[Skip]

Originally Posted by dipper

Hi Skip,
Please, don't take this the wrong way, but it doesn't matter what YOU think it matters what your DOG thinks.
If you want to substitute the word "boss" for the word "alpha" I don't think anyone outside of a professional school or some anal person would argue with you.
I don't believe dogs think in terms of species either---doesn't matter to them.
Dogs most certainly do believe and see things in pack order--you might not but they do--its all they know--it is how they relate to those around them whether human or dog.
I never equate "alpha-roll" mentality with projecting the "role of the Alpha."
You are either in charge or your not---or--you are either the boss or not--or--you are either the Alpha or not---makes no difference to me what terms you use.
Yeah, WE know we are not dogs--we are a little higher up on the developmental scale--but do we know what our dogs think and should we expect their reasoning to be anywhere near ours??
I see a difference in the actions of my dogs when my children come home for a visit---they always act a little different--they greet them differently than my wife or I--they act differently at meal time---etc.
The "pack" has changed and so do the dynamics.


Rich

Actually, it does matter a lot more what I think (as opposed to what the dog thinks), and please, don't take this the wrong way, you really can only tell what YOU think. We have no idea exactly what the dog thinks. I guess part of it is just due to some research of mine. Not all wild canines that dogs evolved from grew up in "packs". Many of today's wild canines,...foxes and coyotes for example, and even some wolf species, are pretty much solitary. Sometimes I think the over-usage of our "pack" reasoning is to overly humanize our dogs because a pack (FAMILY) scenario is a little more romantic and appealing to US. Your sentence :but do we know what our dogs think and should we expect their reasoning to be anywhere near ours?? sort of vaildates my reasoning. Why should OUR success on training our dogs equate to any "pack" reasoning that they MIGHT have. I guess I agree with "whatever works", and all my dogs over the last 20 years have proven themselves on the training fields, but the more and more I train, the less and less I see the benefit in using any "dog pack" similarities in my training or my terminology. Man has domesticated dog which has caused many alterations in what a dog was then, and I guess it's impossible to tell at what level a dog really "includes" us, today or a thousand years ago, but my feelings are getting stronger that a dog is smart enough to separate us from any "pack" scenario that MIGHT have existed thousands of years ago.