by Kerry Lauerman
It's news that should shock and delight dog owners, scolded for decades by trainers and dog whisperers that they must relentlessly assert their dominance over their dogs: Yes, it's perfectly acceptable to let Fido sleep in your bed.
You can also let him enter a room before you, and you can let him win at a game of tug of war, all without fearing that you will somehow signal that you are the submissive one and he is in charge. Contrary to long-cherished theories, dogs aren't competing with us for position in the pack, but are largely performing for our approval. And that -- no matter what the Cesar Millans of the world would have you believe -- is because much of what we've been led to be believe about dogs' hard-wired behavior has been totally wrong.
In his densely illuminating new book, "Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet," John Bradshaw explains how our understanding has been skewed by deeply flawed research, and exploited by a sensationalized media. In place of the rigid, often violent, alpha-led wolf societies we once believed produced the modern dog were actually cooperative, familial groups. And in place of the choke-chain school of negative reinforcement should be a training program based primarily on the positive.
Bradshaw, the Waltham director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol, articulates a revolutionary change in thinking in "Dog Sense" that should liberate both dog and owner from what had so often been portrayed as an adversarial relationship. He spoke with Salon recently by phone.
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It's news that should shock and delight dog owners, scolded for decades by trainers and dog whisperers that they must relentlessly assert their dominance over their dogs: Yes, it's perfectly acceptable to let Fido sleep in your bed.
You can also let him enter a room before you, and you can let him win at a game of tug of war, all without fearing that you will somehow signal that you are the submissive one and he is in charge. Contrary to long-cherished theories, dogs aren't competing with us for position in the pack, but are largely performing for our approval. And that -- no matter what the Cesar Millans of the world would have you believe -- is because much of what we've been led to be believe about dogs' hard-wired behavior has been totally wrong.In his densely illuminating new book, "Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet," John Bradshaw explains how our understanding has been skewed by deeply flawed research, and exploited by a sensationalized media. In place of the rigid, often violent, alpha-led wolf societies we once believed produced the modern dog were actually cooperative, familial groups. And in place of the choke-chain school of negative reinforcement should be a training program based primarily on the positive.
Bradshaw, the Waltham director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol, articulates a revolutionary change in thinking in "Dog Sense" that should liberate both dog and owner from what had so often been portrayed as an adversarial relationship. He spoke with Salon recently by phone.
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