Quote: Benjamin Colbert

I don't mean to be picky and I'll certainly read that book (I try and read everything I can get my hands on about wolves and dogs) but I'd prefer something newer than 35 years old, but again I'm not trying to discount this.

I don't understand what the age of the book has to do with wolfpack social order. Perhaps they found an unknown wolfpack in 1985 that was arranged in a completely different manner?

 Quote: Cindy Easton Rhodes

I have a teenager to fill that position should I feel the need to beat my head against a wall any more today.

Cindy,
Make sure it is a soft wall and not concrete please.....I will need your support in February

Benjamin - what I have noticed over the years is that are people like yourself (and I am not sure your real name is Benjamin Colbert - I am beginning to think your a troll who has been here and kicked off the web board) live in an unrealistic world of books.

Amber Cindy and many of the others hit this right on the head.

Who is qualified to write the criteria for a study?

Who is qualified to run the study?

Who is qualified to interpret the results of a study?

People like YOU? I think not. People like VET school professors? I know NOT !!!!

So stop talking like a SMART ASS or DUMB ASS or you wont be posting to my web board. I am loosing patience with you BS!!

People like you would learn 100 times more about dogs by spending time going outside and training your dog and not typing on the dam computer.

This thread made me remember one of my old police dogs - OTIS. He came to me after working in NM where the handler was fired from the department he worked on. Otis was a very dominant dog. At 18 months he first went to a department in Florida. The handler had him for a couple of days (certainly not long enough to establish pack structure with a dog like OTIS) - he went to training. Was sent for a B&H and did a find and bite. He had a remote collar on - the handler walked up next to him told him to OUT - dog didn't OUT so he got high level stimulation. The dog released and reattached himself to the handlers neck - who was them air lifted off the training field and Otis was on his way to handler number 2.

In NM - he had many street bites. He also did not have a good relationship with his owner - who he tried to bite many times. When he would bite a suspect and the handler would try and OUT the dog - Otis would drag the suspect in a closet or under a desk and guard him like a food bowl. hmmmmmm Any pack structure going on here Benjamin?

After the handler was fired the sheriff realized that a new K9 handler would never get a handle on a dog like this. Kevin put a deal together for him to come to my kennel and I supplied a youg selection tested male as a trade.

Otis spent a couple of months going through my pack structure program http://leerburg.com/308.htm (in fact he helped write a couple of chapters in the program) This dog never bit me - not once - and he could be a very dangerous dog.

I would like to see some dumb ass Vet school professor or better yet some dumb ass book worm try and take dogs like Otis and put them in their study. They would end up as an all-natural diet.

So Benjamin. You need to heed a warning here - it's a standard warning I give. Read my web board and stop posting stupid shit or you wont post here. There are plenty of web boards where people like you can debate the philosophy of dog training - all of which is based on your experience with your new puppy.

Okay Ben,
Now we're back to training methods again. Now while I don't claim to be any maven on what you think to be some kind of hocus pocus cult theory on the pack behavior of dogs. Pick any trainer or method you like, describe it for me, and I'll show why it works through the frame work of pack theory.
Even though I should know better.
Your already whinning of personal attacks, from who? And if there is more then one or two, you've only yourself to blame for being so obtuse in your arguements. Half the time nobody knows where your standing on anything because its always shifting from one post to the next. First its pack theory, nows its wolfs, then its trainings, now we talk about families instead of packs, no now its wolfs again, no its wild dogs, no no its training, well what about the out, now its pet dogs and training again or is that dominance in pet dogs we're suppose to be talking about. I don't know any more. So I should know better because it doesn't matter how it's presented it will never be good enough to hit a moving target. But here goes nothing.

Off to another merry-go round ride.
Randy

Sorry Ed, I was typing while you were posting

 Quote: yuko blum

Have you ever tried "outing" a highly rank dog who is perfectly proficient with the command? One who will "out" reliably for a handler whose rank he respects?

And once you out him (assuming you can deliver enough force to make him spit out the prey item), try reaching in and taking the prey away from him.

I hope to god for your sake that the dog has a clear respect for your rank, otherwise... well, it'll be the quickest way to show you rank drive in action.

