Ashley Hiebing

Recently on a pit bull community I belong to (almost entirely pet owners), a post came up (that I would link to, but you have to join the community to read it) about someone's dog that, while she (the owner) was laying on the couch, would come and position herself over the owner's torso and face. Immediately people told her that this was dominant behavior. Then someone butted in and said that the "dominance theory" was a myth and to just teach her dog better manners. So there was a back-and-forth for a while, with the "myth buster" letting everyone know that he/she was a professional dog trainer/behaviorist/what-have-you. So we asked him/her to post resources that debunk the "dominance theory," and this is what we got:

http://www.4pawsu.com/dominancemyth.pdf
http://www.iiacab.com/_Media/whatswr...inancetheo.pdf
http://4pawsu.com/pmdominance.htm
http://www.apbc.org.uk/article13.htm
http://dogpublic.com/articles/articl...id=14&pid=1640
http://www.professorshouse.com/pets/...-dominant.aspx
Alpha Theory (long URL)
http://www.dogscouts1.com/Letting_go_of_Dominance.html
http://www.nonlineardogs.com/embed-SocOrg.html
http://www.mnforsustain.org/wolf_mec...pha_status.htm

Now I have not read all of these pages yet, and I'm not asking you guys to read them all, either. I've just heard a lot of conflicting opinions on dominance and I would appreciate some clearing up. Thanks a ton in advance.