lap toy poochini can be found sprawled on the sofa and hogging the pillow, but dogs of all sizes.

Concurrently, resurrected “discipline over affection” and “dogs are inherently status seeking” assertions are hard to miss, and that causes conflict in many owners. On one hand, they wanna cuddle; on the other, they worry that by doing so they’re bringing out the alpha wolf in the contemporary canine.

Indeed, that is the sentiment I often hear from my clients. When I ask during a consultation where the dog sleeps, intended to find out what degree of social inclusion he enjoys, I regularly get a sheepish, apologetic or defying confession that he’s on the bed. And equally regularly my clients are surprised and relieved when I tell them that it’s okay.

Yes, some dogs can be space possessive, but most want to be on furniture because it’s soft and comfy, and smells more than any other place like their beloved person, which offers security to an insecure dog, especially when he’s home alone. Truth is that most dogs aren’t dominating us, but are needy for our help and support, much like a human dependant.

Our Will sleeps beside me on her own bed at night, and chills out in different rooms throughout the house during the day, but when we visit friends, when she is away from the safety of her home, she glues herself next to me on the couch.

Neediness was also the motivation of our recent German shepherd house guest. Responsive and obedient on and off the leash, moving out of the way when asked, not confrontational over anything, sleeping on top of hubby Mike during a thunderstorm and hiding behind me when he heard rustling in the bushes and didn’t know what it was, he is a big baby, not a dominant alpha. We had him for about two weeks, and during the first there wasn’t a moment he was physically away from us. By week two, when he felt more confident with his new surroundings and routine, he often settled with Will in another room – and on the floor.

A dog on furniture is not a problem; one who guards and defends space, is.

If our 40-pound Aussie Davie, who had a personality that covered Mike’s mattress completely, would not have moved her toenail when he climbed into bed, but snarled at him instead, then we would have had a problem warranting action.

Prohibiting access is intuitive and what most trainers recommend with a space guarder, but it is a superficial solution and rarely successful, because it doesn’t take into account that a dog confident enough to contest one resource typically does so with anything that’s important to him: the yard, entrance to your home, where his food dish is, or the space around you or himself. The aggressive behaviors aren’t expressed on bed and sofa anymore only because the dog isn’t there, but continued in different contexts.

My way, counterintuitive but effective, is to provide social inclusion and resources freely, but to make them contingent on the dog’s relaxed, attentive and polite behavior. Resource control, not prohibition, changes a dog's attitude, even with the rare social ladder climber, and then you can snuggle all you want, like we do, and never have an alpha problem.

Hierarchies and Stress

I am much more interested in dogs than primates, but primates are great for researching hierarchies. The more I studied the works of scientists like DeWaal, Sapolsky and Tiger/Fox, the more I am convinced that hierarchical rules are such a primate thing. We humans have quite an obsession with it. I mean, we even invented gods so that the top honchos have someone to heed to.

That the hierarchical social system is the natural one for dogs is the foundation of the alpha-dominance ideology. Its proponents state that our companion dogs are by nature status seeking predators, out to topple us and others, and thereby must be kept in check with corrections, pinning, alpha roles and mock knuckle bites. Even if that were the case, which I question and I’ll pick that topic up again in a future post, here is some food for thought.

Robert Sapolsky is a Harvard graduate, Stanford University professor, author and world-renowned neuroendocrinologist who specializes in stress.

An easy way to determine stress levels is to measure glucocorticoid hormone output in urine, and that was part of what Sapolski did during his research over several decades and a number of baboon colonies. Baboons are very strictly hierarchical.

What he found was that stress hormones are much higher in lower ranking members than in alpha males. Baboon alpha males can be nasty buggers, poke and correct their underlings for small infractions, are the controllers and stress the controllees with all that physical micromanaging. Not only that. Sapolski also noticed that all that control does not lead to a better-behaved baboon, but one who aggressively passes those corrections on, down the ranking line, until it hits the lowliest monkey.

Then, with one of the colonies, something equally gruesome and interesting happened. About half of the members died when they accidentally came in contact with contaminated meat. None of the alpha males survived, probably because they observed the me-alpha-eat-first rule and pigged out. Suddenly the baboon colony was without from-the-top-down bosses – and, wouldn’t you know, the aggression level dropped, whilst affiliative social behaviors rose. The whole colony thrived. Each member had some control, contributed, and worked cooperatively with the others, and with that the stress levels dropped as well.

The colony stayed that way; without alpha males. Its members still are, some 20 years later, non-aggressive and friendly with one another. That was the real surprise for the scientists, because till then they believed that social ranking was genetically hardwired in baboons, ingrained in the species’ biogrammar.

Yet, the fact that the baboon colony not only survived, but thrived in a non-autocratic society, implies that hierarchies are a cultural phenomenon, not a biological one - for primates.

What about dogs? I believe that it is more our obsession with dominant hierarchies than a dog’s inherent need for it that feeds the alpha ideology. There are other aspects as well, for example the question if dogs are pack animals, that hint that way. But as I said, I’ll discuss that in another post.

In any case, many dogs I meet professionally redirect aggression, act erratically and reactively, are hyper, compulsive, irritable and edgy. When I tell a client that his pooch is stressed, I often get a surprised look. I must say that most believe me once I explain it, but some don’t. And methinks that it would be great if our veterinarians could check the glucocorticoid levels with a routine checkup, and especially if the dog’s person complains of problem behaviors. Measured by a scientist would carry much more weight than the words of a trainer, or behavior consultant. And then the owner could take action and find ways to decrease stress, not add to it by applying various dominance training methods.