Whether in wild wolves or their domesticated descendants - dogs - alphas are born, not made. Most of our domestic dogs are very rarely true alphas, particularly pedigrees - I say particularly pedigrees, because they are inbred to create certain personalities. The german shepherd for instance tends to be a high ranking beta synonymous with being an excellent guard dog which they mostly are. The labrador usually a lower ranked beta. Jack Russells high ranking betas. There are of course many, many exceptions to this - and in particular with crossbreeds. When you have several dogs of either sex or mixed, there will not be automatically an alpha dog - there will most likely be a male or a female dog who possibly is top dog within the confines of that particular group of dogs, but not a true alpha - unless by birth. There is confusion between the word "dominant" and alpha. I myself mistakenly would refer to my old boy Hal, who was a true alpha male born and bred, as being a dominant dog, he was not a dominant dog, he was a true alpha - calm, assertive but not aggressive, just a natural leader. He never got into fights with other dogs like his son Ben does, he just calmly but firmly overcame the opposition irrespective of size, sex, colour or creed.

Otherwise I agree with what you say in your last post.

Again Alpha dogs are the most aggressive of all, as they have to be. In fact Alpha means aggressive and fast to the cutoff. Also all Alpha dogs are dominant. I hate to be this way, but you are TOTALLY confused.

Have you ever studied wolves, Swifty

Unfortunately, most of us can only observe captive packs so we have to rely on scientific studies.

If you're interested, look up the work of David Mech - it's fascinating.

Even so, although dogs are descended from wolves, studying them to get a handle on domestic dog behaviour is like studying apes to see how humans behave.

No, not aggressive. They are assertive and if they have to, yes they will fight to the death, but that would always be a last resort. I hate the word dominant as it implies physical violence - I much prefer the word assertive. My old boy Hal was not in any way aggressive or violent, the only time he ever actually bit another dog was when next door's GSD had him pinned down by his throat on his back - Hal bit right through his front paw to save his life. Hardly aggressive - this is what an alpha will do, not be a beta like Ben and wade in there all guns blazing, but only ever exert the level of force that is required to prevent injury. The GSD was huge, probably weighing almost double what Hal did, but with a bite in the right place Hal was able to save himself from serious injury.

Unless you have ever lived with a true alpha dog, I think most people would struggle to understand just how subtle and controlled their behaviour is.

Wrong, dogs are thousands of years removed form wolves, and this is at most, and wolves and dogs can breed. Humans and apes are millions of years removed if you believe in Darwinian evolution in the first place and humans and apes can not breed. In fact the oldest dog evidence apart from wolves is 12,000 years ago. There is also direct evidence that dogs are bred away from wolves and none to support Darwinian human descent from apes. Thus just because evolution happens does not mean that apes became humans, but this is another entire egg that you will not crack.

It's now been found that the first dog came in at 31,700 years ago, but no matter

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27240370/n.../#.V8La8ZgrLIU

As you seem interested in wolves, this may be of interest to you

http://www.davemech.org/news.html

It's a very interesting read in respect of alpha status

The first link is mildly interesting however the writer does not know that a dog similar to a husky but larger is a malamute. Odd that an expert would not have this knowledge.

In the second link the writer repeatedly refers to what he calls "the concept of alpha wolf" which tells me that he is very confused and has some sort of agenda that makes no sense. I suggest he approach a wild "conceptual alpha wolf" in the USA with his pen and paper and test his theory.

Read his studies, Swifty - especially the later ones. I think you'll find them interesting

Dogs are domesticated wolves - through DNA ALL modern domesticated dogs can be traced back to 3 bitch wolves.

Dogs are very different from their wild ancestors in behavioural terms, but in physical terms they are virtually identical. They can freely breed. I fostered an F1 wolf cross a few years ago - aged 9 weeks. He lived with us quite happily, with our utonagan Tai keeping a watchful eye over him. We have many videos and photographs of them horsing around together - Tai was definitely the boss!!

Unless you want to argue with the Smythsonian Institute, dogs have been reclassified as canus lupus familiaris - in other words domesticated wolves. It may have happened tens of thousands of years ago, but all domesticated dogs still bear those wolf genes traced back through the mitochondrial dna to those 3 wolf bitches.

Seriously any study that challenges dominance or alpha status as being real as it applies to wolf pack structure, is really not worth reading.

This is like saying in line one that wolves and humans were put on the earth by God in exactly their present form. Clearly some people actually believe this, and it is just as clear that they are not worth my time to read as these people completely ignore that evolution in some form is real.