behaviour issue!

we have been plodding along nicely until last sat, when i was sat (unusually) giving willow and chester my crust off of my toast all finished i was about to get up and chester went for willow! it came from nowhere and was so quick it shocked me! at first i thought chester had caught willow in the eye as she was squinting but as i went to check her she had a small cut on her cheek too which was bleeding so chester had given her a "warning" he could rip her cheek off if he had wanted too. willow was shaking but fine half hour later! the trouble now is that when we come up to chill in bedroom for the evening ( they sleep in kitchen when bedtime) willow is allowed on bed chester has a bed next to me on floor (he can be dominating so have been advised to keep him lowest in pack) but chester will now not come and relax in my bedroom and just sits downstairs or goes into my 11 year old sons room where he is not allowed im not sure how to deal with this hell be 3 in oct i seem to go one step forwardvwith him then 2 steps back any thoughts on whats going on in his behaviour?

Sounds like he is growing up. 3 Yrs is their peak/prime. Never heard of the "keeping at the bottom of the pack" thing. When we had a Dog and Bitch at the same time we let nature take its course and the Dog was dominant, but we had no issues whatsoever. The Bitch showed necessary respect but told him off clearly if he took liberties. She would not choose a bone until he had made his choice etc but they seemed to respect each others boundaries.
Not sure what to advise really.

Where did the pack advice come from?

we had willow for a year before we got chester and he had problems from the start! both rescue dogs had advice from a dog trainer on keeping chester least dominant. willow has always been allowed on bed settee etc chester has not as he always seems to push his luck that little bit further and as we have an 11 year old and now a 1 year old grandaughter i am very wary of where chester sees himself within our group (pack) and i think he sees himself as being higher than willow but she has been allowed on bed etc for the last 3 years but realise the natural order of things he feels he should be dominant over willow i just dont know how to handle this transition!

I'm sure that there's a thread here somewhere on pack theory, but it's been entirely debunked and holds very little relevance to domestic dogs. The studies that brought about the very old fashioned pack theory turned out to be on a study of captive wolves, who were not in their natural habitat, nor natural family! Between wolves and dogs are another canine group, who our pets are much more closely linked to. I'm on my phone at the moment but will find a link for you tomorrow.

I too am a dog trainer, and though I believe boundaries, consequence and reward and very important; dominance doesn't often come into my vocabulary, not because there's no such thing, but because our dogs are much more complicated than dominant/submissive. He is more likely I be pushy/assertive in personality, and stubborn as bull breeds are. I would imagine if giving table scraps isn't a common occurance, the competition over the food is what caused the spat between the dogs. There is of course hierarchy between dogs, and one generally does have first access to resources etc over another, but concentrate more on training and less on squashing the "dominance" out of your dog. He's probably very confused! Biscuit is very pushy, but is allowed on beds/sofas etc when invited, and knows "off" and will follow this command whenever I ask her to. There is balance in out relationship and she's extremely well behaved honestly, focus more on commands and watching and learning from your dogs! Aversive, dominance based techniques are much more likely to produce "bad" behaviour.

you have completely hit the nail on the head with his behaviour i dont ever sit and feed the dogs crusts ( my partner does) it was a rare occassion when my son had a lift to football! the balance seems to be lost at the mo im not trying to show chester that willow is any more dominant than him but his bounderies are that he is not allowed in my sons room unless im there ( this may also be confusing him) he usually follows me around like my shadow until this incidence happened with willow and now he sits on his own or goes into my sons room when im not in there im after any tips on how to get back to normal i think i may look for a new trainer in my area as my last one i seem to get lots of conflicting info on!

I have seen a group order establish with my Flo in very quick time. She was introduced to her cousins (2 Bloodhounds). On entering their home, which actually wasn't planned but worked out ok, they nosed her, she yapped at the boisterous young bloodhound and the order was set almost immediately.

She kinda fits between the older hound and the younger one even though Flo is the elder one. Subsequently she spent a happy weeks vacation there and no issues at all.

In your situation, I think some natural order is occurring with some conflicting human responses. In my opinion stay firm with your normal rules and don't let isolation become an issue.

thats what i feel to try and keep normal rules (but its so hard knowing chester is downstairs on his own) he can come up anytime he wants to but he wont settle and is panting and acting very out of sorts! my partner thinks we should make willow come off of the bed but thats easier said than done and im not sure thats the right way to go about things? i think your advise sounds about right to stay firm and ill ride it out and hopefully he will settle down again chester is so precious to me but also very strong willed and the sort of dog that needs bounderies! if u met him u would see how he is like no other dog ive met at least!

I am certainly not a Dog trainer and can only speak based on my own experiences.

I know that many discount the pack theory and I have never researched either side of the argument, I am only going on what I have seen with my Dogs/Family/Children. I may well be using the wrong term/name for things.

Pecking order definitely exists and, in my opinion and experience, helps keep the peace and harmony of The Family when everyone knows there place. We had an issue where one of my dogs thought that he was "outranked" my youngest of 3 Sons. Resolved within a week.

But is this not "Pack" behaviour? Am I using the wrong term?

If this Pecking Order needs to exist would it not be better to let the dogs sort themselves out rather than trying to re-order the natural instincts?

I am not being argumentative, I am genuinely interested.

Just re-read your first post, am wondering if he saw your reaction to his unexpected snap and is now a tad wary. Reassurance and stick it out with the pre snap routine and see how he goes.

