Last week at the dog run at 72nd Street in Riverside Park near where I live in New York City I saw a dog walker actually pick up a dog, then throw him onto the ground as hard as he could from three feet up in the air! And the dog hadn’t done anything wrong, he was just acting a little too energetic.
Why did this idiot dogwalker think throwing the poor dog down on his back like that was the right thing to do? I can’t say for sure, but the guy probably thought he was doing an “alpha roll.”
So what is the alpha roll exactly. And how is it supposed to work?
It’s a way of either pinning a dog on her back and forcing her to roll over on one side, or giving her the down command and then forcing her into a “submissive” position. It’s given the name alpha roll to suggest that it imitates the way an alpha wolf will discipline a subordinate pack member to establish his leadership. In dog training it is said to work by com- municating your position as pack leader to a dog through his inherited instincts to obey the alpha wolf.
The technique was first popularized in the 1970s by the Monks of New Skete. Their version involved not only the simple movements described above, but grabbing the dog by the throat, throwing him down hard on his back and screaming “No!” in his face. (They’re lovely, those monks...)
In The Intelligence of Dogs, Stanley Coren gives us a kinder, gentler version: “You should deliberately manipulate and restrain your dog on a regular basis, placing it in a position that, for wild canids, signifies submission to the authority of a dominant member of the pack.”
The funny thing is, around the same time I read Coren’s advice I also saw a documentary about wolves on TV. At one point in the film a papa wolf (i.e., the pack leader), rolled over on his back, ‘signifying submission’ to his puppies, and encouraged them to jump on his stomach and chest and even allowed them to nip at his ears and nose. Right away I began doing this myself with my own dog. I got down on my hands and knees, did a play bow, started batting my hands at his body, getting him riled up and in the mood to play, then I rolled over on my back, pretending to be submissive.
“Oh no! You got me! You killed me! You’re the king dog!”
He loved it! First he jumped on top of me, then he tried to get lower than me! Then he began to twist around the way dogs do when they’re rolling around in the grass on a nice spring day. When he was done he raced to find one of his bones and began chewing it, quite happily.
Later, on our evening walk—as he wandered a bit too far ahead of me—I sort of absent-mindedly gave him his recall signal, expecting him to do his usual routine: cocking his head, looking at me, looking back at whatever he’d been sniffing, and then slowly trotting back about halfway.
That’s not exactly what happened.
No, he immediately turned and came running back at full speed, ending up in a perfect sit right in front of me. I was astonished! I tested him further by quickly giving him the down command. He dove into position as fast as he could, eager to hear what I wanted him to do next. This was totally amazing and unexpected. I had no idea why this happening until I realized that for some reason, when I’d acted “submissive” toward him a few hours earlier I’d changed something about the dynamic between us. As a result he was immediately far more obedient to all my commands, plus his response time went from semi-lacksidasical to lightning-fast!
Over the next few months I tried my “submissive” act on some of the dogs I was training, including a great Dane. And in every single case it made them far more responsive and much quicker to obey.
So who’s right, here? Stanely Coren and those brutal, sadistic monks, or an actual papa wolf? And why did my acting “submissive” have the seemingly strange result of making all these dogs more obedient?
It might help us understand this better if we knew a little more about how a genuine wolf pack really operates.
There are 4 basic elements of life in the wild for a wolf pack:
1) The Hunt, where wolves work together as a cohesive social group in order to hunt and kill large prey.
2) Den Life, where the wolves sleep and rest up for the next hunt.
3) Play, which prepares young wolves emotionally, and to some extent physically, for hunting. And…
4) Mating, which is the process whereby new wolves are created so that the pack can continue hunting.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Everything in pack life is either directly related or eventually ties back to the need to hunt as a group.
So where does the alpha roll fit into these areas of life in the wild?
It doesn’t. This behavior simply doesn’t exist in wild wolf packs. The original study that gave us the idea that it does has long since been discredited. Some scientists are now saying that when it does occur (in captive wolves, not wild wolves), it’s actually initiated by a weaker pack member; he rolls over in submission. The stronger wolf does not force him down. Others say in wild wolves this behavior is a prelude to actually killing or at least maiming members of rival packs.
Nice, huh?
So why does it seem to work with dogs? Certainly there are some who swear by it. Cesar Millan is convinced that dogs see him as the pack leader when he does this.
