My humble opinion for what its worth ........

When I first had my dogs , a chap at work who has greys and lurchers and gave me all this advice on pack leader stuff and always eating first etc, being naive I thought maybe it works he has more dog experience than me ? A year or more on , it makes no difference to my dogs who eats first , they dont dominate me because of this.

I have read extensively and attended various 'expert' sessions during the last year on dog behaviour and training and have taken some of my findings on board and completely ignored others on the basis if there is evidence provided that is credible to support theory then I will consider it. In my limited experience my dogs respond to firm fair positive methods designed for dogs who do not think or feel like humans. They think and feel like dogs !

I have a fearful dog who is reactive and all the excellent progress he has made has been by positive reward based methods, he would not have responded to being ignored , in fact I find that quiet cruel to a sensitive creature.

Mine all eat before I do, they go through doors before I do and they sleep on the furniture and my bed.

I'd better watch out as they are obviously about to take over the world.

Its more or less rubbish that JF spouts with a bit of common sense added accidentally.

rune

PMSL...mine are upside down on my bed...should I be worried?

I TOTALLY agree with this comment, Shila met a wolf once, they got on that well they went for coffee and had lunch, they had a right good natter n clearly understood each other perfectly

(im sorry couldn't help it )

I have to say, as a newbie to this forum, this place can be quite confrontational at times. Some of these posts I have seen - on other topics too, can be very off putting for a new person looking through the forum and I have to say I worry about posting an opinion slightly different to what more..."senior" forum users have.

Anyway for what its worth....

leadyourpack - if it works for you and your customers, and your customers are willingly paying for it and see a positive difference in their dogs, then thats great.

I personally dont agree with the whole wolf theory - because dogs have been domesticated for years and there are massive differences although there may be some similarities - their lifestyle and requirements have totally changed. As long as the dogs are well cared for and loved family pets then thats the important thing. I couldnt ignore my dog - he makes it flipping difficult to ignore him for 30 seconds before I get the sad eyes!!

I personally go by gut feeling and having a close bond with Zulu and seeing what he reacts well to. I like exploring the theories of all different behaviourists and trainers, and I do favour positive association type methods...But not all dogs respond in the same way so i think its really about applying some common sense, seeing what your dog responds to best and moving that forwards and adapting it to suit you and your dog. Whether that happens to resemble a particular persons methods - fair enough, you dont have to label it unless you do follow it word for word! The issues that some behaviourists deal with - I dont think all of them could do as well with their various different methods. They all have strengths, they all have weaknesses. Find what works for your dog.

Hm that's not what she told me whilst trying to get me on one of her alocyte courses, the studies were done on safari park wolves which are not natural packs, they consist of wolves from different zoos/parks that are put together & allowed to breed. David Mech(do google this wolf expert)blames himself for the incorrect Alpha wolf theories, there are no Alphas in a wild pack, there is mum & dad & their offspring from each years litter, when the offspring reach sexual maturity they leave the family group & set up their own. The parents rule the group, because they are the parents, they do not lead the hunt for food & one always acts as "rearguard"the parents do not eat first, the youngest if old enough to hunt eat first & if they are not old enough to hunt the hunters return to their base & regurgitate the food for the youngest & nannies to feed.

JF started out on our local radio station & has not changed her one size fits all "theories"she claimed both on the TV & radio to have discovered reward based training-doh-John Holmes was using this before JF was born !!! She even told a Dobe owner to use cheese as a reward, despite the fact that many Dobes have probs with cheese.

She made a TV series in which she saw fit to have one dog(the resident one)chained up & the new dog allowed to run free & eat in front of the resident dog to show it that the new dog had to be accepted Yer right-result the resident dog went to a local rescue !! She also used a crate as punishment for a Cocker that attacked it's owners-dog was later PTS for attacking the owner's hubby. She freely used chokers to "pursuade"dogs to accept her "pack"leader status etc etc etc

My dogs understand wolve alright when they hear/see wolves howling on the TV they growl & bark at the TV !!!!! Hm perhaps my dogs only understand English Canid behaviour ????

