In my personal observation of "alpha rolls", only puppies are sometimes forcibly "rolled" by siblings and perhaps the mother and nobody is worse off.
When adults, when I observe rolls, often times it is without physical force - in this case I mean that the dog
already recognizes the status of some other dog or some other human. For example, my 3 year old female will roll herself when my 13 year old male is upset with her, without him touching her at all. And when my boyfriend is very upset with the dogs sometimes, they will roll over by themselves..
But we have never rolled the dogs as a method of punishment or to teach them anything.. they do this out of instinct.
However, on the other hand when I see forcible rolls, like sometimes in the dog park between stranger dogs, oftentimes fights will break out.
Because as Tassle said, I don't wish to get into a physical fight with my dogs, I avoid rolling them because I feel that there are alternative, non-physical methods of training for the same goal.
If I wanted to simulate some idea of "how a dog pack works", then I accept that when a dog is forcibly rolled, it can respond by biting or fighting back, as that is what I observe between dogs.
That's just my opinion.