Here’s the problem though. Wolves don’t have pack leaders, not in the traditional sense. The only thing that makes other wolves follow one pack member rather than another is that there is always one member of the group who’s steadier, better able to adjust quickly to change, and is cooler under pressure. But like a martial arts master, such an animal never needs to enforce his “authority” through acts of aggression, which is what the alpha roll really is. It seems to me that leadership is really attained through having more ability to control or respond quickly to changes in the environment than other pack members. And I don’t now if you’ve noticed this, but you have more control over your dog’s environment than he does. Who has the keys to the house? Who knows how to operate doorknobs and elevator buttons? Who knows how to use a can opener? Clearly, your dog already perceives you as superior.
So why doesn’t your dog listen to you the way the dogs on TV listen to Cesar Millan? Well, for one thing there’s probably a lot of stuff Millan does that ends up on the editing room floor. Plus, to his credit Millan is always fairly cool under pressure. But ultimately he acts more like a predator toward dogs than like a pack leader.
A predator?
Yes. Just picture the way he stands and looks down at a dog. The level of gaze he has seems “magnetic” to dogs, correct? Is that because dogs see him as a pack leader? Doubtful since a wolf’s eyes are always on the same level as the rest of the group, while a human being’s eyes are much higher up. Or is it because Millan is acting more like the wolf’s only natural predators, the same animals wolves prey on—moose, deer, elk, etc? After all, what does a wolf do when he’s chasing a moose, and the bigger animal—who has eyes higher up in space above the wolf’s level—suddenly turns, stands his ground, and looks down at him, brandishing his antlers? The wolf stops dead in his tracks. And that’s how most misbehaving dogs act when Cesar Millan enters a room and starts doing his “tch-tch” act. So the feeling Millan is actually stimulating in dogs is the polar opposite of magnetic. It’s a form of fear, pure and simple.
The alpha roll serves a similar purpose; it scares and intimidates a dog, something a real pack leader (if there were such an animal) would never need to do. By contrast, the exercise I learned from watching the papa wolf (the closest thing we have to a true pack leader) is what’s really magnetic. And that’s why dogs are so much more obedient and quicker to respond when you act submissive: they become magnetized to you!
Let’s put Cesar Millan aside for a moment. Many people use the alpha roll, and probably think they’re getting good results. But are they? It certainly stops a dog from misbehaving, at least momentarily. So what should they do instead to get real, lasting behavioral changes in their dogs?
When dogs “misbehave” they're basically showing us that they don’t know what else to do with their energy. The alpha roll at its most violent teaches the dog to be defensive about how she uses her energy, and builds up feelings that in humans we would think of as resentment. Her energy may seem to be under the owner or trainer’s control, but will often simmer inside and come out as aggression toward others, or be directed inward, and express itself as fearful behaviors or a general lack of interest in life.
But even when the alpha roll is done in its gentlest form, with the dog obeying the down command, and then being gently rolled over on her side (which is not a good way to reward her for obeying your commands, by the way), the exercise does nothing to teach the dog how to use her energy properly. It only puts a lid on it momentarily.
So what is the proper way to do the alpha roll?
There isn’t one. If you want to be a true pack leader just imitate the papa wolf—have fun, play hunting games with your dog, get down on her level. Remember, wolves hunt by working together, which is one instinct that really does exist in both dogs and wolves. And as for exerting control in a pressure situation, a dog who routinely plays tug and fetch and chase me with her owners is far more likely to respond properly in a crunch than a dog who’s merely had a lid clamped down on her emotional pressure cooker and pushed over on her side in a nonsensical display of some mythical instinct that doesn’t even exist.
Next time: The Eyes Exercise, a great technique to replace the alpha roll.
Why did this idiot dogwalker think throwing the poor dog down on his back like that was the right thing to do? I can’t say for sure, but the guy probably thought he was doing an “alpha roll.”
So what is the alpha roll exactly. And how is it supposed to work?
It’s a way of either pinning a dog on her back and forcing her to roll over on one side, or giving her the down command and then forcing her into a “submissive” position. It’s given the name alpha roll to suggest that it imitates the way an alpha wolf will discipline a subordinate pack member to establish his leadership. In dog training it is said to work by com- municating your position as pack leader to a dog through his inherited instincts to obey the alpha wolf.
The technique was first popularized in the 1970s by the Monks of New Skete. Their version involved not only the simple movements described above, but grabbing the dog by the throat, throwing him down hard on his back and screaming “No!” in his face. (They’re lovely, those monks...)
In The Intelligence of Dogs, Stanley Coren gives us a kinder, gentler version: “You should deliberately manipulate and restrain your dog on a regular basis, placing it in a position that, for wild canids, signifies submission to the authority of a dominant member of the pack.”
