I made a post about our 2 yr old lab and his food aggression. Over the past couple of weeks we have had two new instances where he was guarding myself and once my husband. We are in the process of seeking a behaviorist for this, we think we have found a couple of people. I had a question though, one of the trainers we talked with uses the alpha roll, I am not familiar with this but she said that if Oakley is aggressive towards the puppy we should place him in the alpha roll until he lays there on his own without us holding him, she said this is telling him that we are in charge and not himself. She said this is what mother dogs do to the puppies when they are aggressive or naughty. I have never heard of this before is this something that is a normal thing?
Hi mom2labs, I'd rule out that trainer! I'm afraid she's using a technique based in dominance theory. It used to be a normal thing, but these days it's completely outdated and obsolete. Modern dog trainers understand that it doesn't relate at all to how dogs think, and doesn't work as part of successful training. You can read more here. Oakley will be much better off with a behaviorist who uses positive reinforcement techniques Good luck, let us know how you get on!
Please stop working with this behaviourist and disregard all advice they have given. They are using very dangerous and outdated methods for training dogs which are not based on scientific principles of animal learning. See if you have a Karen Pryor Certified Trainer in your area, or someone from Jean Donaldson's Academy for Dog Trainers - someone from the Pet Professional Guild or a Certified BAT Instructor. You can also have a read of these links: https://www.petprofessionalguild.com/DominanceTheoryPositionStatement https://drsophiayin.com/philosophy/dominance/ https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/behavior/debunking-the-alpha-dog-theory/
Thank you for the input, that's what feeling I was getting when I started researching it. We have not used her. She was one of the few that we have had consultations with. We will not be using her for sure. I will check out the links you posted. I think we may have found someone. We go tomorrow for a private lesson and we will know from there if this is who we will continue to use.
