Understanding the dominance theory in animal behavior

What is the ‘dominance theory’ for cats and dogs? Meghan Herron, DVM, DACVB, FFCV, a senior director of behavior, research, and education at Gigi’s, a shelter organization in Ohio, discusses the need to understand pet behavior that may be perceived as projecting dominance, in a dvm360 interview recorded at the 2025 Fetch dvm360 Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. She also addressed how human reaction to this perceived dominance can affect the bond between a pet and its pet owner.

RELATED VIDEO: Debunking a canine myth

Herron delivered a series of continuing education (CE) sessions at the 3-day Fetch Kansas City event. In a pair of CE sessions—“Top 10 Canine Behavior Myths” and “Top 10 Feline Behavior Myths”—she addressed the “dominance theory” for both species. In her lectures, Herron explained this behavioral theory, how it applies to cats and dogs, and how it does not. In this video, she delves into the concept.

RELATED: Understanding natural feline behavior

The following is a transcript of the video:

Meghan Herron, DVM, DACVB, FFCV: So dominance—what we as behaviorists like to call ‘the dirty D word.’ We say that because it's a normal term in ethological form. It's just really by definition: dominance is a status achieved between same species, individuals living in a group, after multiple interactions together, over preferential access to resources. So, he or she who gets to the cake first, right? They are going to have a higher social ranking than the one who doesn't. And these are animals of the same species.

Once [dominance is] established, there's no fighting. You don't see vicious aggression, and that's why it's there, so that animals in the wild, living in groups, don't have to fight. Fighting is expensive, right? But unfortunately, that sort of theory has been put upon, mainly, dogs. I don't see it as much as cats. We kind of give cats like, ‘Oh, you're just a cat. Cats are weird. We forgive you.’ But for dogs, we're very offended as humans by any type of aggression, specifically, and it must be a dominance problem. ‘You're trying to take over the world. You don't respect me as your alpha.’ Actually, it has very little to do with that.

Most dog aggression, as we see, is related to conflict, fear, perception of threat and potentially some guarding of resources that keep them safe. But not really an attempt to take over the world. We are assuming that dogs are behaving a certain way because they're trying to dominate us. It puts into the pet parents mind...‘I need to somehow be an alpha.’ And with that term, it comes with being punishing, being strong, being intimidating. And if we pair that with ‘most dog aggression towards people is based in fear and perception of threat that we make ourselves big and threatening,’ we are adding fuel to the fire. So that tends to backfire and while in the moment sometimes it can scare a dog to shut down in the moment, likely we are creating a bigger fear, a bigger monster that's going to come out later. And I've seen so many families just shattered by their dog's behavior problem that started with maybe a mild growl that is now a full-fledged attack, because people have tried to implement some sort of dominance theory-based training with their dogs, and it's really unfortunate.

RELATED: Prioritizing preventive medicine

For more coverage of the Fetch Kansas City conference, visit the dvm360 conference news page. You can also learn more and register for the 2026 Fetch dvm360 Conference in Kansas City here.