The Leader of The Pack

Training Myths

27 Nov

Why the "pack leader" myth persists

The narrative is seductive: dogs are pack animals, packs have leaders, and without a strong leader dogs become anxious and misbehave. You’re told you must establish yourself as alpha, or your dog will try to take that role instead. From there, everything becomes a test of authority.

A dog that pulls on the lead is trying to lead. Jumping on visitors becomes an attempt to assert dominance. Sleeping on the bed means they think they’re your equal. Failing to come when called isn’t distraction or confusion — it’s a lack of respect for your leadership.

It’s elegant. It’s simple. And it’s entirely wrong.

The framework traces back to a 1947 study by Rudolph Schenkel, who observed captive wolves living in artificial zoo enclosures. These were unrelated animals forced together, competing for limited resources, and establishing order through aggression. Those observations were then extrapolated to dogs: they’re pack animals descended from wolves, therefore they must operate within dominance hierarchies and require an alpha leader.

There’s just one problem. Wild wolf packs don’t function that way. They’re family units. The so-called “alpha” is simply a parent, not a dominant individual fighting for status. There’s no ongoing struggle for rank because there’s no competition — when pups mature, they leave and form families of their own. The entire dominance framework was built on the behaviour of stressed animals living in artificial conditions.

David Mech, who helped popularise the alpha theory in the 1970s, spent much of his later career trying to correct it (here’s a great little vid of Mech doing just this). Through decades of field research, he and others showed that wild wolf packs are cooperative family groups, not dominance hierarchies, and he repeatedly discouraged the continued use of “alpha” terminology. He even asked for his original book to stop being reprinted, because its framing no longer reflected what we know.

The pack leader prescription

If dogs need a pack leader, then authority has to be established everywhere. It’s not just about training sessions — it becomes a way of living.

You’re told to eat before your dog eats, because the alpha eats first, and feeding them before you’ve finished supposedly signals weakness. You’re advised to go through doorways first, because leaders lead, and letting a dog pass ahead of you is framed as an invitation for them to dominate. Furniture is off-limits, because higher ground is equated with higher status, and a dog on the sofa is said to believe they’re your equal.

Everyday behaviour gets reinterpreted as “disrespect”. Jumping up, pulling on the lead, hesitating when called — none of it is seen as confusion, excitement, or lack of training. It’s all treated as a challenge that must be corrected immediately, or you risk losing authority.

That logic extends to physical interventions too. Alpha rolls are justified as a way to force submission when a dog is being “dominant”, while advice to be “calm and assertive” rests on the idea that dogs can read human “energy” — another claim that sounds intuitive, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

It becomes an entire lifestyle built on the premise that dogs are constantly assessing your worthiness to lead and waiting to exploit any weakness. Every interaction turns into a power struggle. Did you let them through the door first? You’ve lost status. Did they get on the sofa? They now think they’re alpha. Did they ignore a cue? They’re testing you.

It’s exhausting. And none of it reflects how dogs actually think or learn.

Why it's wrong

Dogs aren't wolves. 15,000+ years of domestication created a different animal. Dogs evolved to cooperate with humans, not to form hierarchical packs with them. Their survival strategy is affiliation, not dominance.

Dogs don't care who eats first. They care whether food appears reliably. They don't care who goes through doors first - they care whether going through the door is reinforced or punished. They don't think "I'm on the sofa therefore I'm alpha" - they think "the sofa is comfortable."

When your dog pulls on the lead, they're not trying to lead. They're excited, or have never learned that pulling doesn't work. When they jump on visitors, they're seeking attention, not asserting dominance. When they ignore recall, it's not disrespect - the distraction is higher value than you are, or you've poisoned the cue.

Pack leader theory misdiagnoses normal dog behaviour as status-seeking. It's anthropomorphising dog behaviour through a human power-dynamic lens. A dog resource guarding isn't trying to dominate you - they're displaying evolutionarily adaptive behaviour that needs management. A dog lunging at other dogs isn't challenging your authority - they're reactive, anxious, or frustrated.

The "solutions" that flow from pack leader thinking don't work because they're solving the wrong problem:

Eating before your dog doesn't teach them anything about your "status" - it just makes them wait for food
Going through doors first doesn't establish leadership - it's just an arbitrary rule the dog learns through repetition
Keeping them off furniture doesn't prevent dominance - it just limits where they can rest
Alpha rolls don't create "submission" - they create fear and damage your relationship
"Corrections for disrespect" don't teach respect - they teach the dog you're unpredictable and dangerous

Sometimes these methods look like they work. The dog stops resisting, becomes quieter, more compliant. But that isn’t respect — it’s suppression. The dog has learned that their choices don’t matter, that resistance leads to unpleasant consequences, and that disengagement is safer. In extreme cases, this becomes learned helplessness (a response first identified in experiments where dogs were given unavoidable electric shocks and eventually stopped trying to escape). Either way, it’s not learning — it’s shutdown.

What your dog actually needs

Your dog doesn't need you to be pack leader. They need you to be a teacher. Dogs learn through consequences - behaviour that's reinforced increases, behaviour that's not reinforced decreases. You don't need dominance, you need clarity.

Clear communication - teach them what you want, don’t just punish what you don't want. If you want them to stop jumping, teach them an incompatible behaviour like sit-for-attention. If you want them to stop pulling, teach loose-lead walking.

Consistency - the behaviour-consequence relationship needs to be reliable. If pulling sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, the dog learns to keep trying. Be predictable.

Management - set them up to succeed. You can't teach loose-lead walking if they're overstimulated - let them release some energy when they’re excited at the beginning of the walk before beginning training. You can't proof recall if the distraction is too high - train in easier environments first.

Understanding genetics - a Border Collie herding your kids isn't being dominant, they're doing their job. A Spaniel destroying the sofa isn't rebelling, they're under-stimulated. A Staffie pulling hard isn't challenging your leadership - they're using muscles bred for pulling.

Positive reinforcement - if reward what you want, the behaviour increases. Use consequences that build behaviours instead of suppressing them. The scientific evidence shows it's more effective than dominance-based methods.

You're not in a power struggle with your dog. You're teaching a different species to function in a human world using consequences that work with how they actually learn.

The Dog’s Honest Truth

The "pack leader" framework survives because it's simple and it flatters us - we're leaders, they're followers, we must be strong or they'll take advantage. It turns every interaction into a status test we must win.

The reality is much less dramatic: dogs learn through consequences. They're not evaluating your leadership credentials, they're figuring out what behaviours get reinforced and what behaviours don't.

Your dog doesn't need a pack leader. They need clear information about what works and what doesn't. I teach this from day one in my puppy training programmes. No door rituals, no furniture rules, no alpha rolls required.

Just positive methods that have been proven to work, and which help strengthen your bond with your dog.

David Green