WHO'S THE ALPHA?

Abbott Press

Contents

Dog Behavior..............................................1What You Need To Know Before..............................5Socialization-For Young and Old...........................7Training-Who's The Alpha?.................................11Reward and Punishment.....................................13Home Sweet Home...........................................17What's Yours is Mine......................................25Worldliness Training......................................27Separation Training.......................................29Attentiveness-Watch the Alpha.............................32FAQ's.....................................................34Play to Train.............................................40Month One-To Do List......................................41Come......................................................44Sit.......................................................46Lay Down/Down.............................................48Wait/Stay.................................................50Heel-Companionship........................................52Door and Gate Training....................................56Formal Classes............................................58Off Leash.................................................63Zone of Comfort...........................................67Meet and Greet............................................69Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!...............................71Your Angel is NOT/Bad Behavior............................75Chewing...................................................76Potty `NOT' Training......................................79Barking and Howling.......................................82Jumping...................................................85Garbage In/Garbage Out....................................87Counter Surfing...........................................89Aggression (Fighting and Snapping)........................90Off Leash Problems........................................94Soft Mouth `NOT'..........................................96Stool Eating..............................................97Submissive Peeing.........................................98Higher Education..........................................101Fetch and Carry...........................................102Leave It..................................................106Delivery Girl.............................................108Left, Right, and Center-Curb Training.....................110Drop......................................................113Sniff It Out..............................................115Poison Proofing...........................................117Hand Signals..............................................118Let the Games Begin.......................................119Sit Up....................................................120Dance.....................................................121Shake Hands...............................................122High Five.................................................124Die Hard..................................................125Roll Over.................................................126Crawl.....................................................127It's Open and Shut........................................129etc, etc, etc.............................................132

Chapter One

Dog Behavior

Domestic dogs are believed to be descendant from Eurasian gray wolves, but tens of thousands of years of domesticated living have made them a different animal. To be sure, it's undeniable that dogs still share many of the wolf's basic characteristics. And, if you observe dogs carefully, you will still see the rudiments of wolf pack behavior in the wild (not artificial groups of wolves thrown together in captivity). And we have certainly modified these domestic canid's behavior to suit our needs. For instance, we have modified their hunting instincts to retrieve game (and bring it back without chewing or eating it) or herd animals and move them about as we want (without eating them).

Ultimately, there may have been nothing special about the wolf that got singled out for domestication: perhaps it just happened to be the social canid that was in the right place at the right time.

I have this picture in my head of one of our cave dwelling hunter ancestors sitting around his fire enjoying a big dinner after a very successful hunt and a prehistoric wolf-like animal standing just outside the light hoping for some scraps. Perhaps the cave dweller just had too much food left, or perhaps he just wanted to see what would happen. Whatever the reason, he threw scraps to the wolf. Being a smart guy, the wolf thinks "Hey, this might be the start of a better life. This human could be a good guy to team up with." As time went on, they both found that they could benefit from working together. And that, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Dogs, like wolves, are social, pack oriented (when I say pack, read `family'), den-dwelling, predatory animals. Thousands of years of domestication, however, have produced a subspecies of the Eurasian gray wolf, Canis Lupus Familiaris (the modern dog), that given a choice would almost always prefer a family (read `pack') of humans to a pack of dogs and would generally avoid a pack of wolves. A recent study conclusively proved that domestic dogs do indeed bond more strongly with people than with other dogs.

Equating the word pack with family is a relatively new twist on our understanding of our canine friends. For many years, scientists tried to interpret domestic dog behavior by observing the behavior of captive wolves. Captured wolves seemed to be in a constant struggle to get and keep their status in the pack. The strongest, smartest, most ruthless wolf gets to be Alpha for as long as he can hold on to the position.

Unfortunately for us dog trainers and all dog owners across the globe, no one understood that the packs in captivity were not representative of the wild wolf pack. Captured wolves were thrown together into artificial packs forced together by their captors. In most cases, these wolves were not related by family, and may never have met until they were thrown together in a cage. In hind sight no one should have been surprised that these captured wolves would fight over everything.

In the wild, we have observed that packs are always extended family units where older siblings stay with the rest of the pack, share the responsibilities of care giving, providing food, and protecting each other. There is almost no strife over position or status within a wild wolf pack.

We have also observed that it is a very contentious and dangerous situation when a lone wolf tries to join an existing pack. This lone wolf versus existing pack is much more like what we have seen in our zoos.

This misconception about the pack led to the whole training philosophy of physically and mentally dominating your pet to make sure it `stayed in it's place' and obeyed the stronger Alpha member in all things. It led to a more punishment-based training system, and a system where the Alpha human had to `win' every situation. They even use to teach that you had to win every tug-of-war game with your pet. We now know this to be ridiculous. Modern training should and must take advantage of the fact that a domestic dog is a loving, cooperative, family oriented (when I say family, read `pack') animal who, if...