When a dog gets hold of your arm or gently chews it means it's showing you love & affection?

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As a few others have already mentioned, the word "dominance" gets a lot of use in here when in fact, it has nothing to do with most pet dog behavior.
Chewing can be attributed to many things and some of those have been mentioned in here as well.
It CAN be a sign of dominance in a very, very few dogs, but, chewing would not be the only behavior these dogs exhibited.
I have a shepherd who loved to put my arm in his mouth and just hold it there..it was not dominance, it was annoying though and we stopped it. He tried it with a few others and I stopped it there too, but, it was still not dominance.

Dominance has been discussed here somewhat extensively by a few people, myself included, recently and there were some decent answers. One has to be really good at being able to read dogs and the breed to be able to tell if that is really what is going on or not.
Again, in order to be real dominance there would have to be a host of other behaviors as well that support that theory.
I do not allow it ever because most of my dogs have very dominant tendencies and it could really boil over and create more problems that I do not need. Hope I helped!...Show more

I have/had pretty affectionate dogs... none have ever grabbed me by the arm, I wouldn't consider any one or anything grabbing me by the arm a sign of affection. Dogs are not very good at showing affection, what we as humans would consider affection, there is always a hidden agender behind it with dogs, whether it be attention, food, a walk, up on the couch... ect people seem to think dogs are just as straight forward as humans... but they're not. There emotions are pretty complicated and are NOT self explanatory like ours.

LEGIT: No because I rather walk him every where I can, we *still* socializing and can meet far more dogs and people while walking than in a car and he is very accustom to being in the car so it doesn't really play a big part.

EDIT: thats a shame, I've been to Indonesia many times and if its anything like that, its just awful, so heartbreaking. But at least there is a place you can go. The dogothon sounds fun though, we have a million paws walk for dogs (another one for cats) which is great fun, and tires puppy out, which makes for a peaceful home lol.
Fingers crossed for Amber :)...Show more

In some of your examples, yes, it's dominant behavior, in others, no it isn't.

Do grabbing, mouthing: Not Dominance. Annoying, attention-seeking behavior? Absolutely. More typical in Retrieving breeds if you haven't trained them out of it and supplied them with appropriate objects to carry? Sometimes.

Sitting on laps: Depends on the dog. Sometimes it could be a dominant behavior, if the dog is challenging you for your spot on the couch. But lots of other times the dog has been taught that this is allowed. If he gets down off your lap if you tell him to, I wouldn't worry about it being a dominance move, because the owner clearly controls the resource (the couch). If the dog won't allow anyone else to approach, that's aggression and anxiety, not dominance so much. A dominant dog would be able to keep other away without all those displays and aggression. Dominant dogs KNOW they have preferred access, rather than constantly bucking to get preferred access. Wanna-bes bark and bite and are otherwise unreliable.

Leaning on you: There are a lot of breeds that are champion leaners--it's how they sit with you. Nothing challenging about it. I'd be a lot more worried about a dog that has to pass by you several times, rubbing itself all over you--they mark objects the same way, and several of those dogs are bound for aggression problems (not dominance problems) if you believe Sue Sternberg.

Pawing and barking at you: Again, depends on the situation. Often plain old bad manners and attention seeking that can be trained out. Also sometimes poor frustration tolerance.

The Weimeraner owner has an aggressive dog, not a dominant one. And an idiot for an owner! Yes, she was absolutely encouraging that behavior. (Glad you were OK!)

You sound like someone who has trained her dogs to be well--behaved, although I think you may have some misunderstanding between the definitions of dominance and aggression in the strict behavioral sense. But with the way you are training your dogs, it doesn't matter because you are unlikely to have issues.

Legit: A few times a week. She loves the car! The park, to visit friends, or for any short trip where I won't have to leave her in the car....Show more

Sorry, this is going to be a short reply, last message before I go out...

I have a couple that do that.

One of my old danes used to hold onto your wrist when we went for walks.
Every time.

She would just hold on very gently, like she was leading me around.
That may have been a dominance issue.

However....

I have a male poodle that grabs hold of my wrist the same way but he moves his tongue back and forth like he is trying to lick me but with my hand in his mouth...
That seems more like affection than dominance.

Now Danes trying to sit on your lap, that's a whole 'nother story...

again, sorry for the short reply......Show more

I don't think it's an expression of dominance. Dogs are programmed to play out their hierarchies among each other, and I've yet to see a dominant (or any) dog that sits on another's lap. If your dog felt it was dominant, it would continue attacking you until you showed an accepted sign of submission. It wouldn't waste time slobbering on your arm or sitting on your lap.

The question of whether dogs should be trained to not attack _other_ people is another one. Yes, the guy who praises his dog after it attacks other people is either ignorant or lazy. But again, there is no evidence that the dog views this owner as an inferior. If it did, it would attack him as well, and it certainly wouldn't care whether he approved of its behaviour or not.

Lastly, I see why people's eyes tend to glaze over when you tell them about your dominance theory. It makes about as much sense as psychoanalysis to me. That is, no matter what the evidence, you've already made up your mind about the cause and structure, and will interpret all evidence in a way that fits your theory....Show more