Body Language of Dominant and Submissive Dogs

. While dogs and wolves may appear like distant relatives, in a similar way as humans and monkeys are, they still share a few behaviors when it comes to body language. In nature, wolves demonstrate higher rank in various ways. One of the most common signs of assertiveness is placing the foreleg or head on the other wolf's back or shoulder. The other wolf then may decide to submit by lowering the head and the tail or it may retract causing an altercation. In a domestic setting, this explains why some (rare!) confident dogs may dislike being touched on the head and shoulders. However, in most cases, dogs simply dislike being touched on the head because they are often fearful and feel threatened from such an approach. For this reason, it is important to learn to read the accompanying body language.

When playing, dogs at times may take turns in demonstrating dominant acts towards each other. Often, such games can be confused with real fighting with all the growling, snarling and fight drives seen in real fights. Games however, are also a way to demonstrate dominance and submission. Indeed, an assertive dog is most likely the one to win when playing a game of tug of war and the one to pin the submissive dog to the ground and bite its neck. However, at times, dogs like to take turns in assuming dominant and submissive roles, therefore there is no general rule of thumb.

Higher ranking dogs may use their body to block subordinates. In a domestic setting these are often dogs that will block hallways and entry ways and will not move when asked to. They may even resort to growling if forced to moved out of the way.

Stares are used a lot by dominant dogs and are a warning.In a domestic setting, staring an unknown dog down is downright dangerous. It is best to not look these dogs straight in the eye and rather avert the stare and back away slowly without showing the back. In the wild, if the subordinate dog does not submit to the stare the dominant dog may resort to gripping. Gripping consists of simply ''sending the point across'' it really does not hurt the dog, because it is sort of a ''symbolic bite'' without breaking skin.

However, when in a domestic setting an assertive dog attempts to use ''gripping'' towards a human and worse a child, the bite may easily break the skin creating substantial damage. Because in the wild puppies are often the ones to be corrected the most, assertive dogs may feel that children need disciplined in the same manner. However, the same goes with dogs who are defensive due to children teasing or doing something considered rude from a dog's perspective or a dog not socialized well with kids.

Many times a submissive dog will respond to a dominant dog by rolling on its back on their own and showing their stomach. This is a submissive ''alpha roll''. It is the way the dog apologizes to the dominant dog as if saying ''please don't hurt me!''. This is often seen in sensitive dogs when their owners get angry towards them.

Dominant dogs often ask a subordinate dog to stand still while they sniff the anal area. They will approach the subordinate dog with their tail high and the subordinate dog is expected to stay still with their tail tucked. If the submissive dog refuses to be sniffed, there may be a fight.

Subordinate wolves will often greet their leader by licking their mouth.The submissive dogs will be seen protruding their tongue with their head low, ears back and lowered tail wagging as they approach to lick the dominant dog's mouth. This is how dogs often greet humans and why they like to lick chins and lips of owners.

The term ''dominant is often overused and used erroneously. Not all dogs acting aggressively are doing so due to dominance.Actually, really "dominant dogs" attempting to take over the world in a human household are quite rare. While dominance may be an issue at times, truth is, many dogs are simply acting unruly due to bad manners or defense. Cases of possible dominant dogs should be assessed by a dog behaviorist to determine the correct course of action .Dealing with a dominant dog may be dangerous and if the behavior is not taken seriously the aggressive behaviors may likely escalate and exacerbate.