Quote:
Originally Posted by AgileGSD
That means the lead male never fought for dominance but merely reproduced.
|
That’s but yet another false assumption. I have seen many videos of non-captive wild wolves fighting for dominance. Alpha rolling is often how they communicate and establish rank and order to prevent fighting.
Alpha rolling if done properly is not going to make a dog aggressive; on the contrary is likely to reduce the odds of aggression and mental instability. If you abuse your dog it very likely could become fear aggressive and mentally unstable. There needs to be dominance, discipline rules and boundaries to increase mental stability and reduce the odds of aggression. Typically people that abuse their dogs don’t go to dog parks and don’t go out into public; otherwise are likely to have problems of one sort of another; whether it be aggression or with the authorities. For the most part the dogs that I have seen that were aggressive were in public; the vast majority of them were from dogs that were not properly dominated/disciplined and did not have good rules and boundaries and or a stable fair leader. Most of the aggressive dogs I have seen have been dogs that were spoiled and/or not properly disciplined and/or didn’t have proper rules and boundaries, and/or didn’t get good exercise, and/or did not have a stable pack leader (trainer/owner). Like they say in the computer world. Junk in; junk out.
Quote:
|
The study shows that dogs are not motivated by maintaining their place in the pecking order of their pack
|
Utter rubbish. They obviously didn’t have any alpha dogs in their pack. There captive dogs likely had plenty of food and shelter. Whether it be wild wolves or feral dogs; when the times get tough, rank typically gets more asserted. Higher rank means that you’re more likely to be well fed and get the choice pickings of food. Higher rank means that you’re more likely to be capable of bearing offspring and have opportunities for sex; thus more likely to be able to pass on your genes.
Dogs typically have many of these instincts suppressed/reduced; however the instincts are still there, just typically in a lesser form.
I’ve had 2 GSDs that were extremely alpha. He was a trained guard dog. The first one was alpha mainly with humans but to a lesser extent with dogs; he was a pistol; in the wrong hands he was dangerous; he had to be dominated; otherwise he was a loose cannon.
The other GSD was excessively dominant with other dogs but showed no desire to dominate humans. The dog had lived on the streets and was caught by animal control; the dog was too aggressive to other dogs to release to the public; so animal control gave me the dog. The dog was mean to other dogs evidently because while it was on the street it had to fight other dogs to survive and get food. That dog had to be forced into an alpha roll to submit to a new dog, otherwise he would attack from the get go. Even after the introduction he still had to be monitored for signs of building aggression. It took me about six months before he was rehabilitated enough that I felt reasonably safe to take him out in public.
I rescued another GSD that I wouldn’t consider alpha; but fear aggressive. It was in a black neighborhood and many of the adolescent males had racist attitudes about GSDs. They hit her with sticks and threw rocks at her and she could not escape the attacks because she was left out in the yard on the leash with no shelter; so she was very fear aggressive of young black males. It took me about a month to rehabilitate her. I had to force her to submit (alpha roll) her to adolescent black males as part of her rehabilitation. She had to learn that not all young black males are bad.
Alpha rolling was a very small part of their rehabilitation, but I think it was a very key component to start the ball rolling.
Alpha rolling properly does not hurt the dog physically or psychologically. Alpha rolling properly is roughly the equivalent of giving a toddler a timeout. It teaches who is in charge and that there are consequences to breaking the rules.
I believe in the carrot and stick method. A carrot on one end, and a stick on the other.