corvus
Posted : 12/3/2007 4:39:47 AM
Well, this is all very interesting. I'm more confused about alpha rolling than I've ever been. I'm hearing that alpha rolling is done in a calm way, and yet, when a dog rolls another, it's usually in a an aggressive display? I don't understand what the outcome is supposed to be when a person does it. If it's not an aggressive display, than what is it? And seeing as in dogs it does seem to be aggressive, assuming for a moment that it is what people have described, then if you do something similar to a dog without aggression, is it still an alpha roll? Doesn't taking the aggression out of it make it something different?
I was envisioning a dog forcing another over as an alpha roll. My dog has done things like that to baby rabbits. Not as a display of aggression so much as a grand old game with the rabbit as the toy. She knocked the baby over with her nose. I would not be surprised to see a dog do the same thing to a puppy, either with nose or paw. But then, I often feel the urge to roll a puppy around with my hands the same way when they come play with me. They're having fun and I find it oddly fascinating to watch this small creature respond to my touches by rolling around on the ground or falling over. Is it bizarre to think a dog might share the same delight or fascination for rolly polly babies? Penny certainly seems to with small animals.
As both an artist and someone who needs to pay a lot of attention to the way an animal shifts their weight (it tells all in a critter like a bird or snake that has limited ability to express itself any other way), my eye is very tuned to pick up movement and how weight affects it. Often when two animals interact these weight shifts and movements happen so fast it's hard to see what really happened and who was doing what. I've seen a lot of dog-dog interactions that have ended in one dog pinning or standing over the other, and these are my thoughts. I'm no expert, but I'm paid for my observation skills, so maybe that counts for something, I dunno.
1. In a physical altercation, the argument is generally over when one dog gets pinned by the other. It's a terrible position to be in to launch another attack, and it sends the message loud and clear "I am strong and I mean to have my way on this." I have seen dogs let another dog put them into that position, and I've seen dogs force other dogs into that position in very intense fights. If I was going to call anything an alpha roll, it would be that. I don't think that any human has a need to use that method to tell their dog what for.
2. Like I said, it's hard to follow shifts in weight over a very short period. I've seen many altercations like that one LC described where force has not been the main motivator for one dog to go down. The dog that goes down generally needs little physical encouragement. Like I mentioned, it's very hard to launch an attack from your back, so getting yourself down there before the angry one puts you down there can tell them that you don't want to fight and they don't need to fight. In all those cases I have seen like that, the other dog has been moving fast and purposefully and usually touches the dog that goes down several times before it gets down. It's a hard call, and I've had discussions with people that thought force was used when I thought no real force was used. I base my observations on where the weight goes. I could be wrong of course, but I'm pretty practiced at picking up subtleties in weight, both from working with wild animals and being an artist. Weight tells you where the movement and force comes from.
3. I feel strongly that being angry is largely about communication. If I'm angry about something my dog has done, she will know about it regardless of how I might try to hide it, so why bother? More importantly, if I wish to punish someone, human or animal, I want them to know I'm angry. That's why anger comes with things like tight jaws, hard eyes, gritted/bared teeth and stiff postures. If I'm angry with a bratty kid for being a brat, I let them know with things like that, and if I'm angry with my animals, they know because most anger displays are universal (to a point. Kit has still not figured out that a snarl and a snap means Penny DOESN'T like him and Bonnie hasn't managed to communicate to any animal but the humans that foot stamping means she's angry, or maybe no one else cares if a fluffy bunny is angry.) Anyway, if alpha rolling were some kind of correction (and I'm still not clear on this) than it would be better to do it angry because I think that would make it more clear what the whole thing was about and it would probably work better.
I don't see where the argument is right now. The people that say they alpha roll don't actually do anything that the people who say they don't like alpha rolls would consider an alpha roll. And the folks that say they've seen dogs alpha roll other dogs are presenting their proof, which is interpreted as proof that dogs DON'T alpha roll to the people that believe they don't. I don't think that will ever be settled. Animal behaviour is open to interpretation and in an interaction that is so fast, fluid, and complex, it would be next to impossible to quantify it to say once and for all what's happening. I'd just like to say that I don't really believe anyone's behavioural interpretations but my own unless I see it myself or the description is so good I can see it in my mind's eye. That's not a slur on anyone, I'm just a scientist and in my experience, even other scientists that are really experienced with animal behaviour see different things. I've had behaviours described to me that I've thought I've never seen, but when someone pointed it out to me, I realised I'd seen it frequently but not thought of it in that way. And I've described behaviours in intense detail to folks far more experienced than me and had them give me a funny look and tell me they'd never seen such a thing. That's the problem with independent observers and animal behaviour. Everyone sees different things.
That's all. Finally.