(Now don't actually go and do this, at least without ample protection and the presence of someone who actually understands rank drive and knows what they're doing...)

at risk of being anecdotal (sp? sorry), teagan and i agree 100% with this. she's bitten me for picking up a toy near her. i'm pretty sure i'm not supposed to have to train my dog to allow me to pick up a toy - i am pretty sure that the process of her accepting me as a leader was not nearly as advanced then as it is now (and we work on it all the time).

teagan regularly, if allowed, reinforces pack structure - not only with me (err) but with luc. when he ran off after the attack over xmas, when my mom and her found him, she growled at him, i think b/c he took off. once when he was acting up while i was trying to put on his pack, she got in his face and then nipped his back legs (don't worry, i stopped that).

what else is that if not pack dynamics? i only see her do it when luc does something 'wrong'.

i will say though - having run a feral trap-neuter/spay-return program, cats other than the big cats do live in colonies, and they do exhibit signs of social structure. it's not uncommon in some colonies for one nursing mom to 'babysit' more than her litter of kittens while the other moms go hunting. and certainly, there is usually at least one tom the other cats know not to mess with. however - i'd say that's more of a family/community structure and the fallout of living in a community (everyone knows that tom is badass, for instance) than i'd say it's pack instinct. you could argue a weak pack instinct has developed, but i really don't see it that way, b/c socially even in colonies cats behave very differently than my two dogs do. i have two dogs at home - the pack instinct is very obvious to me. i've also got 4 cats, and it's not. just wanted to make that point since the cat vs. dog comparisons are coming up.

 Quote: Carol Boche

 Quote: Cindy Easton Rhodes

I have a teenager to fill that position should I feel the need to beat my head against a wall any more today.

Cindy,
Make sure it is a soft wall and not concrete please.....I will need your support in February

Don't worry Carol, I am pretty tough.....cracked noggin or not, I will be there in February...

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread, or whatever you want to call it at this point ............

 Quote: cindy easton rhodes

 Quote: benjamin colbert

Also why would everyone be out to get you? I don't get that at all.

What the heck???? I find that comment really strange and almost creepy.


Some people truly want to learn, others just want to argue every point over and over... I have a teenager to fill that position should I feel the need to beat my head against a wall any more today.

Once again the "if it doesn't line up to what I believe I'll make fun of it" scenario. Great. I'm here to learn and in my opinion one of the best ways to do that is open debate. It seems many (not all) of you are to entrenched in your ideas too even think about other options, even to the point of disproving them. I may seem partial to my ideas but at least I defend them without demeaning you personally.

I believe that dogs are genetically social animals and they enjoy and need our company. I also believe that there is no genetic inclination to want to be the leader or to be "dominant".

Amber, I understand why are there are a lack of solid studies on pet dogs and dominance (or anything else for that matter), I wish there were more but the money's not there.

Excellent post by ED, said it all
Benjamin, why all this hassle, why not just enjoy your Dog.
if i have to think on the same context as you do i would not have time to get to the Dog clubs and do the training, and i will add its not only the Dogs that are being trained but me as well.
None of us know it all we will learn until the day we pass on. In another sport of mine now 55 years strong, I am still learning about it every day and that goes for everything,
Theory is okay, but practise makes perfect

Edited by Steve Patrick (12/29/2007 02:12 PM)
Edit reason: added text

 Quote: benjamin colbert

Once again the "if it doesn't line up to what I believe I'll make fun of it" scenario. Great. I'm here to learn and in my opinion one of the best ways to do that is open debate. It seems many (not all) of you are to entrenched in your ideas too even think about other options, even to the point of disproving them. I may seem partial to my ideas but at least I defend them without demeaning you personally.

This is very ironic. You say we are ostriches with our heads in the sand, but then congradulate yourself for not being demeaning.

 Quote: benjamin colbert

I believe that dogs are genetically social animals and they enjoy and need our company. I also believe that there is no genetic inclination to want to be the leader or to be "dominant".

I believe I can sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves, but her inclination is to not touch. Regardless, we are both theorizing at this point.

 Quote: benjamin colbert

Amber, I understand why are there are a lack of solid studies on pet dogs and dominance (or anything else for that matter), I wish there were more but the money's not there.

Then your point about us providing you peer-reviewed studies seems to be moot.

Why don't you address the story Ed told about Otis? It seems to be the perfect scenerio for the origional post about the "out" being a pack oriented issue. And, it is real! What a concept! LOL!

 Quote: benjamin colbert

I believe that dogs are genetically social animals and they enjoy and need our company.

I actually agree with you here. I,too, believe they are social animals who enjoy (or whatever they do in dog terms ) our companionship. In this way, they are truly unique in the animal world.

 Quote: benjamin colbert

I also believe that there is no genetic inclination to want to be the leader or to be "dominant".

On this, I couldn't disagree more. What, then, does the inclination come from if it isn't genetic? How then do you explain tiny puppies who display dominant tendencies?

I, too, enjoy debate with those who do not get nasty and personal, so please feel free to tell me why you believe that there's no genetic inclination toward dominance, in an un-nasty, impersonal way.