Alpha Dog Behavior

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Alpha Dog Behavior

Training a dog can be easy as long as you think like a dog, pay attention to the dog's body language, and use a firm, no-nonsense voice. This voice does not have to be loud. In fact, a soft guttural voice is what is needed in correcting a dog. The "growling" tones of the word, "Enough!" is a good correction to use on a dog that is misbehaving. The word itself sounds like a growl. Couple that sound with a hand held over and encircling the dog's muzzle is usually all that is needed to stop a barking dog.

Dog trainers have sat for hours watching the behavior of litters of puppies and how their dam deals with misbehavior. As the puppies grow and begin to explore, the mother dog begins to use a little more discipline. Her puppies have teeth now and are using them to chew up everything, including their mom.

When puppies are two to three weeks old, the mother dog is perfectly willing to lie down so that her puppies can suckle. At four to five weeks old, the mother dog is beginning to dry up and there is not as much milk available. When the puppies begin to suckle, they realize that the milk isn't coming quite as quickly as it had been. They begin to tug on their mother's teats .. tugging into her delicate skin with needle sharp puppy teeth.

The mother dog immediately stands up and takes the dinner away. The next time the puppy suckles he will be a bit more careful about pulling the teat as he knows that if he bites, dinner leaves. Sometimes a puppy is determined to get more dinner. He will follow the mother dog while she is walking and jump to catch her teat .. again with his needle sharp teeth. This is usually a bit more than the mother dog can stand. Turning quickly, she grabs the puppy by the muzzle and growls. The puppy immediately goes belly up, "sorry mom .. sorry, mom .. wont do it again."

This belly-up behavior is a sign of submission by the puppy while in the presence of a more alpha dog, or leader. This belly-up behavior is something else you should do with your puppy. When you are handling and playing with your puppy, roll him over on his back and hold him there. He will struggle at first, but do NOT let him win. As soon as he stops struggling, reassure him with the words "Tickle Tummy" and stroke his belly.

This stroking and the words will soon register as a good thing to the puppy. My vet is always amazed when my hundred pounds of German Shepherd jumps up on the exam table and at the words, "Down" and "Tickle Tummy", the dog goes belly up. This position makes it much easier to examine the dogs underbelly without struggling with the dog.

So, what does this behavior have to do with dog training? By mimicking pack behavior, by emulating the actions of a mother dog, we as humans can become effective, better trainers. When you have a biting dog, or a puppy that bites, if you copy a mother dog's action, you can cure the bad habit of biting before the dog needs to be euthanized for biting a child.

by Brenda "Rion" Sewell