Not sure what the panting thing is though. It may be uncertainty as to weather he is allowed upstairs etc.

I see the same as Tony.. Again not sure it's a pack thing just a normal order.

this is what im trying to work out "pecking order" "pack rank" since this happened chester keeps trying to get on bed with us or making willow feel uncomfortable about being on the bed the trouble is that chester once u give him a bit of freeway (ie reason he is not allowed on bed is that we let him come on bed and when my son came in and sat on bed chester growled at him) so we have tried to let natural pecking order take place but i am unsure of the correct way to how far chester can push it obviously my son will always be above chester but chester keeps going in my sons room now which he wouldnt normally do ?

By going to your Sons room sounds like he is feeling a bit unloved and sorry for himself and is looking for an alternative friend/ally.

If this is the case then he will return to normal in a fairly short space of time when he realises that you still love him really (and keep feeding him lol).

As I say, I am no expert, just had Staffordshires for 25 Years (Bloody Hell that's scary, never counted the Years before. My God I feel old lol)

Personally, I just have a scientific mind and like to research learning theory. From what I have learnt, classical and operant conditioning works best in training, pack theory has no real place in actually changing behaviours, though it does have place in general interactions, if that makes any sense? So leadership is of course important in general interactions, but that doesn't train a dog. Reward and consequence is what trains a dog. I don't think I've ever really seen a dominance trainer give a real reward.

"A good hypothesis is that although social status is highly relevant to dogs, it's much less of an obsession with them than it is with wolves. Dogs are more like juvenile wolves than adult ones, and young wolves are less interested in social hierarchies than adults are. Even within the category of our house dogs, I suspect that when we finally get around to doing some good, rigorous research on their social system, we'll find different levels of importance put on status depending on how the dogs lived. So we need to be careful when we talk about the social behaviour of dogs, because the same dog can act differently depending on her environment. Understanding social status is particularly important because misunderstanding what "dominance" means has led to appallingly abusive behaviour. (Dominance is often mistaken for aggression.) So much old-fashioned obedience training could be summarised as, "Do it because I told you to, and if you don't, I'll hurt you. If dominance is not the same as aggression, then what is it? As first used in the study of animal behaviour decades ago, the term dominance described a relationship between two animals. Dominance was referred to as "priority access to preferred, limited resources." nothing less, nothing more. The aspect of dominance that's important to dog owners is the social freedom that comes with it. Dogs who are status-seeking and who see themselves as high up in the social order feel the freedom to touch you and solicit petting when they feel like it but will warn you off for taking such social liberties yourself. (But be careful about assuming that social status always explains this behaviour. Some dogs behave this way when they are in pain.) Social status isn't always just about the most powerful individual's taking charge, for hierarchies are more complicated than that. High-status individuals are often dependent on the support of others in the group and can't maintain their position without it. As we all know. even high-status humans can forget themselves and lose their power by overreaching their boundaries." - Patricia McConnell (If you would like to learn more about other ways of training, I would recommend her books "The other end of the leash" and "For the love of a dog" to anybody. Plus the books stated in the references are all great for learning theory and evolution.

As previously stated, there's no argument that hierarchy exists within ALL social orders, but dogs interact differently with other dogs than they do with humans, they know we're not dogs and don't treat us as such. Personally, I think he's confused and feeling very pushed out. If it were me, i'd try and keep routine the same for both dogs. I think the growl at your son for being on the bed has nothing to do with being high up or on the "masters" bed but more to the fact that it's something he's been wanting for so long and he's fearing it being taken away. Imagine that you loved going to the beach, you only get to go once and year and as soon as you get there somebody tries to send you back home ruining your time in your favourite place; you'd be upset? But your reactions would depend on your personality type. Dogs have personalities too. He's probably trying to get on the bed because he wants to be near you.

Great reply Rachel.. Especially like the phrase you use with the beach.

Sorry, I've never had two together so not much use, have you considered speaking to a canine behaviourist?

Totally agree with your conclusion in the last paragraph Rachel. I would like to explain that I did not use Pack theory to train any of my dogs. I was just commenting that they seemed to adopt and accept their "rank" naturally with each other and the Family members themselves.

It was not really apparent to me until we had two at the same time. Then I noticed how they related and reacted with each other and over time realised that they were the same with the Family.

PS. I also agree with your theory on the reason for the dogs behaviour and proposed solution btw.

Thank you both, sorry for such a long winded ramble, just a complicated topic I suppose! You're very right Tony, I love to watch dogs interact, seeing Biscuit with each of our fosters has taught me so much, but compared to wolf interactions, dogs can see inconsistent which is what encourages me to look into more studies.

I'm glad you agree, I hope you don't feel that I was being argumentative either, but think it's good to discuss these things hope the OP gets things sorted!

I didn't think you was being argumentative, I asked for an explanation and you provided exactly what I was looking for. I like to research too, I never researched this because I never "used" it for training. I just became aware of it.

Thanks for explaining. Everybody on this site only tries to help in the best way they can. That's why I like it here. No Judging.

i too like to research (have had many issues with chester) i agree chester is desperate to get on the bed and snuggle like willow does so we are trying now to keep willow off of the bed and they have beds on the floor next to our bed. we have recently been decorating our bedroom which has definetly upset chesters routine so am wondering if has anything to do with his behaviour? chester is a very complex character! ive checked him for any pain issues as this has been the case in the past when he has growled its been because he has had a sore leg ill never stop trying with his issues that arise here and there thanks for advise peeps!