The funny thing is, around the same time I read Coren’s advice I also saw a documentary about wolves on TV. At one point in the film a papa wolf (i.e., the pack leader), rolled over on his back, ‘signifying submission’ to his puppies, and encouraged them to jump on his stomach and chest and even allowed them to nip at his ears and nose. Right away I began doing this myself with my own dog. I got down on my hands and knees, did a play bow, started batting my hands at his body, getting him riled up and in the mood to play, then I rolled over on my back, pretending to be submissive.
“Oh no! You got me! You killed me! You’re the king dog!”
He loved it! First he jumped on top of me, then he tried to get lower than me! Then he began to twist around the way dogs do when they’re rolling around in the grass on a nice spring day. When he was done he raced to find one of his bones and began chewing it, quite happily.
Later, on our evening walk—as he wandered a bit too far ahead of me—I sort of absent-mindedly gave him his recall signal, expecting him to do his usual routine: cocking his head, looking at me, looking back at whatever he’d been sniffing, and then slowly trotting back about halfway.
That’s not exactly what happened.
No, he immediately turned and came running back at full speed, ending up in a perfect sit right in front of me. I was astonished! I tested him further by quickly giving him the down command. He dove into position as fast as he could, eager to hear what I wanted him to do next. This was totally amazing and unexpected. I had no idea why this happening until I realized that for some reason, when I’d acted “submissive” toward him a few hours earlier I’d changed something about the dynamic between us. As a result he was immediately far more obedient to all my commands, plus his response time went from semi-lacksidasical to lightning-fast!
Over the next few months I tried my “submissive” act on some of the dogs I was training, including a great Dane. And in every single case it made them far more responsive and much quicker to obey.
So who’s right, here? Stanely Coren and those brutal, sadistic monks, or an actual papa wolf? And why did my acting “submissive” have the seemingly strange result of making all these dogs more obedient?
It might help us understand this better if we knew a little more about how a genuine wolf pack really operates.
There are 4 basic elements of life in the wild for a wolf pack:
1) The Hunt, where wolves work together as a cohesive social group in order to hunt and kill large prey.
2) Den Life, where the wolves sleep and rest up for the next hunt.
3) Play, which prepares young wolves emotionally, and to some extent physically, for hunting. And…
4) Mating, which is the process whereby new wolves are created so that the pack can continue hunting.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Everything in pack life is either directly related or eventually ties back to the need to hunt as a group.
So where does the alpha roll fit into these areas of life in the wild?
It doesn’t. This behavior simply doesn’t exist in wild wolf packs. The original study that gave us the idea that it does has long since been discredited. Some scientists are now saying that when it does occur (in captive wolves, not wild wolves), it’s actually initiated by a weaker pack member; he rolls over in submission. The stronger wolf does not force him down. Others say in wild wolves this behavior is a prelude to actually killing or at least maiming members of rival packs.
Nice, huh?
So why does it seem to work with dogs? Certainly there are some who swear by it. Cesar Millan is convinced that dogs see him as the pack leader when he does this.
Here’s the problem though. Wolves don’t have pack leaders, not in the traditional sense. The only thing that makes other wolves follow one pack member rather than another is that there is always one member of the group who’s steadier, better able to adjust quickly to change, and is cooler under pressure. But like a martial arts master, such an animal never needs to enforce his “authority” through acts of aggression, which is what the alpha roll really is. It seems to me that leadership is really attained through having more ability to control or respond quickly to changes in the environment than other pack members. And I don’t now if you’ve noticed this, but you have more control over your dog’s environment than he does. Who has the keys to the house? Who knows how to operate doorknobs and elevator buttons? Who knows how to use a can opener? Clearly, your dog already perceives you as superior.
So why doesn’t your dog listen to you the way the dogs on TV listen to Cesar Millan? Well, for one thing there’s probably a lot of stuff Millan does that ends up on the editing room floor. Plus, to his credit Millan is always fairly cool under pressure. But ultimately he acts more like a predator toward dogs than like a pack leader.
A predator?