£160 for a service based on discredited and unscientific principles? Snake oil salesmen can provide that sort of service.

If you`re that good, why do you need the franchise? Why not break away and get real qualifications?

I see you are a "Canine Consultant" (whatever that is) and I also notice any qualifications you may have in this area are conspicuous by their absence.

Do you meet say the COAPE or APBC criteria required of a pet behaviourist?

What Mech actually said in late 2008 was to qualify correct use of the term, not to say there are no Alphas in wolf packs. He also suggested it might be better to use that other knee-jerk term "dominant" instead of alpha (some peoepl seem to use them virtually interchangeably). He also explains that not all wolves disperse prior to breeding:

"..so it is probably appropriate to refer to the original matriarch as the alpha female and to her daughters as "betas". The Yellowstone observers commonly use this phraseology, but too often it becomes loosely applied to all breeding wolves, even in packs where there are only single breeders. While it is not incorrect to use alpha when applied to packs of multiple breeders. it would be possible and even desirable to use the less loaded terminology. For example, the top ranking female could be called the dominant female of matriarch, and her breeding daughters, the subordinates..."

However the one JF book I read wrongly related and interpreted a situation in Yellowstone whereby she claimed a male not part of the pack was accepted into a pack as he stood his ground when charged by the "alpha" (i.e matriarchal) female.

I had come across a much fully account of this interaction when looking at Yellowstone wolf behaviour.

This stated that this same pack had earlier killed a wolf from a rival pack who came into their territory. In fact the greatest cause of death to wolves living within the protected area of the park at that time, as the numbers increased, was intra species competitive aggression from wolves from other packs.

However since the time they had killed the other wolf from the same pack as the eventually accepted one, they had gone out of the protected area of the park and the female's breeding partner had been shot and killed.

Hence when they came back into the park they had not been in occupation of that territory for a few weeks, and there was a potential vacancy for an unrelated breeding male to be accepted by the female, rather than chased off or killed by her male partner, from an established owned home territory.

As you can see the full story puts a very different set of highly significant circumstances in place than that single. and erroneous, theory put forward by JF that this male was just accepted because he stood his ground. In other circumstances he would have been killed, like his pack mate.

As for "Alphas" in Yellowstone, do not forget that the packs have now been there long enough to be proper generational family groups. When first introduced in 1995 this was not the case and they were 14 Canadian wolves, some of whom were grouped as artificially formed and released packs of adult individuals.

While discussing the Alpha wolf term in 2008 Mech also stated

"When one puts a random group of any species together artificially, these animals will naturally compete with each other and eventually form a type of dominance hierarchy. this is like the classical pecking order originally described in chickens. In such cases, it is appropriate to refer to the top-ranking individuals as alphas, implying that they competed and fought to gain their position and so it was with wolves when placed together artificially"

Again stating that there can be times or circumstances when some wolves can rightly be described as alphas.

Personally I use the leadership term in relation to humans having to take responsibility for the leadership role with their dogs, but in the manner of a nuturing, parental leadership/guidance role.

As for Dog Whisperers, Dog Listeners etc, it always reminds me of the song in the show "Gypsy" that the strippers sing called "You gotta have a gimmick" or in modern day marketing parlance, a USP (Unique Selling Point).

I have heard it said in JF's case that "The Dog Ignorer" might be a more accurate term.

Oh why do some doggy people think they have wolves?
Dogs are domesticated companion animals. Their behaviour is consistent with this. Behaviour changes (see Russian Fox experiment) dramatically through environmental changes.
Wolves are wild animals and their behaviour is consistant with the survival need of that mode.
It`s a bit like comparing Jersey cows with Bison.
You can study Jerseys all you like but it doesn`t qualify you to milk a Bison.