A Bit About Alpha

“Alpha.”  Quite possibly the single most polarizing word in the dog community.  Yet “alpha dog” is such a common phrase that, unless you look into it a bit, you’d have no idea.  Little do some know that they can’t so much as whisper the word alpha outside the context of a sorority without invoking all sorts of baggage.

The problem?  Well, while we’re all generally familiar with what is meant when someone tells you that you should be your dog’s alpha, or pack leader, there are other folks out there who say there is actually no such thing as alpha, so stop being ridiculous.

Here I am going to discuss only the changes in notion of alpha as it pertains to canine social structure and hierarchy.  I am not going to address ideas about “dominance”, “assertiveness”, particular behaviours or body language, Nazi-obsessed theories of superiority and human obsessions with rank and power, or resultant methods of dog training that have since been derived.  I’m not even going to discuss whether or not social hierarchy in the form of a “pack” is relevant to dogs, because that’s a huge bag of worms on its own; I’ll leave it for another time.

So, just to clarify, the issue at hand is: there are many folks out there who argue that because earlier studies of the alpha role in wolf packs are not an exact representation of how wolves organise themselves in the wild, any theory or practice based on these studies should be thrown out altogether.

I suggest that might be a bit hasty.

Not Just a Greek Letter

First let’s discuss what is typically meant when someone uses the term alpha.  We’ve all heard it in the canine context: alpha dog, alpha wolf, alpha male.  When people say alpha when discussing your relationship with your dog, they often also use synonyms such as “leader” and “pack leader”.

During studies of wolves – who are, after all, the very close relatives of our canine pets – biologists used the term alpha to identify the wolf (or wolves) who was (were) essentially in charge of the rest of the pack and the top of the social hierarchy.  The alpha leads the pack, eats first, settles disputes, is met with submissive behaviour from other pack members, scent-marks the area, and breeds the next generation.  Basically, alpha calls the shots; alpha is boss.

Old Ideas Revisited

The catch, however, is that most early studies denoting alpha status in wolf packs (largely from the ‘70s) focused on wolves in captivity, and while that certainly was convenient, it turns out that captive wolves tend to organise themselves differently from wolves in the wild.

The early studies were also the popular resource for dog behaviourists and trainers at the time (i.e. The Monks of New Skete), and are often considered the foundation for “traditional” or “alpha-based” dog training techniques, and thus the target of the anti-alpha critics.

Basically, the older studies showed wolf packs as organised groups of adult wolves containing an alpha male and/or an alpha female at the top, each permanently retaining (but sometimes having to defend) their alpha status.  It was implied that some wolves were simply born to be life-long alphas, while some were not, and it was those alphas who bred the next generation.  The more submissive wolves fell into rank below the alphas, from beta all the way down to the omega wolf.

But it turns out that this is not the case for wolves found in nature.  L. David Mech studied grey wolf packs in the wild for thirteen summers in the Northwest Territories, and while he doesn’t find the old studies and previous notion of alpha to be completely obsolete, his 1999 findings do note some significant differences.

Perhaps most importantly, Mech’s studies found that wolf packs are not miscellaneous groupings of adult wolves with a leader determined by dominance and/or some natural alpha capacity; instead, wolf packs in the wild are typically family units.  The alpha male and female are the parents, and thus naturally the breeding pair for the duration of the pack.  The rest of the pack is made up of young offspring and the occasional – but rare – outside adoption.

This is a significant difference from the previous studies.  Sure, it is true that packs found in captivity are indeed made up of unacquainted adults who must find a way to work together socially, but that arrangement does not naturally occur with wolves in the wild.

Then, in the natural packs, as the young wolves mature, they leave their parents’ pack to form their own, usually leaving by three years of age, but sometimes as early as 9 months.  They will find a mate and become an alpha of the new pack made up of themselves and their offspring.

This is also different from the captive wolf pack, because the wolves in captivity are generally forced to live together as an unchanging group for their whole lives, not given the opportunity to branch off.

