If you thought the Discovery Channel dog whisperer knew what he was talking about, you are in for a shock! Buying this book and reading it with an open mind might be the best thing you every did for your dog. Highly recommended. -
In this ground-breaking and sometimes controversial book, Alexandra Semyonova explodes the 100 most common myths about dogs, their nature, their behaviour and how to treat them. She explains how the old, pseudo-scientific theory of dominance in dogs originated in Nazi ideology and the disastrous consequences this has had for dogs, and replaces it with conclusions drawn from twenty years of researching and directly observing real dog behaviour.
As she takes us through the 100 myths, Semyonova shows conclusively that serious aggression is utterly abnormal in the domestic dog, bringing us up to date on the true nature of dogs and what their body language really means. We gain a clear explanation of the three simple rules that dogs follow and clear guidance on how to use them to improve our interactions with our canine friends.
Excerpt:
Myth 10: Dogs live in a dominance hierarchy, with the Alpha dog at the top as the absolute leader.
One of the things we hear most about dogs is that dominance is extremely important in organising their groups. The story goes that their interactions are all about gaining and maintaining status. The dog with the higher rank dominates the dog with the lower rank, who submits. Dogs are always trying to climb up the ladder, because they know higher ranks bring bigger advantages in life. This whole story is, yet again, based on tales about how wolves organise their packs. This is the one myth about dogs that virtually everyone seems to know -- not only beginning dog owners, but even people who have never had a dog and wouldn't want one. I rarely meet people who don't believe in this myth.
Therefore, it will probably surprise you to hear that we now know (thanks to Dr L. David Mech) that even wolves do not live in a dominance hierarchy. To live in a dominance hierarchy, and to base your behaviour towards others on who has which rank, you have to be able to do quite a bit of abstract thinking. You'd have to have a map of the social structure in your head, in which you are comparing various ranks with each other and assigning these ranks to yourself and others. Neither the wolf nor the dog has the large frontal lobes in the brain that would enable them to think in such abstract terms. A dominance hierarchy also requires a stable group that is organised in a rigid structure. Dogs do not live in stable groups. They live semi-solitary lives, which are enriched by fleeting friendships. As we will see in Myth 11, the groups dogs do form are not at all rigidly organised. The structure of dog groups is, rather, highly flexible, which is the whole reason they are so good at absorbing infinite numbers of strangers. And the final strange thing about this myth is that no one has ever yet been able to find a real dominance hierarchy within a group of dogs, no matter how hard they looked or what kind of statistics they applied. The whole idea is utter nonsense.
So what is going on? How could science make such a blunder, and how did this myth end up being so firmly rooted in our minds?
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