What would Loki be then? He is not afraid of anything. He loves to fight (if I were to let him), he's not interested in humping, he'd rather fight. He doesn't inflict injuries, but dominates/pins/wrestles/shows what he could do, that kind of thing. We can't pass another dog without him glaring, strutting - that kind of thing. He won't ignore them. Other dogs will go out of their way to fight him, even when they are friendly with each other. They have crossed fields to attack him for no reason. He loves food and games with us.

Let's start with the myths then about being a human alpha to your dog. It does not mean that to be a good alpha you must not allow your dog on the bed, on the sofa, or that you must pin your dog down when he is naughty to show him who is boss. Or always walk through the door first, or down the stairs. A good human alpha means that you lead by example. One of CM's dictats is particularly good - he says you should never use the dog's name except in praise. Eg: Sit ! Not "Tai, sit". When Tai has sat, then I can say "good boy Tai". This really does work well, only using the dog's name in a positive situation, not a negative one.

If you want, or you don't mind, your dog coming on your bed, or on your sofa, that's fine, but it has to be on your terms. Whatever the rules are you set governing this, you must follow and adhere to 24:7, with no fuzzy bits. Tai comes up on the bed every morning for a cuddle. He is not allowed to monopolise the space ... bearing in mind he is a massive dog ... any attempt to push either of us for more space results in an immediate order to get down. He learned this immediately, he knows the rules, they are fair rules and he abides by them.

Being a good human alpha means that you have total empathy with your dog, who will respect you and obey you. It doesn't mean that he is going to be a robot, an automaton, terrified to move a muscle without your permission. He is going to be disobedient, but when he is, you have to come down on the bad behaviour immediately and let the dog know that this is not acceptable. For instance, Tai chasing next door's chickens. Expecting your dog to be 100% all of the time is unreasonable IMO. This is not being a good alpha, this is being Dominant with a capital D. This is not making any allowance at all for your dog's breeding or pack level, which is unfair. If you don't want a dog who loves water, then don't get a labrador. If you don't want a dog with a high prey drive, don't get a northern breed. Tai is a northern breed, and it would be terribly unfair if I came down on him heavily because he had killed an escapee chicken from next door. It is up to me to prevent this happening in the first place ... hopefully !

I would be able to demonstrate to you in person Wys so much better than I can put into words. I'm hopeless with words when its something complicated like this !

Believe me, given half a chance, Wys, I think he would have done !! Disgusting thought, but true unfortunately !!

Sorry Loki, I got involved with the alpha question from Wys !

How did I know Hal was an alpha. I'll start at the eginning.

When we went to choose Hal at Eddie's, we had 3 males to choose from. One was completely scared and disappeared off as fast as its little legs could carry on, one was bold and came up and said hello, and Hal came up, said hello, didn't think much of us, and went under the sofa to torment the scared one. This was the one for us, we liked the independence and aloofness without the fear. Unbeknown to us, we had chosen an alpha.

I won't bore you with every little thing he did, but forgetting about the wolf thing, he was totally unlike any dog I had ever had before, and I've had plenty. He was bold, far bolder than a 6 week puppy had any right to be, but yet at the same time he was totally aloof, hating to be cuddled and petted, and not interested at all in food. He had a very bad start because he had a terrible worm burden, plus he couldn't eat anything other than meat. This was pre BARF days, so no information about raw meat diets. The first year was spent in and out of the vets, but when we eventually got his diet sorted out, we could concentrate on Hal proper.

Until I learned of CM when Hal was 9, apart from the basic commands, he was untrained. We accepted that he was an alpha male, and thought that he was untrainable. We were just using the wrong methods, but that's going off thread.

He is the only dog I have ever had that "got away" with growling at us. He would growl at being bathed, he would growl when we groomed him, he hated being touched in any way, but he did like having his ears massaged. he hated to be petted. When he grumbled at us, we would just say "Oh shut up Hal you stupid soft fart", or some such term of endearment and totally ignore him. He never ever bit anybody, just made a load of noise ... at the vet in particular. She too just ignored him, but all her nurses were terrified of him, we learned after his death. Our vet would see to him because she adored him, and he her, he just couldn't let her know it, it was uncool, un-alpha ! Alphas don't love, they tolerate ! Hal did love us, his pack, deeply and devotedly, but God forbid that he should ever show it !!

His eyes would go black, and to anyone but us and the vet, you would think he was going to bite you. He was a Git with a capital G.

He attracted women like moths to a flame. He had his harem of bitches who, whether they were on heat or not, would escape to come round to call on Hal. He accepted their adorations with a complete lack of surprise and an intense air of cocksure confidence ! Males hated him, and over the years he had to attend the vets with several very nasty wounds.

If I had to sum up an Alpha male dog, I would say Aloof, Disobedient, Laid Back, Unaggressive and Difficult !

But the greatest of fun !!

I can't believe I just called you Loki, Lucky Star ! Sorry !

I would say that Loki is a Beta Enforcer, which is quite a high rank. They are the soldiers of the pack, they do all the fighting and scrapping on behalf of the alphas, who never get their paws dirty unless they absolutely have to !

Does he hold his tail high? This can be like a red rag to a bull for other dogs. Hal's tail was permanently held high, with the plume up and over his back, as if it had a curl in it but it didn't, it was dead straight, he just held it like that to indicate his alpha status, which is why he got attacked so much. Poor Loki is probably the same, as betas, particularly beta enforcers will hold their tails aloft too ... but in their case they probably want to attract trouble, so they do a little something extra as well that we can't see ... the equivalent of sticking their tongue out and going "yah boo sucks". This enrages other similar ranking dogs, hence the fights.

I still don't understand.

Are you saying there were three Alphas in the house or that the "born Alpha" Hal became a beta?

Or something more complex?

Sorry, I've stayed out this thread and just read as there are people far more knowledgable and better at explaining things than me but this was something that I had to ask.

I voted No btw.

Yes ! there were 3 alphas in our house ... one alpha male human, one alpha female human and one alpha male dog !

Hubby and I being alphas couldn't somehow unmake Hal an alpha ! You are what you are born as. Hal was born an alpha.

Until we learned of Cesar Millan, we were unable to train Hal at all in all but the most basic of commands ... sit, lie down etc. He would come when he was called, but on his own terms. We made all the mistakes in the book with Hal, but luckily no harm was done, he was a nice but very disobedient dog !

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.

The world if full of alpha dogs.

Aloof = raised poorly
Disobedient = Untrained
Laid Back = No drives
Difficult = Poor trainer

Thanks Gnasher . Hal was quite a character and I know you adored him. You've done really well with Tai too, which is dead lovely to see. Yes, Loki carries his tail high when out - not curled over but he has always been extremely confident. He was the maddest one of the litter, trouncing his litter siblings and leaping around. A big bundle of mad fluff - trust us to pick him!