Yes. Just picture the way he stands and looks down at a dog. The level of gaze he has seems “magnetic” to dogs, correct? Is that because dogs see him as a pack leader? Doubtful since a wolf’s eyes are always on the same level as the rest of the group, while a human being’s eyes are much higher up. Or is it because Millan is acting more like the wolf’s only natural predators, the same animals wolves prey on—moose, deer, elk, etc? After all, what does a wolf do when he’s chasing a moose, and the bigger animal—who has eyes higher up in space above the wolf’s level—suddenly turns, stands his ground, and looks down at him, brandishing his antlers? The wolf stops dead in his tracks. And that’s how most misbehaving dogs act when Cesar Millan enters a room and starts doing his “tch-tch” act. So the feeling Millan is actually stimulating in dogs is the polar opposite of magnetic. It’s a form of fear, pure and simple.
The alpha roll serves a similar purpose; it scares and intimidates a dog, something a real pack leader (if there were such an animal) would never need to do. By contrast, the exercise I learned from watching the papa wolf (the closest thing we have to a true pack leader) is what’s really magnetic. And that’s why dogs are so much more obedient and quicker to respond when you act submissive: they become magnetized to you!
Let’s put Cesar Millan aside for a moment. Many people use the alpha roll, and probably think they’re getting good results. But are they? It certainly stops a dog from misbehaving, at least momentarily. So what should they do instead to get real, lasting behavioral changes in their dogs?
When dogs “misbehave” they're basically showing us that they don’t know what else to do with their energy. The alpha roll at its most violent teaches the dog to be defensive about how she uses her energy, and builds up feelings that in humans we would think of as resentment. Her energy may seem to be under the owner or trainer’s control, but will often simmer inside and come out as aggression toward others, or be directed inward, and express itself as fearful behaviors or a general lack of interest in life.
But even when the alpha roll is done in its gentlest form, with the dog obeying the down command, and then being gently rolled over on her side (which is not a good way to reward her for obeying your commands, by the way), the exercise does nothing to teach the dog how to use her energy properly. It only puts a lid on it momentarily.
So what is the proper way to do the alpha roll?
There isn’t one. If you want to be a true pack leader just imitate the papa wolf—have fun, play hunting games with your dog, get down on her level. Remember, wolves hunt by working together, which is one instinct that really does exist in both dogs and wolves. And as for exerting control in a pressure situation, a dog who routinely plays tug and fetch and chase me with her owners is far more likely to respond properly in a crunch than a dog who’s merely had a lid clamped down on her emotional pressure cooker and pushed over on her side in a nonsensical display of some mythical instinct that doesn’t even exist.
Next time: The Eyes Exercise, a great technique to replace the alpha roll.
—LCK
8 comments:
This is a great post! I'm going to try it with Banjo!. He's generally a pretty obedient little fellow, but I sometimes feel like he's in charge of me more than I am of him.
And, I have often wondered what your take on Cesar Milan is... :)
Hi, Colette.
Thanks for the kudos.
But I'm a little confused.Since this post is about NOT doing the alpha roll, I'm not sure what it is you're actually going to DO, unless it's the bit I mentioned in passing about letting a dog jump on top of you and nip your nose. That certainly reduces a lot of the dog's feelings of social resistance, which usually results in much better responsiveness.
LCK
You are making so many comments (with authoroty)about wolves but yet have you ever observed a wolf pack first hand in the wild or in captivity?
WOlves in captivity don't behave similarly to wolves in the wild. Lee might not have spent any time in the wild studying wolf behavior, but David Mech has, and Mech is someone that Lee references often in his blog entries. Cesar Milan, nice man as he might be, is sadly not as nice a trainer as one might hope. Have you seen an episode where he literally drags a dog frozen in sheer terror and basically has emotionally shut dowbn across a tiled floor? This inhumane insanely horrible practice is known as flooding. Would you like that done to you? If you were afraid of spiders, it would be the equivalent of dunking you in a bathtub full of spiders and then laying a large wooden board on top so you couldn't escape. Now tell me you won't emotionally shut down after 20 mins in that.
Lee, I see that I should have posted my alpha roll comment here. Sorry about that!
I should clarify that when I've used it, I trained a command, "sleep" which means to lie on their side. Maybe you are right in that it just put a lid on their energy, but they needed that at the time. I rarely use this anymore, but the last time I did was because my little one lunged at a dog my GSD was playing with...she used teeth. I just reacted quickly, but grabbing her off the other dog and placing her on her side...she didn't struggle, she just stayed there for a bit, relaxed. My GSD stopped playing and lay down next to her and the other dog just hung out. Then we all took a walk together. She has not gone after another dog since.
FWIW, nobody 'taught' me this...I just did it in the moment. What would have been a better way?
