so the last 83 pages were based on a misconception?
oops

This suggest that every dog is alpha as long as he can find another dog to dominate.
5>4>3>2>1>....

"Alpha" dogs don't have to use force for the most part because the pups have grown up with a vastly physically superior dog and they've been conditioned to respond without contesting and challenging their sire.

In another thread I mentioned that my shepherds of various breeds have a hierarchy depending the resource in question. Food, balls, frisbees, bed space, even door privilidges are
claimed by each dog. Looking at only one aspect (say balls) would lead you to establish a X1,Y2 Z3 hierarchy, frisbee Y1 X2 Z3, food Z1, YX2, water XYZ1. This is consistent with what we get from the research literature. I observe the same in houses with multiple dogs and they are of similar temperaments, or the same breed.

Your need to define dogs and wolves as the same species is short sighted. While it is true that they can produce viable offspring, there are also biological impediments to such a mating easily taking place.

By your standards we could claim that a Tiger and Lion are the same species since they can reproduce fertile offspring. And you have a various combinations of Tigers, Leopards, Lions, Jaguars that can also be mated successfully.

Given the powerful genetic changes we've implemented ionto dogs, it doesn't make sense to consider them as wolves. The changes we've made have resulted in moropholical diversity, different immungenetics, developmental differences both in utero and post partum. There is really no case to be made for the dog as wolf comparison.

NO NO NO !!!! ( aka Amy Winehouse !!)

The correct interpretation or definition of an alpha dog owner is one who does not use force.

A word is only an expellation of air ! Call it something else then, Pack Leader, matriarch, patriarch, I don't care who says what or otherwise !!

I know what I am !! (or at least I thought I did before you got me all muddled Wys !!)

Are you sure you are right on that one Promethean? I don't think tigers and lions CAN produce fertile young? Can they? I shall check that one out.

There are absolutely no biological impediments to the mating of a wolf and a dog. The inuits regularly stake out their dogs to be mated by wolves, so do the eskimos.

Back in a tick when I've checked out the lion tiger thing.

Well stab me, Promethean, you are half right ! Lions and tigers can mate, and can produce young, known as ligers, but they are not viable. They are infertile. But they are not the same species, they are apparently very similar, but their offspring will be F1 hybrids and therefore be infertile. It is rare apparently, but in captivity they can mate and produce Ligers. In the wild, they live on separate continents, so are unlikely therefore to meet.

I agree with you that we shouldn't CONSIDER dogs as wolves, because they are not in that wolves are wild, and dogs have been domesticated for 100,000 years. However, the point that SE is making, and I agree with him, is that there are many, many behaviours and characteristics that our dogs display which are a direct inheritance from their wild ancestor. I have already explained I think about the collie's herding instinct, the GSDs guarding instinct, the labrador's retrieval instinct, all these skills honed and exploited by man have come from natural traits displayed by wolves in the wild.

The pack theory applies to our dogs as well, I believe. You don't, and most other people don't on this thread, but I don't care, as I have said before, I plough my own furrow in life. If I think something is right, I will stick to it until someone manages to convince me otherwise. I have read Mech's excellent article "Whatever Happened to the Term Alpha Wolf", and when I have the time, I have much, much more reading to do, but I picked on Mech because he seems to be "Mr Wolf" in regard to the comparison between dogs and wolves. There is nothing in Mech's article that has made me change my mind.

I shall continue to act as Pack Leader to my dog, and I shall continue to revel in seeing some of his wolfy behaviours being demonstrated before my eyes !

I can't win with you, can I !! I deliberately said in my post let's forget about wolves for the moment, set them aside for the sake of this discussion because I could see that a lot of you have a problem with comparing dogs to wolves.

You then go and make a sarkey statement "so the last 83 pages were based on a misconception?"

Maybe I have misinterpreted your meaning in this statement, in which case I heartedly apologise !!

Wsy, I think it was you who said that people (the general public) when thinking of an "alpha" think of dominance and therefore force.

Certainly the training club we used to go to applied this theory and although were never harsh with dogs as such, they advised us to gently pin our last dog down on his side until he was calm and to grab the sides of his face and say "no" gruffly when he misbehaved. These are just 2 examples and I am 100% uncormfortable with both and would never go down that road again.
Gnasher, from everything you have said you would not apply these techniques either and would be against them too.

The problem is that people who subscribe to "alpha" theory (like these trainers and no doubt countless others) then have these ideas of being physically hands on with dogs reiterated by certain dog people on the telly. It just strengthens their ideas that they are doing the right thing and teaching the right thing when in fact they could be giving potentially dangerous advice to people.

This is what "alpha" means for a lot of people and it's wrong and quite frankly potentially dangerous IMO.

You don't seem to subscribe to this either so i don't think you are the alpha most people would think of, but just setting boundaries and teaching manners but not in a confrontational way as we see on certain tv shows. (Although in the other alpha thread I didn't like what you said about taking the chew of a growling dog as I think this too is very confrontational unless it was actually something dangerous in its mouth.....but I'm going off topic....sorry).

No, because alphas are born, not made.

I think I like your second paragraph - or at least I partially like it. An alpha dog is not "vastly superior" in physical terms ... remember, you could have a Jack Russell who is an alpha, or a little Chihuahua. An alpha dog just IS the boss, it is something I find hard to put into words, you would have to have seen my Hal to see what I mean ! And unfortunately that is now impossible, I have no video footage of him unfortunately, only thousands of photographs.

Interesting what you say about your shepherds - this would appear to be the dogs have sorted out amongst themselves the hierarchy in respect of each precious resource as listed by yourself. To my mind this indicates that the dogs are all of a similar ranking, whatever ranking that they may be, and that very sensibly between themselves everybody knows who has priority with each resource. I am struggling to find an explanation for this. It could just be that this IS a behavioural trait not inherited from the dogs wild wolf ancestors, because I am not sure whether such a structured hierarchical system would be worked out by wolves in a wolf pack.

So maybe here we have evolution happening right before our eyes !

Good posting, Promethean.

With Hal, when pushed to the extreme, I did hold his head in my hands, not roughly, nor did I grab him, but just held his head so that his muzzle was against my mouth and he had to look at me. Usually, I would say nothing, I would just stare deep into his eyes and he knew that by this, I had Had Enough. It was the most extreme behaviour I would ever do with him. If I did speak, it would be in a low unwavering voice, the words were irrelevant because although I do believe that dogs can actually understand words, I do not believe they understand whole sentences. They grasp your meaning by the tone of your voice. So, I would stare deep into his eyes and say something like "You are an utter and complete moron, you silly old git!" in a very stern voice. I guess this is akin to pinning, which I would never do, but it has to be remembered that Hal was very very wilful, very wolfy, remote and aloof without much of a desire to please or be obedient unless there was something in it for him. Taking hold of his head in this way was my way of telling him that enough was enough, he had gone too far. I probably only ever performed this 5 or 6 times in his life, and he got the message every time, his tongue would come out, he may or may not lick me briefly, his eyeballs would undilate and he would lie down and curl up, looking very embarrassed !

I think the whole concept of being a good Alpha has been completely corrupted. An Alpha does not "rule" by the sword, he rules with a gloved but firm hand. This idea that an Alpha human has to go round pinning his dog right left and centre for the slightest misdemeanour, dominating him in a physically powerful way is just nonsense, just as it is nonsense to think that an Alpha dog will be very aggressive and fight a lot with other dogs.