[alaskayorkie]

Eddie is an alpha male. I know that because he's won fights with the other dogs in my house. It hasn't happened in a long time, and I always break them up, but the fact remains he's top dog.

He also has toy possession issues. I worked with a behaviorist to get him to stop beating up my other dogs over toys, and I solved that part of it. Fights have stopped. My wife and I are lead dogs, and we can safely take any toy we want away from him at any time.

But, when it comes to his relationship with the other dogs in the house, he considers every high-value toy to be his. If Jillie has a toy he wants, she drops it and he takes it. She's actually gotten quite good at tricking him into THINKING he wants one toy, taking it from her, and she goes after the one she REALLY wants. But that's beside the point.

My question: Should you allow an alpha male to take what he wants, or should you intervene in the interest of human "fairness?"

My feeling, after battling this problem for years, is that we shouldn't instill human values on our dogs. Of course it would be nice if Jillie had her toys and Eddie had his, and there were no quarrels over it. But that's not the way it is. In the canine world, the strongest get what he/she wants. If a human intervenes, the weaker canine will pay the price when the human isn't looking.

Since I've adopted that philosophy, fights have stopped. Eddie takes what he wants, and I give Jillie something else to play with. If Eddie decides he wants that, I give Jillie something else.

To humans, it sounds unfair. To dogs, it makes perfect sense. Jillie has no problem dropping a toy when he comes after it. She knows holding onto it will bring a beating, whether I'm there to stop it or not.

But my wife disagrees. She says the toys are ours and we can hand them out any way we decide. It terrifies me when she does this because I know what's going to happen when we're not looking.

So that's the debate. Who's side are you on?