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Guinea Pigs and Dominance – Do you “Rumble Strut?”
Julie Neuman, CPDT-KA is a Program Director at CATCH. She shares this amazing analogy when helping students understand and explain the problems with “dominance theory” and how the construct falls apart.
“One of my favorite examples to give to students when teaching about the misconception of using dominance to interact with dogs, is to talk about my guinea pigs! One common myth is that you have to do what a mother dog does or other dogs do to correct a “misbehavior” in a dog. For example, shaking the dog by the scruff of the neck, pinning the dog down, using your hand to “bite” the dog, etc.
Guinea pigs definitely have a hierarchy among themselves. To show that they don’t like something the other guinea pig is doing, they will chatter their teeth at them. If they are trying to show that they are the “alpha” pig and that this is their space, their food, etc they will do what is called “rumble strutting”.
They will start purring/growling, will begin to strut and swagger (think of cowboys in an old western when they are about to duel-it’s hard to take it seriously lol) and shake their rear end in the other guinea pig’s face. Now, the guinea pigs know exactly what is meant by that and will respond accordingly.
However, if I wanted to show my guinea pigs that ‘no, you cannot have more food’ or ‘I’m in charge here’, if I were to get on the floor and start shaking my rear end in their face, I would get some pretty confused and frightened looks from my guinea pigs. If they could talk they would be saying, “What the heck are you doing, strange hooman?”
I don’t use the dominance displays or “corrections” that other dogs use because my dog knows that I’m not a dog and they have no idea why I am acting the way that I am! This example usually gets a smile or a chuckle out of clients and students, enabling them to be more receptive to alternative methods to “correcting” their pup.
This is a fun YouTube video of what “Rumble Strut” looks like:I don’t use the dominance displays or “corrections” that other dogs use because my dog knows that I’m not a dog and they have no idea why I am acting the way that I am! This example usually gets a smile or a chuckle out of clients and students, enabling them to be more receptive to alternative methods to “correcting” their pup.
This is a fun YouTube video of what “Rumble Strut” looks like.
Do you have other examples that you like to use to help people learn to train with positive reinforcement methods, rather than force and intimidation?
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4 Replies
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Thank you for this insight! The analogy is useful and funny. I’m curious to know what you all think of the idea of using similar techniques that dogs use. After all, we take the idea of body blocking from watching other dogs do it to each other first. I think positive reinforcement is great, and it’s really important to differentiate between dominance and leadership. But what about using tactics such as moving forward or claiming space and toys perhaps because it’s the language they instinctively know and are used to? i don’t know. I could totally be wrong here. I would love to learn and discuss more about this topic.
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Fantastic topic, @Shadow – Space is a whole thing with dogs and yes, I agree there’s a lot that’s communicated by it. I agree too that we need to differentiate between the traditional trainer’s use of abusive methods to subjugate a dog and what it means to simply body block a doorway. Patricia McConnell and Suzanne Clothier have quite a lot written on this topic in their books and blogs. Have you followed or read much from either of them?
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Thank you for replying! I have not, but those sounds interesting!
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@Shadow Check out “When Bones Would Rain From the Sky” by Suzanne Clothier. I think you’d like it!
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