The most important aspect to establishing yourself as the pack leader to your dominant dog is to view your relationship as one which requires you to demonstrate you are worthy of your dog’s respect.
How do you do this?
By convincing your dog that he’s in “boot camp” until he demonstrates that he respects you as the “leader of the pack” rather than himself.
Tip #1: No excess luxuries for your pugnacious pooch. Until you clearly establish yourself as dominant to your dog, there should be no freedom for him to decide what he can do. If he’s not in the crate (or kennel run), he should be doing only one of four different things: Being trained, fed, exercised, or allowed to defecate. Pretty soon, working/training (i.e., doing what the pack
Tip #2: Spit in your dog’s food. This sounds disgusting, right? Instinctively, the most dominant dog in the pack eats first… which means that his scent (saliva) is on the food. The subordinate dogs in the pack can interpret this as a form of marking, thus you are saying, “It’s not automatically your food! It’s my food, but I’m letting you have some, because I’m more dominant than you.”
Tip #3: When I say “Jump,” you say, “How high?” Show your dog that you never issue idol threats and always mean what you say. If you tell your dog to lay down, make sure– no matter what– that in the end, he will be laying down. Never give a command you cannot enforce. Building dominance is a process which can take several months to achieve. If, when you first get your dog, you do not establish yourself as the pack leader within the first week or two of your relationship, it will be a longer process to re-establish your relationship later in your dog’s life.
-Adam