[dagmx]

This is horrifyingly incorrect. Your dog is very likely to learn to bite you in the future and what you're doing is abusing your dog.

Also you reference alpha/beta behaviour which has been debunked ages ago. There is no such thing.

Your understanding of dog psychology is decades out of date. It only works because you are instilling fear in your dog. Maybe your dog won't ever snap at you, but your methods have a very high risk of creating a violent dog.

Please seek out a dog behaviorist. Your methods are not what anybody should be doing.

[loceng]

It's clear whatever understanding of animal behaviour you're indoctrinated into isn't the only method. Packs have leaders, a hierarchy - and that is determined in part by trust development and in part on taking a dominant stand. You can do this non-violently - and depending on your relationship with your dog, the trust, their intelligence - more subtle tactics work well - and it isn't violent at all; increased stress isn't fear, so you can't assume fear is being caused - perhaps for some dogs where there isn't trust with the person, sure, then fear is possible: I'd have fear if a stranger entered my house without me knowing them or them being invited, but if a family member comes in unannounced and unexpected I'll just perhaps be startled momentarily - but no harm was done.

You need more nuance on your rigid belief that what I did to successfully and safely train my dog - I can't imagine what you're picturing - but I was in full control and in no danger, and she wasn't going to bite me because I am far stronger than she is - and I had my hands over her muscle. And there was trust with her, she wasn't an aggressive dog - highly intelligent and so it took little influence to redirect her behaviour. For sure, certain dogs with certain temperament

Your blanket statement that what I'm doing is wrong is wrong.

I assure you there was no more fear or stress than if you raised your voice to a child who's misbehaving. Most dogs aren't lacking in experience with physical interactions with other dogs - making noises/barking to friendly nipping to more aggressive nipping for control/dominance. Gently putting your dog on their side in a safe and controlled manner, putting some weight on them - enough to know they can't move - and gently holding their snout together while deeply, softly, calmly, slowly growling "noooooo" until they calm down is very mild and subtle in reality. Arguably if you don't have trust with the dog or your dog is aggressive and they don't submit fairly quickly - then that tactic can't work.

You seem to be more on the coddling side of the spectrum. The "horrifyingly incorrect" and "abusing my dog" comments make me wonder what you're imagining too.

Citations needed on "alpha/beta behaviour" has been debunked is needed. You can see hierarchies everywhere including with animals - it's why dogs can learn to not bite or nip people, but will nip other dogs in playful or even aggressive ways - but not humans, because they know people are higher up in the hierarchy.

You don't seem to care to take nuance or context into account in your analysis, and it sounds like your experience with and behaviour of dogs is limited as well - as I said before, indoctrinated into whatever methods you suggest; I'd love to see videos of a variety of scenarios you think will help - and I wonder how realistic they will be or how serious and urgent of situations they are to take control of the situation.

[dagmx]

Your understanding of pack leaders is out of date knowledge. It's as simple as that. You are operating on a much debunked theory of dominance and social hierarchy that was based on a misunderstanding of wolves in captivity.

Canines have much more complex shared social hierarchies. This is well established today.

You're doing the equivalent of passing off 1950s psychology as modern. Science has moved on. Please do the same.

Some citations on canine hierarchies

https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/dog-behavior-and-trai...

http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2007250,0...

Any modern literature on dog psychology will disprove your methodology and understanding.

[loceng]

"These experts who study wolf behaviour describe the role of the wolf leaders as parents— guiding, teaching, and caring for their pack members. ... A parent-family model better describes wolf-wolf relationships than a competitive hierarchy model."

Parents will send their children to their room as punishment - confining them. Gently holding a dog (that isn't overly resisting, that isn't being aggressive) down with some body weight is the same as confinement. You realize parent-family mode, parent-child, is itself a hierarchy though - right?

I was spanked once as a child, just once, just one single spank - and I remember that moment clearly; stress response is literally how we remember, and why PTSD can become a thing for people when the stress is too high - and arguably animals. It was by an uncle because I had "run away" or hid from the family and they had to search for me, I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I was 5 or 6 years old. I didn't do it again. E.g. Stress applied can make memories more vivid for learning - and you continue to ignore that nuance, that spectrum, claiming the actions I took were "horrific" and "abusing" and fear inducing. Once again, I can assure you, the 2 or 3 times I had to do that were for the benefit and care of my dog because immediate harm (choking risk) or future consequences of harm would come to her if they weren't corrected.

I'd love for you to present videos of what you consider abusive and not abusive - and hopefully for correcting the same behaviours; I imagine you have some examples at both extreme ends of the spectrum.

I'm curious too what you'd do if a dog was viciously attacking your own dog and was dominating it, your dog was getting hurt and would get even more hurt very quickly? Please include nuance of the situation so I can understand how aggressive/violent the dog is, how much harm is coming to your dog. It sounds like you wouldn't intervene because you wouldn't want to hurt either dog - or you're saying that higher force than me gently putting weight on my dog to control her is reasonable sometimes?

[dagmx]

Sigh.. you've become increasingly combative in the face of new evidence against your preconceived notions. You're also throwing out strawman arguments to save face.

I have never said not to intervene. That's purely something you've manufactured. You can intervene in the case of attacks. Nothing I've said contradicts that. However physical abuse in the case of defense is different than physical abuse as a training mechanism.

Also you justify spanking. Again this is not recommended behaviour by child and family psychologists today. Your methodology is very old school from an era that's passed. Whether you continue to practice it or not is totally on you, but preaching it as advice in the face of science and then getting defensive when pointed out that science has moved on, is not healthy.

I will not be participating further in this discussion due to your strawmen arguments and discussion in bad faith. It is clear you have no intention to understand the current field of science on both child and dog behaviour.

[loceng]

Sigh. This is discussion, nothing combative - and if you want to apply that label to me then you're equally "combative" - so it's a moot point.

You've ignored my questions or countering my specific points - instead saying I've used straw man arguments and saying I'm arguing in bad faith - in order to avoid actually responding to my specific points, likely because you don't have arguments to counter most of them.

Is firmly holding the hand of child to safely cross them across the street because they're acting in a wild way or having a temper tantrum considered abuse? I'm really curious what your line for what is considered abuse vs. what is considering caring.