Alpha Dog

[W Sibs]

Everyone keeps telling me that when Emmy gets older, she's going to the boss over Charlie. She's going to be the dominant one at home. I don't see it... my 2 takes their turn bossing (and tormenting) each other, they are fine sharing food, toys and they just follow each other around.

Emmy runs to Charlie when she isn't feeling sure about anything, and it's always her that will seek him out for affection too. Charlie lets Emmy do whatever but will put her in her place if she gets out of line. Then, again, if Charlie is being a pain in the butt, Emmy will make is very clear that she doesn't like him doing that.

So, in multi dog household, does one dog have to be in charge of the doggie pack?

Someone told me that there is always going to be one dog that is going to be in charge. But, with my 2, I can't see either one of them in charge over the other.

Then, again, Emmy is still a puppy... so things can change.

Growing up.... I don't remember any of my old dogs were boss. There were definitely grumpy ones and ones that has issues, but I wouldn't consider them alpha dog. Dad was the boss at home.

Edited July 14, 2010 by CW EW

[megan_]

Mine used to chop and change, no clear leader. Always got along - 18 months and not a growl. Then on Sunday Lucy attacked Fergus. She is #1.

[W Sibs]

Mine used to chop and change, no clear leader. Always got along - 18 months and not a growl. Then on Sunday Lucy attacked Fergus. She is #1.

ohh

hope fergus is ok!

[megan_]

ohh

hope fergus is ok!

He is - not a scratch - just a lot of biting, growling and screaming. I on the other hand needed a stiff drink!

ETA: It lasted all of 5 seconds and they are now fine with each other.

Edited July 14, 2010 by megan_

[poodlefan]

My personal view is that dogs will sort out their own hierarchy in any multi dog home. A harmonious pack is probably more symptomatic of a clear pack hierarchy than the absence of one.

That said, I'm with Megan - I think who takes lead is a fluid situation depending on the event and even lower pack members can and will fiercely defend resources. As Ian Dunbar says, only a foolish Alpha male will try to take something from a lesser ranked bitch.

All we can do as humans is set the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and manage any event the dogs cannot resolve without aggression.

Edited July 14, 2010 by poodlefan

[westielover]

I am lucky enough to have a harmonious pack of 4. They are all male and happily live together (bar one recent incident which was probably more a case of over-excited play than a fight for leadership).

When I used to foster - a female in the pack would unsettle things a little.

Aren't bitches the natural leaders of a mixed pack??

[claireybell]

I'm unsure of who the leader is between my two. Sometimes is Jesie and other times it Jodie.

Jodie goes to Jesie for affection and cuddles. She goes to Jesie if she is unsure about something and she tries to steal Jesie's food.

Jesie goes to Jodie for playtime and thats about it.

Mine have had one or two spats. Nothing serious. Jesie cracked it with Jodie for the first time ever. Totally freaked me out but was over in seconds. They went back to normal straight away however I needed a Valium!!!!

[indigirl]

I have a multidog household, and have for years The current alpha dogs are two bitches, one desexed one entire. Even though the desexed bitch does all the posturing and carrying on, i suspect its the laid back entire bitch who is actually the 'real' boss. Its only when shes in season and marky that the two have a tiff. Each time the entire bitch wins, hence my guess that she is the real alpha dog.

The dogs sort out thier own heirarchy, ive never interfered. However I will follow thioer heirarchy in that I feed the dogs in the order of their status - alpha bitch first etc.

As dogs are pack animals they seem to need to have a clear leader.

[Loving my Oldies]

So, in multi dog household, does one dog have to be in charge of the doggie pack?

In a word, No.

Dad was the boss at home.

And in your household now, you are.

ohh

hope fergus is ok!

He is - not a scratch - just a lot of biting, growling and screaming. I on the other hand needed a stiff drink!

ETA: It lasted all of 5 seconds and they are now fine with each other.

I have tiffs from time to time and I just tell them to stop being silly. I think that sometimes Jeune doesn't want clingy Tamar around and for some reason that only they know, she will suddenly growl at Tamar, Tamar will put two legs on Jeune's back, lots of growing from Jeune and then they are licking each other.

I think I will clock the next person who asks me who is the alpha, boss, leader, whatever. I always say, I am. From what I've read over the years on DOL it would appear that in some breeds, having a structure is very necessary, but then there are so many variables. Maybe the person isn't strong enough, maybe the person is too strong, etc etc. Maybe the dogs just don't get on.

Who is the DOLer who has large dogs ( Shepherds?? Huskies ??? Mals??? - I can't remember) and she had a photograph of them all lined up with their food bowls in front of them waiting for the signal to eat? A great picture.

Edited July 14, 2010 by Mother Moocher

[W Sibs]

Interesting... I'm definitely boss at home.

Just wondering when Emmy comes out of her puppy hood if she will take the top position (like everyone says she will), but seriously she seems like the dog who would rather follow then lead. Charlie is just... well, Charlie. He is a mama's boy.. so as long as he has his mummy, he is happy.

[poodlefan]

Interesting... I'm definitely boss at home.

Just wondering when Emmy comes out of her puppy hood if she will take the top position (like everyone says she will), but seriously she seems like the dog who would rather follow then lead. Charlie is just... well, Charlie. He is a mama's boy.. so as long as he has his mummy, he is happy.

Dogs don't have power vacuums. Who steps up when you aren't there?

