This brief history of the evolution of modern day dog training provides readers with insight into how today’s dog training methods were developed. Our goal in reprinting this article by Dr. Mary Burch is to help you, caring pet parents, understand how the different approaches in dog training were developed and to, hopefully, choose positive methods over force-based ones.

The alpha myth is everywhere. Google “alpha dog” on the Internet and you get more than 85 million hits. Really. While not all the sites are about dominating your dog, there are literally millions of resources out there – websites, books, blogs, television shows, veterinarians, trainers and behavior professionals – instructing you to use force and intimidation to overpower your dog into submission. They say that you, the human, must be the alpha. They’re all wrong. Every single one of them.