Training female to be dominant over male.

Bobby Baccala

Hello,
Just got a male beagle and we already have a female and she's lived here for 2 years, I would prefer for her to be the dominant dog in the house seeing as she's been here for years and it's her house, is it in dogs nature for the male to always be dominant over the female or can the male be trained to be the less dominant dog, any help on how to train the male to be the less dominant dog will be much appreciated, thanks.

Bullseye1

You cannot teach one dog to be dominant over another. You have to allow them attain their own position within the pack.

evilmonkee

Bullseye1 wrote: »

You cannot teach one dog to be dominant over another. You have to allow them attain their own position within the pack.

+1

Also, its not always the case that females are the subordinates. my little lady decided to become boss over my parents dog, in his house, on his territory, when he's about 4 times her size.

It's all down to the dogs, once they sort out the pack order they will be happy in that role - even if, as a human you would not.

are you serious

As has been said above you can not train one to be more dominant over the other, why would you even want this??

They will sort it between them who is the boss, it could work out that she is without you trying anything.

My opinion would be to leave that issue to them, if you want one to be more dominant just because it is there longer I woul question why you bothered getting the second dog in the first place...

Bobby Baccala

garkane wrote: »

As has been said above you can not train one to be more dominant over the other, why would you even want this??

They will sort it between them who is the boss, it could work out that she is without you trying anything.

My opinion would be to leave that issue to them, if you want one to be more dominant just because it is there longer I woul question why you bothered getting the second dog in the first place...

I didn't ask you to question me i only asked for some advice, i already stated why i would prefer for her to be the more dominant, she's lived here longer and it's her house more than it is the new dogs.

are you serious

I did give you advice just like the previous posters did.

If your not happy with my thoughts of having a favourite dog don't listen to my advice by all means go ahead, try make your bitch more dominant over the dog its far from something that any dog owner would promote.

Wanting her to be more dominant because she lives there longer is plain and simple just silly.

kylith

P4DDY2K11 wrote: »

I didn't ask you to question me i only asked for some advice, i already stated why i would prefer for her to be the more dominant, she's lived here longer and it's her house more than it is the new dogs.

I understand what you're saying, but I agree with the others who've posted. Some females are dominant, some aren't, one of my girls sees herself the boss of every other dog, regardless of gender, size, and whether she knows them or not. Similarly some males are dominant and some aren't.

I guarantee your bitch won't be stressed if the new dog is more dominant than she. Dogs don't have a concept of fairness, as we would see it so she won't be thinking 'It's not fair, I've been here longer, I should be boss'. She may even be delighted to have another dog take the stress and worry of leadership off of her. Let them off, they'll sort it out themselves and will both be happy with their roles.

Just to note: being the subordinate doesn't mean that she'll be bullied, if that's what you're worried about. My 'subordinate' dog is well able to tell the other if she's throwing her weight around too much.

Bobby Baccala

garkane wrote: »

I did give you advice just like the previous posters did.

If your not happy with my thoughts of having a favourite dog don't listen to my advice by all means go ahead, try make your bitch more dominant over the dog its far from something that any dog owner would promote.

Wanting her to be more dominant because she lives there longer is plain and simple just silly.

thank you for your opinion.

kylith wrote: »

I understand what you're saying, but I agree with the others who've posted. Some females are dominant, some aren't, one of my girls sees herself the boss of every other dog, regardless of gender, size, and whether she knows them or not. Similarly some males are dominant and some aren't.

I guarantee your bitch won't be stressed if the new dog is more dominant than she. Dogs don't have a concept of fairness, as we would see it so she won't be thinking 'It's not fair, I've been here longer, I should be boss'. She may even be delighted to have another dog take the stress and worry of leadership off of her. Let them off, they'll sort it out themselves and will both be happy with their roles.

Just to note: being the subordinate doesn't mean that she'll be bullied, if that's what you're worried about. My 'subordinate' dog is well able to tell the other if she's throwing her weight around too much.

Thank you very much, you more or less answered all my questions, i was worried about her being bullied by the new dog, wouldn't be fair on her and she's very docile so she wouldn't really snap back when the new dog does get too big for his boots.

He's only about 2 months old whereas she's 2 years old, would his age affect weather or not she could become the dominant dog in the house?

are you serious

To start off she will naturally be dominant just mainly because she is the adult, give it another month or so before the pup settles in then you will see they will naturally play fight(a lot) and these fights will sort who is boss.

However much serious these fights look they won't be, you'l hear them moan growl bark but it is all play. If you feel it's getting too serious then your the boss so you stop it

Waterfordlass

Six months ago,we got a male JR x pup as a companion for our seven year old girl (terrier x) . Like you, we worried that the new boy would take over what had been her domain for so long.
At first, she seemed to allow the new boy to dominate her space, she would move if he wanted to lie on the couch with her, or if he went near whichever doggy bed she was lying on.
We did everything to encourage her to stand her ground, but she still gave in to him. Then finally after several weeks, she decided to teach him what was what, and put some manners on him.
They are now the best of friends. They play together, take naps together, but she will still let him know that she was here first.
I'm sure your girl will be very happy with her new brother, but it takes a little bit of time.
Best of luck.

kylith

Waterfordlass wrote: »

Six months ago,we got a male JR x pup as a companion for our seven year old girl (terrier x) . Like you, we worried that the new boy would take over what had been her domain for so long.
At first, she seemed to allow the new boy to dominate her space, she would move if he wanted to lie on the couch with her, or if he went near whichever doggy bed she was lying on.
We did everything to encourage her to stand her ground, but she still gave in to him. Then finally after several weeks, she decided to teach him what was what, and put some manners on him.
They are now the best of friends. They play together, take naps together, but she will still let him know that she was here first.
I'm sure your girl will be very happy with her new brother, but it takes a little bit of time.
Best of luck.

