14/06/2026
I'm going to be honest when I first learnt in college that dogs aren't trying to become the dominant member of the pack, I didn't believe it. I'd grown up watching programmes like The Dog Whisperer, where the training philosophy was based on the idea that dogs need to be dominated, shown who's boss, and that many behaviour problems stem from them trying to dominate their owners or other dogs. So being told that much of what I'd learnt about dog and wolf social structures was outdated was difficult to get my head around.
But the traditional dominance theory has since been challenged and largely abandoned by modern behavioural science - ironically, even by the scientist whose early wolf research helped popularise the idea. We now know that social relationships in dogs are far more complex than a rigid hierarchy of one "alpha" and everyone else falling into line.
Dogs don't spend their lives trying to become "top dog." Instead, relationships are fluid and context-dependent, with access to resources or space negotiated between individuals. Free-ranging dogs often live in family groups or loose social networks rather than strict dominance hierarchies.
Behaviour that is often labelled as "dominance" is much more commonly driven by fear, anxiety, frustration, over-arousal, or a lack of coping skills. By simply calling it dominant behaviour, we risk overlooking the underlying cause and that means we may also miss the opportunity to help the dog in the most effective way.
