Every week, I hear some version of the same sentence from a worried owner: “He knows better, he’s just being stubborn.” Or, “She’s dominant, she’s testing me.” Or, “He’s doing it out of spite because I left him alone.”
I understand why owners reach for these explanations. They’re familiar, they’re everywhere in older training advice, and they give a frustrating situation a tidy label. But after decades of watching dogs, as a trainer, and before that as a veterinary technician observing animals in some of their most stressed, most honest moments, I can tell you that “stubborn,” “dominant,” and “spiteful” are almost never accurate descriptions of what’s actually happening. They’re labels we put on behavior when we haven’t yet figured out what the dog is trying to tell us.
Dogs don’t have language. They can’t sit us down and explain that the crate makes them panic, that the new baby’s crying spikes their anxiety, or that their hips ache when they jump off the couch. Behavior is the only language they have. Every bark, every growl, every “accident” on the rug, every dog who “randomly” snaps at a stranger is information, and our job as trainers and owners isn’t to suppress that information, it’s to read it correctly.
Why “Dominance” and “Stubbornness” Are the Wrong Lens
Dominance theory, the idea that dogs are constantly vying for status and that misbehavior is an attempt to “be alpha,” was built on flawed research from captive, unrelated wolves forced into artificial packs. It doesn’t reflect how wild wolf families actually function, and it reflects even less about how dogs, a distinct species shaped by thousands of years alongside humans, actually think.
When an owner tells me their dog is “dominant” for pulling on the leash, jumping on guests, or refusing a recall, what I almost always find underneath is something far more mundane and far more solvable: under-exercised, over-aroused, never taught an alternative, or genuinely confused about what’s being asked. None of that requires “showing the dog who’s boss.” It requires better information, better structure, and a plan.
This distinction isn’t just philosophical; it changes what you do next. If you believe a dog is misbehaving to gain status, the instinct is to suppress and correct. If you understand the dog is communicating an unmet need or a skill gap, the instinct is to investigate and teach. Those two paths lead to completely different relationships with your dog, and only one of them tends to produce a dog who’s more relaxed, more cooperative, and more trusting over time.
Reading Common “Bad” Behaviors as Messages
Here’s how I actually approach the behaviors that get owners the most frustrated, not as problems to punish out of a dog, but as messages to decode.
Barking at the door. This is rarely “dominance” over territory. More often it’s one of a few specific things: genuine alarm (the dog perceives a threat and is announcing it), frustration (the dog wants to greet and can’t get there fast enough), or a learned pattern where barking has reliably produced a reaction, from you, from the visitor, from the mail carrier who eventually leaves either way. The fix looks completely different depending on which one it is, which is exactly why guessing rarely works and observation does.
Jumping on guests. Almost never disrespect. It’s usually an untrained dog’s most direct way of getting face-to-face contact with someone they’re excited to greet, combined with the fact that jumping has probably been reinforced by attention at some point, even negative attention. The dog isn’t testing your authority. The dog wants closeness and doesn’t have a trained alternative for getting it.
Growling. This is the one that gets dogs in the most trouble, and it shouldn’t. A growl is one of the clearest, most honest pieces of communication a dog can offer: it means “I am uncomfortable, please stop or back away.” Punishing a growl doesn’t remove the discomfort causing it. It removes the warning. I have seen this go wrong more times than almost anything else in this field: a dog is corrected for growling, learns that growling leads to punishment, and stops growling, but the underlying discomfort is still there. The next escalation skips the warning altogether. When a client tells me their dog “bit without warning,” a growl that was punished out of the dog months earlier is often exactly what’s missing from that story.
Leash pulling. Rarely stubbornness. Dogs move faster than we do naturally, the environment outside is full of things worth investigating, and pulling has usually worked: it gets the dog to the smell, the dog, the spot faster. This is a reinforcement history problem and a skills gap, not a power struggle.
Accidents in the house, chewing, destructive behavior when left alone. As I’ve written about elsewhere, these are frequently developmental, medical, or anxiety-driven rather than defiant. A dog “getting even” for being left alone is a human narrative projected onto an animal that doesn’t have the cognitive framework for revenge. What actually tends to be happening is genuine distress, confusion, or a physical need that wasn’t met.
Observation Before Intervention
This is the single biggest difference between the training I do and the training many owners have tried before coming to me. Before I ever build a training plan, I spend real time observing: body language, the environment, the dog’s routine, what happens in the seconds directly before the behavior in question. A stiff body and a hard stare mean something different than a loose, wiggly body doing the exact same jump. A dog who barks the instant a car door slams outside is telling a different story than a dog who barks only when a specific person approaches.
Skipping this step is how well-meaning owners end up with training advice that backfires: a correction-based fix for what was actually a fear response, or an obedience drill layered on top of a dog who was never taught what was being asked in the first place. You can suppress a behavior without ever addressing what caused it, and when that happens, the behavior doesn’t disappear. It either resurfaces somewhere else, or it goes underground until it resurfaces as something more serious.
What This Looks Like in Practice
This philosophy is the foundation of the Humane Hierarchy I follow with every dog I work with: always start with the least intrusive, most positive option, and only consider anything more intrusive after ruling out medical causes, environmental fixes, and positive teaching. It means a training plan for “leash reactivity” might start with a veterinary check for pain, a look at the dog’s exercise and sleep routine, and desensitization work, long before any conversation about equipment or corrections.
It also means training isn’t something that happens only in a 30-minute lesson once a week. Behavior is being communicated constantly, in the home, on the walk, at the door, during the moments no trainer is there to see. That’s part of why I do so much of my work in-home and in the environments where a dog actually lives, rather than exclusively in a classroom. You can’t fully decode what a dog is telling you if you only ever see them in one artificial setting.
What This Means for You and Your Dog
The next time your dog does something that frustrates you, try replacing the question “why is my dog doing this to me” with “what is my dog trying to tell me.” It’s a small shift in language, but it changes everything about how you respond, and it’s usually the fastest route to actually solving the behavior, rather than just suppressing it for a while.
Dogs aren’t strategizing to undermine you. They’re doing the best they can with the skills, emotional state, and environment they currently have. Our job, as owners and as trainers, is to listen closely enough to understand what they’re actually saying, and then teach them a better way to say it.
