To begin with, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the word, dominance. The best definition I have heard is “confidence.” The most dominant animals I have worked with, both dogs and wolves, were actually some of the nicest. They didn’t fight for their dominance, as they didn’t have to; they were calm, confident animals, who exuded such self-confidence and security in themselves that they had nothing to prove.

That’s not to say that dominant animals can’t be aggressive; of course they can. But many animals who are aggressive are not dominant at all. Fear biting, defensive growling, stand-offishness can all be signs of underlying apprehension, and to handle these dogs as if they are dominant would not only be useless, but could very well increase their problems.

Furthermore, even if the dog in question were, indeed, dominant, that doesn’t mean the practice of not letting him walk in front of you will in any way address his issues. IF your dog is truly dominant OVER YOU, AND one way he expresses that dominance is by walking ahead of you, then, yes, discouraging that behavior would make sense. However, many dogs walk in front of their owners not as a show of dominance, but merely because they have never been trained to heel.  As Sigmund Freud said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!”