Comments on: The Alpha Roll As A Training Technique

By: jenna

jenna — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:57:44 +0000

Hi Sonie and Doug,

I’m so glad you found this entry. I hope you read all the comments and also found other sites online about this subject.

I highly recommend that you find a different trainer. Look for a trainer who uses primarily positive training methods. The alpha roll has it’s place, but not with a puppy. In my opinion, ANY trainer who would immediately roll a dog without getting to know it first, doesn’t know what he’s doing. Also, the idea of doing it for a prescribed amount of time a certain number of times per day is ridiculous. Pete Campione, who I have a LOT of respect for as a trainer, made it very clear to me that the key to a correct alpha roll is the release. What your trainer told you to do is the exact opposite.

A good place to start looking for a trainer is the Certification Council for Pet Dog Trainers.

Good luck with Mosby! I’d love to hear about your progress.

By: Sonie

Sonie — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:05:19 +0000

Hi…

My husband and I have a 3 month old Wheaton Terrier. He nips and “bites” which I basically thought was a “puppy thing” When we went to training last night, the trainer was appalled when Mosby nipped at us and immediately employed the Alpha Roll. He is a strong advocate of this method and has instructed us to each do it twice a day for 5 minutes to let Mostly know who is the “Alpha”. It seems so heartless…what are your thoughts?

Thanks…Sonie and Doug Horstman Spostylvania, VA

By: jenna

jenna — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:15:45 +0000

Thanks everyone for such great input and insight! I like Kat’s correlation to martial arts… just because we CAN overpower our dogs, doesn’t mean we should.

Michelle – I know you’ve worked really hard to learn and adjust since Shimi came into your life. I’m sure he knows and loves you all the more for doing it.

I can’t imagine a situation where I would ever use – or approve of a trainer using – the alpha roll with a dog of mine, but at least I’ve learned that it is has valid uses, depending on the dog in question. That’s probably the more important point… not only does a person need to understand the psychology behind the roll and the technique to do it properly but you also have to really understand the individual dog before you can decide whether it is called for or not.

By: KAt

KAt — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:50:45 +0000

This is interesting. I’ve never thought to use a technique like that in a dog park. In a dog park there are just soooo many variables like how dogs greet each other, the energy, the fact that there are unstable and hyped up dogs who do not know how to say hello and other factors… I don’t know if an alpha roll there is right… UNLESS your dog greeted another dog with immediate aggression. Which doesn’t sound like the example you gave here.

This reminds me of when I took karate. I have an awesome teacher who taught us to only use it to protect/defend and also as soon as you could – run like hell. Then he moved and the replacement teacher was a douche. He said “when they’re down, keep ‘em down!” and I quit – months away from being a black belt… and yes, that bugs me… but at the same time how could I believe that?!? Why would I want to actually seriously injure someone just out of showing I could? and why would I ever aggressively scare the crap out of my dog?

If my dog got into a fight, which I’ve broken many up in my time at the shelter and dog daycare – You split them, you take yours away if you can, and ask the owner of the others to sep theirs too… so that you can either walk your dog out of there or just distract them and check for any cuts. Of course, sometimes you have to tackle a dog… but that’s another story for another time.

By: Molly

Molly — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:24:45 +0000

My first training experiences came from a school that preached alpha rolls for any kind of disobeying. I soon learned how much that and the other aversive methods of that school were killing my relationship with my dogs. Since then I have been trained in the proper place for alpha rolls, and honestly I have only ever used it once since that training and I probably could have used something else if I have thought a little longer about the situation.
Just about every situation I have ever seen someone do an alpha roll in was a situation where simple distraction and redirection would have worked just fine.
Sadly with dog training now a tv evening spectacle, more and more dogs are put through it unnecessarily. More and more people are hurting relationships or getting bitten in the process. Personally I think this is the greatest loss of all. Owners who simply want to fix a behavior that makes life challenging, are over disciplining their dogs because of what is seen on tv, and time and time again, myself and other trainers are contacted to fix the damage which to often is a dog who has turned to biting.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:13:34 +0000

I made this mistake with my little guy and didn’t realize I was damaging the relationship, but I absolutely was. I was so nervous that my Shiba would be dominant and I wouldn’t be able to control him, that I REALLY abused my power when he was a puppy. I have a lot of personality traits that make me not such a great dog person, I get nervous very easily and I worry about what other people will think of me if my dog behaves badly. So I had read about Shibas and how willful they can be, so I tried too hard to be in charge to correct problems that didn’t require it. I finally figured out something about our relationship when we took a few growly dog classes at our local training club. They have an excellent program and I’m lucky to have found it. She taught me the warning signs of anxiety and I realized that my dog is very excitable and fearful, not aggressive just for the sake of being aggressive. After a few weeks of classes, I had to stop because I didn’t have time for training right then. When I stopped, I realized that I was no longer stressed out about the training and the dog’s performance, and I also realized that he was more interested in spending time with me. It all clicked. In my world, the relationship is most important to me. Not training, not being able to go to the dog park (which we never really corrected fully with larger dogs, he still goes on the offensive), but having a relationship is why I have a dog. He doesn’t trust me to protect him, and I can’t say that I blame him, but I’m really trying to act as a protector now and see if we can fix that over time. I started the relationship not realizing that he needed to be protected. I thought he needed to be put in his place. But he’s never been dominant and that finally clicked when I saw a dog that actually was dominant on Cesar Milan’s show. That dog was NOT aggressive, but Cesar did get bitten because the dog was trying to roll him to take over. And you could see the difference from other cases he’d done. This was pure dominance, the dog was just trying to get physical control of Cesar, not trying to hurt or scare him. So many times, Cesar talks about being the pack leader, but I think it’s more about the human feeling calm and in charge, rather than physical domination of the dog. Anyway, I’m going on and on, but this is obviously a subject I feel strongly about, and I want to help people who place rescue Shibas learn all they can about educating people about Shibas because I had it all wrong.