Such paradigms usually fail in profound cases of interdog aggression, because the situation is not that simple. Interdog aggression is associated with status relationships between dogs. These relationships are not absolute. They change with age and health. The manifestations of the relationships can be affected by the people who are present and by how those people interact with them.
Some relationships apply only to feeding and sleeping orders.
Since dog hierarchies, like those of people, are not linear, the amount of aggression exhibited may depend on which dogs were where, when. A dog that challenges one dog, may not care about another dog in the household that, to all outward appearances, seems to act the same and be the same age and sex. Chances are they are not acting identically, and it is in the subtleties that the problems with the relationship occur. New social order Treatment of interdog aggression focuses on setting and maintaining a new social order. Preferential reinforcement reinforces that dog as the higher ranking dog.