Hi, Angela,
First let me just mention something for those who haven't read the comments section on the "Positive Mental Associations v. Reducing Tension" thread, which is where some of what Angela is asking about can be found. On that thread I quoted a few passages from NATURAL DOG TRAINING, in which Kevin Behan writes that it's sometimes necessary to use some sort of dominance technique with a nervous dog, and that doing so can have a calming effect. He also says that it's best to employ such a correction with the leash and collar rather than through anything that involves grabbing, hitting, or wrestling with the dog.
So my comment to Angela is that this may have been a case where doing the kinder, gentler version of the alpha roll DID have a calming effect. However, another part of the picture is that your German shepherd lay down next to her afterwards, which ALSO had a calming effect, and took some of the sting out of your physical correction.
As to what you "should" have done instead, I wasn't there and I'm not getting a clear picture of what the infraction was, what sparked her behavior, etc. However, grabbing the dog and forcing her onto her side would never be my first choice (or second or third). If I can't solve a build-up of tension through praise or by saying, "Okay!" in a happy voice, I'll usually go to the other end of the vocal spectrum and give the dog a loud, angry, "HEY!" This usually shocks the dog momentarily, and THEN I'll praise her. When shouting doesn't work it's either time for a time out or a little leash work.
I don't know if that would've worked in your situation, and it sounds like doing a leash correction wouldn't have been possible, but I much prefer "dominating" a dog (if absolutely necessary) through vocal "intimidation" rather than through any form of correction where I have to lay hands on the dog in any way, the reason being that a dog's psychic space, and the physical integrity of her body, should be somewhat inviolable. It's not a line you want to cross unless you absolutely have to.
What this means, basically, is that you don't grab, hit, smack, spank, or in any way use your hands to correct a dog. Sometimes you have to grab the dog's back legs to stop a fight. But that's not a correction, it's an intervention.
There was a wheaten terrier named Magee that I trained who sometimes got into a contretemps at the dog run, and my technique to stop his fights from escalating was to grab hold of the fur on his back and lift him up off the ground. That got things quiet rather neatly. This had more to do with what was quickest and easiest for me physically than anything else though. And I always praised him to skies and let him jump on me and play such afterwards.
So what Angela did with her "little one," which was done on the fly, may have worked in that situation, but it's not something I'd recommend. It sends the wrong message to the dog: that physical violence is the way to solve your problems.
LCK
Last night I saw an alpha roll gone very bad. My dog Henry is very leash reactive with a dog in my building that I'll call C. C's owner is a big fan of Cesar Milan and has told me on several occasions that Cesar's techniques and philosophy are indisputable.
So last night, I was walking out the door of my building and noticed that C and her owner were on the stoop. I popped Henry's squeaky ball in his mouth and praised like crazy as we walked by. Henry stayed focused on me, while C jumped up and lunged at Henry. C's owner grabbed her and forced her on her side. Next thing I know, he HITS her. (Not hard, but he saw that I saw him do it.) So he said, "She bit me! I can't believe it! I corrected her and she bit me!"
Later that evening, same scenario. I walked by with Henry and C lunged at him. THIS time, however, he put C on her side and she squealed in pain. He said, "She's such a drama queen. I barely touched her."
Now Henry is by no means perfect when it come to reacting to other dogs on his leash, but I can guarantee that he isn't going to bite me (or squeal in pain!) if i praise him and play tug/give him a ball when we pass another dog!
It's possible that by seeing Henry and you as an example of how to relate to a dog in a way that has a positive overall effect, Colette's owner might start to question his beliefs about dog training. And while I can't speak for Cesar Millan, in my opinion if CM had seen what transpired with that poor sweet doggie he would've stepped in and asked the owner, "What are doing? Why in the world would you have done that?"
Of course CM's probably wouldn't have taken issue with the alpha roll but that the guy lost control of his temper. (Still, that's a step up from what the guy did.)
That said, people's beliefs tend to be very deeply ingrained. It's hard to know what might cause this guy to see things in a different light, or if he even COULD see them any differently. So my recommendation (if you want one from me) is to keep doing what you're doing with Henry, don't get into any debates with Colette's owner, but let Henry's behavior serve as an example.
Remember, your first goal is to help Henry get past HIS issues. Simply doing that can set off a small chain reaction, which may or may not stimulate some kind of change in this guy. Or as the slogan goes: "Changing the World, One Dog at a Time..."
Then at some point this guy MIGHT ask you to offer some validation for the different perspective you have on the subject. Then you could give him a print-out of one of my essays.
LCK
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