Training issue: Who's right? Me or my wife?
 

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?

Maddi is the alpha dog in my house. And all the dogs know it she takes whatever toy she wants when she wants it. If I take it away which I can and give it to one of the yorkies. They will drop it and give it back to her just by a look. She is queen and they respect her.

Woohoo! I'm gonna wake my wife up and tell her you agree ! :p Nah, it's nice to see at least someone has seen the benefit of letting the alpha be the alpha.

Jada is the Alpha in our household. She doesn't play with toys except for her special loofah dog. Bogie knows he can't play with it and never tries. My two have never fought over anything, so I guess I am lucky. They both will let us take toys,treats, food etc away from them without a fuss.

I ban you for not voting! But I'm jealous. I'm always on guard when toys are out.

I think in a lot of ways humans try to humanize dogs. Dogs have their own way of communicating and deciding who does what in the "pack" Yes, us humans have to be the "pack leaders" but as long as the dogs aren't killing each other, let them be dogs. For example, Smokey usually is the one to initiate play time. He'll take a toy and usually bring it to me or DH. Chip sees it and suddenly wants THAT toy out of all the toys we have in the house. Chip will go over and tug of war will start between Chip and Smokey or Smokey will just let him have it. Chip is alpha. Smokey will just go grab another toy, no big deal. If Smokey really still wanted that toy Chip just stole, he'll go after it and get it himself. As long as they aren't fighting or killing each other, they can do what they want. I intervene when they both get territorial, like the other day when Chip was sleeping with his bully stick under the bed and Smokey tried to steal it from him... created a HUGE fight. I intervened. When Chip and Smokey play with their "squirrel" I have to watch them closely, because they did get in a gigantic fight over it once. I only give it to them when I can supervise.

IMO, dogs are not children. If this were a situation regarding a child, obviously you'd handle the situation totally differently, but these are dogs. They know what they are doing.

Sheesh, I turn my back and you get smart all of the sudden! I would have guessed Smoke was alpha. But you make me count my blessings, in a way. In my house, there's no debate about who's top dog. Jillie doesn't fight back.

Chip is most definitely alpha, but Smokey does try to challenge him on occasion, but not that often. Maybe it's because they are both males or something.

I would love to participate, and add something interesting to this discussion, but I only have 1 dog. He gets what he wants always because there is no one to share anything with. But, when we do have play dates with Missy, Kaji is a bit of an a**hole to Missy. He gets the ball always whether he beats her to the ball or not. Everytime she gets the ball, Kaji gets in Missy's face and kisses her until she drops it. She's learned to just let it go when she sees him coming. Is my dog, who can be frightened by the leaves on a tree, trying to be "alpha" over Missy?

I voted yes, let Eddie take the toys...as long as you and your wife are the top dogs and he allows you to have whatever you want, when you want it. If Eddie were stealing food and treats from your other doggies, then I would intervene.

I love Jillie's fake-out, diversionary tactic. :)

When I first brought Teddy home and Max was jealously guarding piddle pads, beds, and people (oddly, not food or toys), I had to find creative ways to provide for Teddy while making Max think he was getting his way.

Ivan is the toy hog in our house. He gets whatever toy he wants. Usually he wants whatever toy Iris has. She's been known to do the fake out thing too and every once in a while she will really put up a fight to try to keep her toy. But Ivan is so much bigger, she really doesn't have a chance. Mostly, it's just playing. Ivan likes for her to chase him to try to get the toy back and she loves it too, so it's not a problem. Sometimes they will each have a toy that the other wants and then the chase is really on. Usually, Iris just has a temper tantrum when he takes a toy she was really enjoying playing with. She will stomp her feet and whine and even grunt at him. She's so spoiled! Of course, she has me well trained to go and distract Ivan with another toy so she can have her's back. I probably shouldn't do this, but it's just like a whiny child and I give in to keep her quiet.

I agree with you and we have an alpha male and a submissive girl and its whats worked in our house. Jewely always gets her time with the toy and other toys and we really dont have any jealousy issues in our house

Pixie is my alpha but she has little interest in toys. Cali loves toys and Roxie loves taking them away from her. I let them work it out. Cali just goes and gets another toy each time Roxie takes it away. Eventually Roxie gets bored and Cali can play with any of the toys.

Most, if not all scientific research in the past fifteen years has debunked the idea of alpha/beta/omega ranking in dogs. There's a great book that covers recent canine research:

Amazon.com: Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog...
One thing that "alpha-ness" doesn't address is that different resources may be more or less important to a given dog at any time. A non-confrontational dog may change his stripes when he's hungry. Or maybe one dog always gets human affection first, but doesn't care about toys particularly.

I have seen two contradicting arguments based on alpha theory on possessiveness. The first says that you should allow dogs to work it out among themselves, because dogs are happier when they know their place. The second says that you should not allow this kind of behavior, or even force the possessive dog into "last" place, because not intervening displaces you as the ultimate alpha.

Since there's no evidence for either side of the argument as far as I know, I vote for doing whatever you want. But of course, the wife is always right. :D



Up with four-kneed elephants!

I say do what works for you. My dogs share toys. Ellie is "alpha", but I'm still not going to let her keep a toy when it's Rylee's turn. She is pretty good about sharing toys. I look at it this way. Eddie may be alpha over Jillie, but you are alpha over them all (if we're going with this theory). At any time you can decide it's Jillie's turn to play with a certain thing whether Eddie likes it or not. You decide, not him... I could see how this could start a fight, but in my kingdom here ;) I require sharing.

If the dog that bit Rylee's ear had been given both chews, there wouldn't have been a problem, so in that way I can see how a possessive dog could give another dog a beating for having something they wanted. But I don't feel that is always fair to "underdog". Canine system or not, IMO that is trying to run things and I don't like it. But if the pups here were to go at it over a chew, they would be picked up. And they are never left alone together.