I`m surprised then that so many people are happy to have an an animal living with them that has to be managed by confrontational methods. Are these people living the life, I wonder? Do people always enter a room with a raised head and a deliberate walk, with kids hubby and dogs scattering before them? Do they get first pick of the Tescos delivery?
People are not wolves and dogs are not wolves. Come to that, I think as soon as you domesticate a wolf it loses a lot of its wolfy behaviour.
A lot has been made of how wolfy dogs (dogs who have been bred to look like wolves) has this stand-offish, `teenage` behaviour. However, if you were really accepted as Wolf Pack Leader, there would be no challenge. In fact, that dog would be displaying appeasement signals. I suspect the difficulty in training stems from the method, not the dog.

Just a joke Clare & Daisy !!

I'm not in a competition with anyone, I was just pulling Pidge's leg !

Hee hee Wys, absolutely, always blame the owners, never the dogs. I choose to walk my dogs off lead round the set aside, knowing that those pesky chickens may be hiding in the ditch or under the hedge. The guy who owns the chickens takes the risk of not clipping their wings, so that they fly over the hedge and far away like Chicken Little in the story. The duty to keep my dog under control and his chickens safe, is a greater duty I believe. His chickens are semi wild animals, and have the right not to be killed and eaten by my dogs. However, my dogs could be a passing fox, in which case, as a wild animal, that fox has every right to eat every single chicken, and good luck to him.

The trouble is, I am only a weak and feeble woman. My head is in the clouds sometimes when I am strolling round the set aside, and I forget, pure and simple, that we are approaching that part of the set aside upon which the chickens may be hiding in the long grass, under a hedge, or down in the ditch. When I remember, I call Tai to heel, ready to put him on the lead at the first sign of a bobbing empty head ! I don't always remember. We have got the added problem now that Chicken Little and his friends are getting bolder. They popped up in the hedge the other day about half a mile from home. Now this is where I feel my responsibility ends. Tough titty if they are that far away from home, and Tai gets one, just as if it were a wild rabbit. I will do my best to stop him of course, and if I caught him in time, I would be able to do so, but if I happened to be dolly day dreaming, then that would be the end of one chicken.

I expect Tai and Hal before him have been blamed unfairly, but I don't really care. If people allow their chickens to wander far and wide, the price they pay is that Mr Fox or Mr Wolf may take some ! It could be either, and to give the owner his due, he has never complained, nor accepted payment of any kind

I don't use confrontational methods !! I use calm, assertive energy to control my dog ! I have turned him into a very happy, very well balanced, very loved dog !

And believe me, domesticating a wolf does NOT mean he loses most of his wolfy behaviour !

You've missed the whole point, the whole attraction of wolfey guys ! The attraction is the CHALLENGE !! They challenge you a lot, either constantly like Hal, or just now and then like Tai, depending on the status they were born with. Hal was an alpha male, pure and simple. Tai's ranking is lower, a Beta enforcer and/or Beta nanny. I have said it before, I neither want nor have a Robot, an Automaton. I LIKE to be challenged, and by using my calm assertiveness, setting rules, boundaries and limitations and STICKING to them consistently, I surmount each and every challenge !! Or at least I try to, sometimes I cock up, but hey, I'm only human !! It's great fun, believe me.

Hi Gnasher, sorry not sure if I was very clear there, I didn't mean the dog owner I was referring to the owner of the chooks! He or she should take some responsibility for the chickens getting killed methinks


I can quite understand that, and I agree completely with you on that, as I do think it's unfair if anyone would blame you (or your boy) for that .

That's something! I expect he realises it's as much his fault as anyone's (or any fox/wolfey)

Wys
x

I know that - and I respect the fact that you are treating your dog in an intelligent and humane fashion - even if not using the methods I do - but other people following this thread may well see the `Alpha Male` as the way to go, since the poll results are indeed close - if unrepresentative.

Many people on this board have challenging dogs. They don`t need to use spurious wolf-pack theory to train them. And if you don`t believe my dogs are challenging - read a few of my previous posts.
Any interaction with Man changes a wild animal, incidentally. That`s why they try to rear orphaned animals with as little contact with humans as possible.

I am another other who deff fits into the no alpha training methods

Well, you may think it spurious ClaireandDaisy, but I don't happen to do so. It works for me and my dog, and that's all that matters. One man's meat is another man's poison and all that. I don't know your dogs, but if you say they are challenging, then I am sure they are. My Hal was challenging, very challenging, so you will have to take my word for it.

I never said interaction with a wild animal didn't change him, neither did I say that "my" wolves were wild. All your supposition I'm afraid.

I voted 'other' because I don't buy into the 'alpha' thing but do think there is something to the human-dog synergy. And that is what it is - a synergy. We both fulfill a need for the other.

Or specifically:

Definition: Synergy comes from the Greek word synergia, meaning joint work and cooperative action.
Synergy is when the result is greater than the sum of the parts. Synergy is created when things work in concert together to create an outcome that is in some way of more value than the total of what the individual inputs is.

http://ergonomics.about.com/od/gloss...defsynergy.htm