I've heard that older dogs will give pups a lot of leeway when they're young, as far as letting them take toys out of their mouths and tugging at their ears. Dogs know that the pup is young and will let them away with it, much like we let babies pull our hair and shove fingers into our eyes. When the pup gets old enough to know better the older dog will let them know it isn't acceptable, like yours did.

Cherry Blossom

Beagles are highly social dogs - especially with each other, working beagles are paired up and work as a team within a bigger pack, they form much better partnerships than two humans ever did. The pup will learn the ropes of how to be a dog and how to fit in with the social hierarchy that is your family from the bitch. In the mean time I don't know how you will see this but the bitch will seemingly put up with a lot of 'nonsense' from the pup without putting him in his place, this is because he is a baby and she'll just be treating him how any adult treats a baby.

Men always think they are the natural 'boss', this is rarely the case in reality, luckily dogs have no concept of sexism though so he won't have the same perception as you do

rainbowtrout

P4DDY2K11 wrote: »

Hello,
Just got a male beagle and we already have a female and she's lived here for 2 years, I would prefer for her to be the dominant dog in the house seeing as she's been here for years and it's her house, is it in dogs nature for the male to always be dominant over the female or can the male be trained to be the less dominant dog, any help on how to train the male to be the less dominant dog will be much appreciated, thanks.

Like everyone else said the dogs will sort it out themselves. I had a female for a year before I got my second dog (male). Both rescues and she's about a year older than him, both JRTs. I did wonder how it would pan out when I got the second one, he did try to throw his weight around after about a week, and she let him for a few days and then put him in his place, even though she is fairly docile most of the time. They are best of friends now, they play fight every day and then when they are finished they curl up together, Norman regularly grooms Milly but she never grooms him. When I'm letting them out to go to the toilet before I lock up for the night, she leaps up straight away, he is a bit lazy, so she runs over to him and barks at him until he gets up too. It's like watching parent trying to get their lazy teenager out of bed. She is definitely the boss and he is happy with that.

gud4u

kylith wrote: »

I've heard that older dogs will give pups a lot of leeway when they're young, as far as letting them take toys out of their mouths and tugging at their ears. Dogs know that the pup is young and will let them away with it, much like we let babies pull our hair and shove fingers into our eyes. When the pup gets old enough to know better the older dog will let them know it isn't acceptable, like yours did.

I have 3 dogs, this happened each time I added one. I have one dog and 2 bitches, the oldest bitch is boss now but is getting old and being challenged for top dog postion as the male dog gets older.

I think my lot volley for top dog now and agin just to test each other.

DBB

P4DDY2K11 wrote: »

He's only about 2 months old whereas she's 2 years old, would his age affect weather or not she could become the dominant dog in the house?

Yes, probably. These things usually start to kick in when the dog(s) become sexually mature. Pups often get a fool's pardon, but this tends to disappear when the pup becomes a "teenager".
In my experience with rehoming hundreds of dogs, and I was only talking about this the other day to a friend who rescues hundreds of dogs every year, it is far, far more common, in a 2-dog male/female household, for the female to wear the trousers.
Having said that, I think it's important to question what "dominance" is. Dominance is not a behaviour. It is a relationship. And it changes depending on the scenario. So, one dog may be "dominant" when it comes to food and toys, the other may be "dominant" when it comes to attention form the owner. One might be the domineering one in the house, the other outside the house. It is not possible to train a dog to be dominant, because dominance is a difficult, if not impossible entity to quantify in a broad sense. Why? Because, as I said above, it is a relationship, not a behaviour. Indeed, if we do what untrained trainers and behaviourists tell us, to support the "dominant" dog, we are in fact supporting their bullying behaviour, and we often make things far worse by doing so.
Having said that, dogs are no more "dominant" than we humans are. Some of us know our rights and insist on getting them, especially from some people who we have learned we can get our own way with. Some of us bully people. Do we call these people "dominant". No. We call them bullies. And that's what many dogs are too, but we have this mad determination to pin the label "dominant" on them, when their motivation to bully is just the same as ours is. Similarly, children can be really mean to each other. They hit each other, they bite each other, they ostracise and exclude each other etc etc. But, we never call them dominant, even though they are doing pretty much the same as dogs that we label "dominant".
Similar behaviours are very common in all social, group-living animals... but humans are the only ones who aren!t labelled "dominant", when in fact, we're probably the worst offenders of all!
So, to answer the OP, don't sweat it. There is nothing you can do to make the female more dominant. She is what she is. The chances are that they will have the odd skirmish over things, but we don't expect to live closely with one another without having the odd row, do we? It is realtively uncommon for owners of one female and one male to run into huge problems, particularly with a very dog-social breed like the Beagle. So, let them do their thing. Don't try to force anything on either of them, relationship-wise. If you get obsessed with which one has to be "boss", it may affect how you feel about the new pup, when really, you need to be enjoying him and developing just as striong a relationship with him as you have with your female.