A lot of other trainers have identified and feel that status disparity is an important concept, I agree with them. Here’s my spin on it.
A lot of the problems we have with our dogs are not because they don’t know how to do this or that behavior, but that the desired behaviors won’t be offered to competitors or subordinates. A lot of disrespectful behaviors just sort of go away when we create the proper status disparity.
Typical problems – dogs pull on leash, run out doors, disregard owner if anything more interesting is going on. Dogs sleep in owner’s bed, lay on owners, will snap at owners if moved or bumped while sleeping. Marking in house.
Let’s leave this messy house for a minute and cavort off to Corporate America. Let’s visit a small company with a friendly but firm CEO and a hard working Janitor. So… in the hall, when the CEO sees the Janitor, he says ‘hi”. He knows his name, he might ask how the family is. There is zero conflict between these two. The CEO never worries the Janitor will come in one day and take his job, the Janitor never worries about how he will throw out the CEO and take over his job. Their status is so far apart that there is zero conflict. Neither is afraid, there is not dislike, just two difference spheres of influence. If the Janitor found an issue in the building the CEO would take him seriously and realize he knows more about that sort of thing. Still no conflict.
Now lets look at two middle level managers. They have similar size departments, and both are ambitious. They would both like to be promoted to vice president but spots open up very rarely. They might not miss a chance to look good at the expense of the other manager, might squabble about who runs meetings, and for budget allocation. There’s a real chance to climb up the food chain so both push. Their status is so close that conflict will be inevitable.
Creating status disparity doesn’t mean being mean to your dogs or not engaging with them. It does mean engaging in specific ways that look to your dog like you are someone who is has within their sphere the responsibility for important decisions about activities, space, and resources. Training can help but how you live with the dogs makes or breaks the results of the training.
Owners that are struggling with their dogs always have a very low status disparity going on. They are in middle manager land with their dogs, or they are the janitors and the dog is the CEO. Owners that get it have a wide status disparity, with the dog as the janitor. Once the relationship is solidified correctly a lot more latitude can be given to many dogs, the key is does that particular dog feel the status between itself and the owner is now in flux to where the dog might get a promotion?
I think this is why many trainers can train the dog but the owners don’t get similar results, the trainer neglected to address the details of how to live with the dog, not just what the dog now knows how to do…
