Just out of interest what scientific research are you using for these titles?? Because I have only heard them used by 1 person who, last I saw knows pretty much nothing about dogs and all his research is flawed because it is dont on tamed wolves that he himself trains

Are you saying in this case the owner should just live with the fact her dog is going to bug every dog she meets until she gets attacked?? - so they should just put up with her getting attacked by every single dog??
Or feed her a raw diet so magicaly she will learn approrprate greetings??

For everyone else
How would you deal with a puppy whos greeting to humans was OTT??
Easy - trained in any puppy class
I would have thought same with a puppy whos greeting to dogs is OTT

You're not quite understanding me at all, are you? I don't control her. That implies a level of power that I don't use. I allow her to make decisions (approach the dog nicely or not) and reward the right ones and work on the ones that can cause problems or that I consider a problem.

I don't pull her back and hold her tight or not let her meet other dogs. I don't make all the decisions for her. I don't correct her (i.e. leash pop) when she makes a decision I don't like. I "control" her the way parents "control" their kids. I show her how I'd like her to act and let her make the decisions. When she makes the ones that coincide with what I think is correct, she gets a huge reward.

I don't consider that control. Control, as I stated on ANOTHER POST, is a power struggle and there is no power struggle there.

Why am I having to rehash this when I'm just trying to offer advice? You seem to think I have, essentially, an out of control dog because I choose not to get into some alpha/dominance/control relationship with her. This is very far from reality. But this post is not about ME and my relationship with my dog.

And our dogs are tame and we train them---spot the similarity!

Makes any research and comments by Shawn carry a lot more weight than a scientist looking at one wild pack and making exactly the same assumptions that it has been suggested some of us might be doing.

David Mech has no more ability to define and understand a behaviour than I have. It is guesswork from both of us!

rune

Whoah, whoah, whoah!! Why so defensive? I merely asked the question that I thought you didn't believe in control!! Call it what you like, you do control your dog, you admit it yourself, you reward what you consider to be good decisions - this is control, it is splitting hairs to say otherwise. The fact that your answer is so prickly and defensive proves my point!

Your reading emotions into it does not prove any point. Control is about power. My relationship with my dog is not about power.

I'm not defensive. I'm annoyed that you're taking this post off topic and making it about me. If you wish to ask me about my dog and my relationship with her, PM me. Otherwise, keep this on topic.

Am looking for peoples experience of and thoughts about Omega dogs.

I have what looks like an omega bitch puppy in class at the moment. She is a staffie. It has been a fascinating process watching her behaviour develop.

Now 5 months old and with us since about 11 weeks, as soon as she see's another dog any dog, any size or any age, she immediatey runs to it, body lowered, licks its muzzle frantically and intensely, until it invokes some kind of reaction. With nervy dogs, they often try and fail to run away, she persues them and grovels some more, with older bolder dogs, they react angrily with varying levels of fierceness.

its very strange to see the reaction she brings about in other dogs. Even my most assertive bitch, who deals with all my dog aggression cases and is "up there" in terms of being a very senior ranking animal in all canine situations, doesn't know how to deal with this little staffie. She growls and snarls and air snaps and muzzle grabs, then in frustration she try's to just get away. The staffie takes more notice of my bitch than any other dog and does calm down sometimes in her prescence and just lays upside down nearby, then at other times she goes to my bitch and grovels endlessly, invoking her anger again and repeatedly.

I have one other close experience of a true omega bitch, my best friends collie. This dog did very much the same as the staffie, except she would push nearly every dog she ever met to actually bite her. She was bitten most days by her pack mates and often by strange dogs. A mass of scars, she went through life, permanently injured.

if any one has any thoughts on how the staffie behaviour can be better managed or changed then, I would love to hear them.

recent interntet research into "omega" talks of all sorts of unrelated nonsense about dogs who show other "lower status" signs like eating last and walking behind every other dog.... Very old fashioned and wrong thinking. These omega's do none of that, they just do the dog grovelling thing and always get in the middle of fights. Can anyone point me to any good or relevant or recent research? If there isn't any I might just have to do my own!

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Denise x

And our dogs are tame and we train them---spot the similarity!

Makes any research and comments by Shawn carry a lot more weight than a scientist looking at one wild pack and making exactly the same assumptions that it has been suggested some of us might be doing.

David Mech has no more ability to define and understand a behaviour than I have. It is guesswork from both of us!

rune

David Mech has a much better insight into natural Wolf behaviour than Shaun Ellis will ever have, his wolves did not roam free & were the products of an artifical wolf pack, kept in captivity here in the UK.

Having had the privilege of seeing Wolves living in their natural environs their behaviour is totally different to those animals kept in zoos & wildlife parks here in the UK or anywhere else in the world.

Puppy behaviour is shaped first by the mother & the siblings whilst with the breeder & subsequently by the new owner & other dogs. Natural Wolf behaviour is shaped solely by interaction wither their parents & siblings.

And our dogs are tame and we train them---spot the similarity!

Makes any research and comments by Shawn carry a lot more weight than a scientist looking at one wild pack and making exactly the same assumptions that it has been suggested some of us might be doing.

David Mech has no more ability to define and understand a behaviour than I have. It is guesswork from both of us!

rune

You are missing the point---our dogs are NOT living naturally so the comparison with wild wolves is totally wrong. A better comparison is with CAPTIVE wolves as our dogs are captive.

rune