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Location: East Midlands, UK
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 8,775
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Originally Posted by
Promethean
You wrote that alphas show no fear and are always cool.
You claim you were afraid. If we follow this thinking then the dog should have seen you were not alpha. You lost your status - again using your metric. If you were not alpha (because you were not cool) acting not afraid again wouldn't have had any effect since the dog wouldn't have seen you as it's alpha.
Aside from the fact that there is no reasonable explanation for your story from a scientific pov, it doesn't even make sense from your own pov.
It is quite possible and documented that fears and phobias can develop even such things had not elicited fear in previous cases. As a rule I consider speculating about the etiology of aberrant behaviour to be a waste of time. The truth is that you don't KNOW (please don't confuse it with belief) what caused this. All you really know is the behavior you observed.
And aggression is often rooted in fear, so your tale of aggression tells me that you have an romantic view of this animal that is not real. This is consistent with your ideas of wolf-dominance-alpha which have been abandoned for far better working theories. You seem to be in love with the idea of the brave alpha leader, the romance of the lone wolf choosing to share his life with you because you are a strong leaderand thus interpret everything through this biased perspective.
Ah Promethean, now you HAVE got me thinking. I like your logic and your reasoning. Alpha is showing fear, therefore alpha is showing a loss of face. Yup, I like that, but it still does not explain to me why Hal so instantly became scared of thunder and fireworks because I had become, through a traumatic event, traumatised and therefore weak and vulnerable.
I don't know the answer to this, I am genuinely and truthfully telling you what happened, and genuinely and truthfully telling you that through immense will power I managed to remain cool through thunder storms and fireworks going off next door, and get Hal out of his fear of thunder and fireworks. This is intense anthropomorphisation, which as you know I detest, but it could it be that Hal understood that my weakened state of mind had caused by a traumatic event, understood it and accepted it ? That to me smacks of intense mawkishness, but I know of no other explanation. What do you think?
Onto the fascinating subject of wolves. Wolves are not dominant with regard to humans, they are terrified of humans, for a very good reason. They have been persecuted relentlessly and very unfairly for at least a thousand years by man. My wolf cross Hal did not choose to live his life with me, he had no choice ! I purchased him at 6 weeks old from his breeder, and whether he liked it or not, he was my pet, my dog. The fact that he retained some of his ancient wolf traits filled me with delight, it didn't make me feel A Big Woman, Mrs Powerful. It made me feeled awed and honoured that I had this wonderful animal's trust and love, although he had a bloody funny way of showing it sometimes. He was a Git through and through - not sure the word "Git" translates into American, but if you have never heard the word before, it means a loveable rogue. It depends on the context in which you use the word. You could say "that thug who beat up an old lady, he's a right Git !" and in that context, it means he is thoroughly unpleasant, but when I say of my Hal "he was a right Git", it is a term of reluctant admiration !
I do not view wolves or wolf crosses through rose-tinted spectacles. I am no misty-eyed, star-struck wolf lover. I am an ordinary flawed human being, who bought a wolf cross puppy 12 years ago when they were illegal in this country, and loved him unreservedly, warts and all, until the day he died in my arms. I made every mistake in the book with Hal, but we had tremendous adventures together and too numerous laughs to fit into a lifetime of books. He was a Character with a capital C, but I never was, and never will be, blinkered about his many faults ... and mine !