oooh, am not a fan of dominance theories -- see the post recently on dominance, also Ian Dunbar, in this section -- I think these theories lead to problem training approaches that typically make problems worse (though sometimes better -- simply becaue often the advice is to better train the dog and limit access to the places that cause problems...

).. Dunbar though would argue strongly that dogs are not planning to take over the house and outrank people, especially not children -- they just do not think this way (and clearly understand humans are not dogs in their pack. My dogs do not try to outrank the four cats nor do they fight with them for rank positions which surely they would do if they seriously saw everything living in the house as part of a giant mxed-species pack...

).
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