Hi CC !! You'd be surprised what your little wolf in sheep's clothing could do !! But point taken. Do you remember seeing Nou Nou on CM's programme? That was one of the first programmes I had seen, and I was very impressed.

Glad you're another CM fan. The guy's not perfect, and there is some stuff I don't like, such as the Illusion Collar and the fact that if his clients have been using chokes on their dogs, he will continue to use them. Choke chains are my absolute pet hate, and should be totally unnecessary if your dogs are well balanced, and you are their Pack Leader. I particularly love his methods of taking dogs out skating. This is absolutely brilliant, because whenever we take our dogs out for a walk, we are in fact taking them hunting. In their eyes, this is a ritualised hunt we are going on. The downside is that as upright walking bipeds, we cannot keep up with our quadruped canines, so by going on his in-line skates, Cesar is really getting into the groove with the dogs and in their eyes becoming even more of a Pack Leader - because not only is he Pack Leader in the mental sense, he is now Pack Leader in the physical sense too - he can keep up with them, and probably they will tire at this speed before he will - great news!

I can't in line skate now because of my back, but we do take Tai out on our mountain bikes, and he absolutely loves it. If we have to put him on the lead because we are approaching a road, he pulls OH along and he adores it. Even riding past sheep now, just inches away through the wire, he will ignore them and just keep on running along beside us. It is the most wonderful training in terms of fitness and obedience.

In 1944 Murie described wolves as living in 'family groups', in the sixties Dave Mech published the first 'comprehensive' study of wolves in which he quoted the Schenkel study which seems to have become the normal standard. Mech has recently written an article where he now thoroughly dismisses this concept and describes wolves as living in family groups- this comes after a life time of study much of which (in later years) was with non human habituated wolves in the wild.

I guess humans just love to dominate things. Most successful groups or 'packs' rely on mutual respect and trust where each member does a job to which they are best suited. Normally there will be an overall leader. Groups which rely on total dominance will seldom be successful for any length of time.

Great posting ! You've summed things up very succinctly. I agree with what you say, total dominance is never a good thing in any society. Is it possible to have total dominance over a wolf cross? I don't think so !! As much as I like to think that I am alpha female, and OH is alpha male, we don't have TOTAL control over Tai, who is about the most obedient wolfy type you could ever meet ! He still has his moments though, and I love it ! I love that little spark of independence than even he shows ! Hal (our 75% wolf cross, now sadly departed) showed a ruddy great flame of independence, and how I loved it ! He was such a challenge.

I don't like the word dominance I've decided, I like to say that through my calm, assertive energy I have a well balanced dog over whom I have sufficient control, certainly as much as I want. I would hate to have an automaton for a dog, a sycophant. I like a challenge !

I don't much care for the word 'dominance' at all either. However this has been an accepted dog training method for the last 100 years or so; see Konrad Most's 1910 book for example.

Many people believe that Churchill was a great leader during the 2nd world war. Was this because he 'dominated' the people by force and fear? Or did he inspire them to work harder against a common enemy?

Of course the situation with dogs is reasonably complex, but they respond well to clear leadership. Normally I try to use very positive methods to encourage a recall, even to the point where I will call out 'cheese' in desperation. But when my dog got into a fight with another did I use dominance and force; you bet! I dragged him away against his will and used everything available to control him. I did this for his own benefit. Did he bite me? no because his argument was with the other dog.

So I guess I believe that you need to show clear leadership in order to live in harmony but dominance can be used when my knowledge of danger outweighs that of my dog.

Very well put wolfdogowner.

Interesting you should bring up Churchill. He was the Honorary Colonel of my father's regiment during the war, the 4th Hussars. My father worshipped the man, he even went to the same school as Churchill (although different times of course!). He said that Churchill was totally charismatic, an instinctive player (it is believed that he suffered from ADHD, as my daughter does), definitely not a bully, so I think it would be fair to say he inspired every soldier, sailor and airman to fight the common enemy. My dad can take Churchill off to a T, and tells some wonderful Churchillian jokes, some VERY rude !!

It is correct though that the latest scientific research (ie, Mech), does not support the theory of Alpha. If your husband has kept up with it, he would be aware of it and probably have his opinions, (but at the end of the day he's not, of course, spent his life observing wolves in the way Mech has... I think it's fascinating Mech altered his views on pack theory after Schenkel ).

That's good to hear (but we won't talk about CM.... )

We don't want to talk about CM but I think it's relevant to this discussion that he has got quite a few things wrong about dogs, and sadly perpetuates these things.

I remember a young lad in our road who had a golden retriever - lovely dog, but the father was a bit heavy handed, demanding instant obedience. He crushed the dog, really. The lad copied him and I saw him once lightly slap the dog (the dog was sitting next to him outside the corner shop) - the slap was only because the dog had tried to interact with him. The dog offered him a paw and again got slapped. The lad obviously believed paw offering was a bad thing - it was so so sad and I felt gutted for the dog, because not only was he stuck with a family who misunderstood dogs, but he was also denied any form of communication with them.... yet they expected blind obedience from him.

Thanks for taking the time to type about the chickens It can be done in other ways ( I trained my BSD who has a high prey drive to not chase animals where I sometimes walk, in the New forest; this is usually donkeys, horses, birds plus other animals such as riders and joggers ). She used to take off after deer but one call and she'd return - I didn't use CM techniques though A friend of mine who is a very good behaviourist has done it via the desentisiting route also, which does take time but worked very well for her client and dog.

Wys
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Yes, they do - appalling - however it seems they are sometimes used just for physical presence being a deterrent, which is so wrong. It's wrong with any breed, to be a guard dog and nothing else...

Wys
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Yes, I can only agree with what you say (but we've had CM discussions on here and it gets rather heated ) so I will just say that I think it's down to ratings ...

I don't think there is one!

Wys
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It wasn't any sort of give paw, it was the dog simply holding a raised paw in the air - the dog didn't touch the owner at all.

CM was totally incorrect on this one, (as Promethean said, this communication is universally accepted) It distresses me so much to think that owners might mis read so much of their dog's attempts at communication because they've watched a tv programme and think their dog is being dominant when in fact, it is actually anything but ... and how depressing for the dog.

(but we are getting perilously close to a CM discussion so maybe we should not go any further along this train of thought.... )

Wys
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Yes ! I SO agree !!