[megan_]

I think you can be a fantastic leader and have a dog who is the natural leader of the pack, een if it changes over time. My dogs know that I'm not a dog :-)

CW - Emmy is still very young. I have always heard that the bitches are normally the pack leaders. In my case, Lucy had severe fear issues due to abuse, so it took her a while to try and be the boss of Fergs.

[Jaxx'sBuddy]

Interesting... I'm definitely boss at home.

Just wondering when Emmy comes out of her puppy hood if she will take the top position (like everyone says she will), but seriously she seems like the dog who would rather follow then lead. Charlie is just... well, Charlie. He is a mama's boy.. so as long as he has his mummy, he is happy.

Dogs don't have power vacuums. Who steps up when you aren't there?

i was following this thread and in my head was saying, hmm, im the boss so there are clear boundaries and thats why i havent had fights when i have had a multi dog household....then along came your great question and now i have to rethink my view because you are right.

[W Sibs]

Interesting... I'm definitely boss at home.

Just wondering when Emmy comes out of her puppy hood if she will take the top position (like everyone says she will), but seriously she seems like the dog who would rather follow then lead. Charlie is just... well, Charlie. He is a mama's boy.. so as long as he has his mummy, he is happy.

Dogs don't have power vacuums. Who steps up when you aren't there?

That's the question I've been asking... I think, right now, I would have to say Charlie, because is more confident and Emmy is still a pup.

[poodlefan]

The very clear Alpha in my household is my 13 year old poodle Teddy. He’s not the first out the door barking in alarm or warning but generally no one messes with him. He’s a true alpha – he doesn’t need to do more than look meaningfully at the others and generally they’ll defer. Same goes for pups – no big threat displays required to get them to back off – just “the look”.

My next door neighbour is a police dog handler. He knows a thing or two about dogs. We were chatting over the fence one day and something came up about guarding behaviour. He looked over at Ted and said “of the dogs you own, that's the one I'd think twice about before entering your yard".

Ted is aging and a new leader may emerge in the months ahead. My guess is it may be the Whippet.

Edited July 14, 2010 by poodlefan

[Cosmolo]

In my home there has always been a clear alpha. Our cattle dog boy used to be boss before he passed a few years ago- he was a super boss, calm and rarely 'did anything' because he just didn't need to- everyone respected him. The now alpha bitch who has taken over from him learned alot from him i think- although she is not as subtle at times. I believe she is an excellent alpha, i often wish all puppies could run with Cosmo for a week- they'd learn more from her in that time than what people can teach them. I love watching her 'at work'- the body language is seriously fabulous!

The only slight issue we did have was that when the boy was boss, he elevated our red ACD bitch Jessie (who he had grown up with) to 2IC- when he passed, Jessie tumbled down to the bottom of the pecking order and you could tell she found it tough. There were never any altercations or tiffs but she did take a good few months to adjust to not being able to control the other dogs.

[Jetty]

Jessie is the leader. She is the first one to bark, then Jet follows. When Jet is being to full on for her liking she will growl at him. Jet has never growled at her and follows her everywhere. So many situations have proved she is.

I think it sounds like Emmy is the leader by what you have said but like you said she is still a pup it could change.

[Paulp]

To the casual observer it would appear that, if either, Princess is the dominant one of my two labs, she jumps on Ebons back and humps him, in play he will roll over on his back and she will stand over him or even pin him to the ground (she is about 2/3 his size). They share food no problem and toys, they eat pretty much side by side. They sleep together. It does not happen very often but sometimes there is a resouce Ebon particularly wants (I don't give them rawhide chews anymore) and Princess will back right off and steer clear (early on before she learnt his cues there were a couple of scufflles) and we see who the dominant dog really is.

[Flye]

I really like Patricia McConnell's writing on dominance and pack heirarchy...

http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/the-d...onships-in-dogs for example.

Dominance can really vary based on what's at stake, and it's often misleading to think of it in terms of alpha, beta etc. Even in wolves, it's much more complicated than that.

[corvus]

Dogs don't have power vacuums. Who steps up when you aren't there?

Life isn't necessarily a constant parade of competetive situations. Social dominance exists as a means to avoid fights, which occur when individuals are in competition over something. What happens if you have two dogs that rarely compete? My boys are very different and have very different priorities, so they rarely come into conflict with one another and therefore there is no NEED for one to be dominant over the other. What happens is one always backs off. Who it is depends on who wants it more. Erik is pushier, bolder, and more likely to think he can get something he wants off Kivi, but if Kivi doesn't want to give it up Erik doesn't pick a fight with him. Erik will try to encourage Kivi to give it up and if Kivi doesn't care that much about it he will, but Erik is a lot smaller than him and can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do. Kivi is highly motivated to avoid conflicts. That's just who he is. So he doesn't want to compete with Erik. And he doesn't. End of story. No vacuum to fill. They make decisions based on what they personally want. Whether the other dog goes along with it or not is neither here nor there.

My mother has a dog that defends his right to get whatever he wants whenever he wants. There are three dogs in that house and he is the only one that plays this game. In fact, he's the only dog I've ever met that plays that game. The girls just avoid him. He will pick a fight over something he doesn't really want that much just to make a point, and he'll pick that fight strategically and not just with any dog. He doesn't care for who makes what decisions. No one can make him do anything, and the only thing he's interested in making anyone else do is give way to him when he says the word. He has no desire to control their every move the way an alpha wannabe does. For the most part he couldn't care less where they are and what they are doing. What is "power" to a dog? They just care about getting what they want.