by Lee Charles Kelley

Created on: May 08, 2008   Last Updated: May 10, 2008

The Proper Way to Do an Alpha Roll

There's been a recent resurgence in the use of the alpha roll, and most people I've observed have been doing it all wrong. Hopefully some of them will get a chance to read this. If not, feel free to give them your input...

For example, last week at the dog run at 72nd Street in Riverside Park near where I live in New York City I saw a dog walker actually pick up a dog, then throw him onto the ground as hard as he could from three feet up in the air! And the dog hadn't really done anything wrong, at least nothing that in my experience a quick, "Hey, knock it off," wouldn't have solved.

Why did he think this was the right thing to do? I can't say for sure, but he probably thought he was doing an "alpha roll," though he wasn't really.

So what is the alpha roll exactly, and how does it work?

The alpha roll is a way of either pinning a dog on her back and forcing her to roll over on one side, or giving her the down command and then forcing her into a "submissive" position. This is given the name alpha roll to suggest that it imitates the way an alpha wolf will discipline a subordinate pack member to establish his leadership. In dog training it is said to work by communicating your position as pack leader to a dog through his inherited instincts to obey the alpha wolf.

The technique was first popularized in the 1970s by the Monks of New Skete. Their version involved not only the simple movements described above, but grabbing the dog by the throat, throwing him down hard on his back and screaming "No!" in his face.

In The Intelligence of Dogs, Stanley Coren gave us a kinder, gentler version: "You should deliberately manipulate and restrain your dog on a regular basis, placing it in a position that, for wild canids, signifies submission to the authority of a dominant member of the pack." Yet around the same time that I read Coren's advice I saw a documentary about wolves on TV. At one point in the film a papa wolf (supposedly the pack leader), rolled over on his back, signifying submission' to the puppies, and encouraged them to jump on his stomach and chest and even allowed them to nip at his ears and nose. I began doing this myself, pretending to be submissive with my own dog and some of the dogs I trained, and it always made them more responsive and quicker to obey.

So who's right, here? Stanely Coren and the monks, or an actual papa wolf?

It might help us understand this better if we knew a little more about how a wolf pack really operates.

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