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My dogs stay in the back seat but I don’t agree that a dog jumping into the driver’s seat is a “coup attempt”.

Most dogs get nervous when left alone in the car and it comforts them to be “surrounded” by their owner’s smell.
[oddly enough, tearing up their absent owner’s objects and strewing them about themselves is an attempt to “protect” themselves from “danger” with a “barrier” of the owner’s predator-repelling smell]

Anyway, *if* they’re sitting in “my spot” on the sofa when I come back in the room, they either vacate it immediately or zip off it when I quietly, deeply say “Move”.

In the pack hierarchy, “my spot” is the Alpha Spot and the dogs jostle amongst themselves to inhabit it when I’m gone in order to establish the “Beta” spot in the pack.

Rarely is the same dog in that spot.

It seems to be mostly whoever gets there first.

*However*, I do -not- “establish dominance” with any form of aggression, bullying, ‘acting tough’ or any of the other outdated/discredited methods.

I simply *am* and act like an Alpha wolf who can afford to arbitrarily inhabit any particular place, at any particular time just because I feel like it.

The most effective form of “dominance” is, ironically, ignoring the dog as if it were beneath your notice.

That is how wolves do it and it works incredibly well with the wolves in your living room.

As an example, physically, trying force Odin out of a place I “feel like” being is a losing proposition.

The dog knows I’m physically weaker.

If I walk to said spot and merely walk “through” him on the way to it, without a word, eye contact or even acknowledgement of his existence, he instantly vacates that area.

He understands that ‘dog body language’ and that I am the one who gets to sit, walk or stand wherever ~I~ want.

The Alpha is -always- the one who can “afford not to give a flip” about what the other dogs may think.

Very simple, actually.

Resistance begets resistance.
Stress begets stress.
Tension begets tension.
Violence begets violence.

-Anybody- who tries to bully or force their dog into “submission” has already lost the battle.
The dog *knows* that “Alpha” must feel threatened enough to resort to brute violence and will remember that.

It may submit *then* but all you’ve taught is that a warning growl or snap results in punishment...and then it learns to suppress natural warning signs and suddenly, one day, *without* warning, you may get nailed by your nervous, resentful, completely aware of reality yet [so far] physically intimidated dog.

Any dog/human relationship like *that* is worth exactly ~nothing~.

If I had to ever resort to brutal, tin-horn petty dictator behavior with my dogs, I’d know that *I* was lacking....*not* the dogs.