While the main stream training techniques in dogs involve using positive reinforcement, it is unfortunate that there are sill believers of the old adage that in order for dogs to obey they must fear their owners. These dog owners are those that still believe that in order for a dog to respect its owner it must be physically punished and forced into submission. These individuals often excuse these brutal training methods by stating that after all, that is how wolves earn leadership in the pack. They state therefore, that wolves in the wild resort to aggression and physical punishment in order to attain their leadership status.

These owners often imagine two wolves beating themselves in a bloody fight with their ears back and their teeth bared ready to attack, and possibly kill. These images often are the result of watching documentaries or actually seeing a fight break up in a local zoo.

This causes these dog owners to draw the erroneous assumption therefore, that dogs are aggressive in nature, and if that's the way an alpha dog corrects a subordinate dog then that is the venue to use in their relationship with their dogs. This ultimately causes them to feel fully justified in beating their dogs up into submission, either through a rough alpha roll or kicking/beating up their dog.

Digging into the Circumstances

The cliche' of an alpha wolf beating a subordinate into submission is wrong and outdated literature. While the visions were true and the wolves or dogs were really fighting in the first place, the underlying dynamics were not realy throughly studied... The reasoning behind such such bloody fights must have been linked to a life or death issue or a potentially threatening curcumstance for the whole pack.

In the wild, wolves fight to such extent only under certain circumstances: when another outsider wolf is threatening the safety of the pack, or when a senior alpha wolf needs to be withdrawn from its alpha status because too weak to grant the survival of the pack.

The most common fights among wolves in the wild are generally mild scuffles between middle ranked wolves, whereas alpha dogs do not need to resort to physical punishment because their role is crystal clear to all the pack.

Alpha leaders therefore are benevolent, confident leaders that establish their leadership through body posture, stares and light growls.

Captivity Behaviors versus Natural Behaviors

So where does all this idea that alpha wolves are aggressive and use pysical force to establish dominance comes from?

Years ago, various studies were conducted on wolves in captivity. Being in captivity these wolves gave humans a great opportunity to study ther behaviors and how wolves interacted between one another in a pack. It was observed that wolves actually did use force to establish dominance, causing people therefore to think that yes, if wolves do, then owners should do the same with thier dogs...

Yet, only years later it was found that the actual captivity settings put lots of strain on the wolves and they therefore acted much differently from how they actually did in a natural setting. Tihs may be attributed to the fact that they lived in much smaller enclosures than they would in nature.

Thanks to various studies Ian Dunbar, was able to watch wolves in their natural setting. He was able to notice that alpha wolves did not use force, but that they were rather benevolent and over all confident. He also noticed thst alpha leaders that exhibited tyrant, forceful behaviors were disposed of from the pack and replaced with a more confident one.

Extreme assertiveness and use of force therefore, was seen as a weakness in the pack, and alpha dogs behaving in such a way deemed unpredictable and were not seen as leaders.

An Amazing Break Through

To make things even more interesting, David Mech in an important study, noticed how actually wolf packs consisted mainly of family members, therefore defying the myth of alpha members. He was able to note that woflf packs were led by a breeding female and a breeding male, and that all the subrodinates were actually off spring.

According to David Mech in his article ''What happened to the term Alpha Wolf''

''Rather than viewing a wolf pack as a group of animals organized with a “top dog” that fought its way to the top, or a male-female pair of such aggressive wolves, science has come to understand that most wolf packs are merely family groups formed exactly the same way as human families are formed. That is, maturing male and female wolves from different packs disperse, travel around until they find each other and an area vacant of other wolves but with adequate prey,court, mate, and produce their own litter of pups.''

The Power of Energy

So if wolves do not use force how can they be ultimately respected by other pack members?

Alpha leaders in the wild resort to body language. They use several effective warning postures and dominant ritualistic displays. The other pack members are very receptive to such displays, and perceive the assertive energy and submit.

So dog owners that believe in using force to establish dominance are really establishing weakness...Indeed, very likely their dogs have behavioral problems and are acting obediently simply out of fear. In nature, if such owners were part of a wolf pack, very likely they were ''disposed of'' because they were deemed unpredictable and lacking confidence. Calm, assertive leaders in a pack setting instead are the ones that get to gain respect and well earned leadership...

While wolves can teach us some interesting notions about dogs and their behavior, one must wonder though if comparing wolves to dogs is a bit off topic. After all, wolves can be to dogs somewhat the equivalent of what monkeys are to humans, two related but very different species!

Wolves after all are hunters and dogs are scavengers therefore pack dynamics between wolves and wild dogs can be quite different when studied. However, studies continue as we learn more and more about the intrinsec and quite interesting stories from the canine world..