The Dog Blog

I don't know if I am just noticing it more, or if it is becoming more popular to refer to dogs as "alpha". I am seeing more and more clients use this term to describe their dogs in various ways. "My dog likes to be alpha". Most times it is simple pushy behavior or lack of training that they are refering to. Perhaps it is just more widely used due to the popularity of a certain show.

Whatever the reason, I feel the need to explain to as many people as I can reach that it is now considered an outdated term. This is due to our having learned more about dog behavior that when it first appeared on the scene some 20 years ago. (ala Monks of New Skete who have since recanted the alpha roll as a training tool.)

A trainer wrote:  “You generally don't  try to teach math on the playground, it tends to take all the fun out of  kickball.”

This struck me as odd.  Did the trainer mean that they equated "training" with not fun?  Or as the equivalent of math?  (Math teachers of the world would like to know: And  exactly why is math synonymous with not fun?)  

To me, training is simply a conversation between me and a dog.  Like any conversation, it can be casual, fun, serious, difficult, silly, meaningful or meaningless, boring, dry, exciting, stimulating, etc.  It all depends on what's being discussed, how it's discussed, where it's discussed, who's talking and who's listening.  

The neighborhood kids wait for their big yellow school bus, right outside my front door every morning during the week. Supervision of young beagles in the front yard during this time is a must. I discovered this a few days after I moved in, when from the front window, I watched as my young neighbor, Ruthie reached into her lunchbox, pulled out a thick, round slice of minced ham and hurled it across the yard like a Frisbee, right into the waiting mouth of my very happy beagle. A few days later, I was outside with the dogs at school bus time when Ruthie came skipping down the sidewalk, her mother not far behind. Ruthie ran into the yard, gave Jessie Beagle a hug and a pet and quickly introduced Jessie to her mother. During that introduction, I heard her say, “Jessie really likes me.

I attended my first dog training conference in early 2000. I’d been teaching obedience with a local club for a few years, had a read a ton of books, belonged to more training listservs than I could count, and had rehabilitated a couple of fosters and a dog I adopted for aggression issues. I fancied myself quite the expert on dog behavior, and I wasn’t shy about sharing my opinions. I went to the conference because I couldn’t make any progress with another aggressive dog that I was working with. Nobody local could help me, so I sought the advice of people whose books I’d been reading.