Results of New Findings

Based on this new(er) information, it is now recognized that it is not actually the case that some wolves are simply meant to be alphas while some are not.  Instead, all wolves will become alphas upon breeding and the creation of their own pack.  In fact, even “submissive” captive wolves will breed with one another if given the opportunity.  Given this, Mech suggests that a more accurate term than “alpha female” would instead be “female parent”.  The previous tendency to focus on one wolf’s dominance should be replaced by acknowledging their role as “pack progenitor”.

However, he also notes that in the uncommon – but still existent – case of packs made up of multiple litters and generations, the term alpha may still be useful to denote the original patriarchs and matriarchs of the family.  In these kinds of packs, although there may be one or more breeding male or female in the pack, Mech observed dominant behaviour of one over another, usually with the senior breeding males and females retaining alpha status over the younger breeding pairs.

What Does This Mean?

Well, it means that natural wolf packs are not exactly the rigid hierarchies of wolves competing for rank as previously thought.  Sure, that may still be the case for captive wolves, but not for those in the wild left to their own devices.

In Mech’s words:  “The typical wolf pack, then, should be viewed as a family with the adult parents guiding the activities of the group and sharing group leadership in a division-of-labor system in which the female predominates primarily in such activities as pup care and defense and the male primarily during foraging and food-provisioning and the travels associated with them.”

The traditional alpha responsibilities do remain, as so the associated behaviours, with the submissive younger wolves still exhibiting, for instance, hunched posture, lowered ears, licking, and submissive rolling over towards the alpha/parent wolves.

Alpha is still alpha in most senses of the word, but the typical relationship is not as between dominant leader and submissive follower, but rather between parent and offspring.  And the lower-ranking wolf whose challenging behaviour is met with a dominance response from an alpha is not actually a lower-ranking minion planning a coup and vying for a higher status, but instead the wolf can be considered to be exhibiting behaviour more akin to rebellious, immature offspring.  Alpha asserting dominance is more like a parent keeping the pups in line.

Alpha Dogs

It is the aforementioned revelations in wolf studies that are often cited by those opposed to “traditional” or “alpha-based” dog training techniques.  As noted, the common argument is that because the previous notion of “alpha” (which was the foundation for such philosophies) is different for natural wolf packs, the training techniques based on them are misguided and should be abandoned entirely.  This is often made with reference to a particular TV personality I think we’re all familiar with.

However, might I suggest we don’t rush to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so-to-speak?

Counterpoints

I have three things to pose to those who think these differences are the death knell for certain dog training ideologies:

1.  Don’t dogs behave like adolescent wolves?

2.  Aren’t dogs essentially in captivity living as our pets?

and

3.  While the relationship of the alpha to the other pack members is different, does the role of alpha not essentially remain the same?

So I suppose by now you’ve figured out on which side of the fence my flag is planted.  So be it.

One

On my first point, I think it is pretty uncontroversial (though I could be wrong) to say our domesticated dogs behave very similar to adolescent wolves, never maturing to the same level as an adult wolf.  For instance, dogs bark and play their whole lives; wolves do not.

In the wild, adolescent wolves are in a pack minding the alpha male or female (or male and female parents, if you will) until they mature, upon which they will leave to breed and form their own pack in the normal course.  But while an adolescent, the wolf is submissive to and observant of the alphas in its pack.

Our domestic dogs, on the other hand, while obviously still eventually reaching sexual maturity, are always similar to adolescent wolves in many respects, never reaching the maturity and intensity of adult wolves.  Would it be completely out of line to suggest they may still be able to acknowledge and follow an alpha in some sense (akin to an adolescent wolf) while still being able to reproduce?

If, as the owner, we step in and exhibit ourselves in a leadership role, might it not be natural for a dog to recognise and accept that designation?  And while some “testing” of our competence in that position may occur, it may not be because the dog is vying for alpha position and an eventual global take-over, but perhaps more like a thorough – adolescent – examination of the rules and boundaries: what exactly can I get away with here? As the adoptive alpha (and the dog’s owner) it’s already our job to provide food and exercise, keep them safe, and set the household guidelines – we’re essentially alpha whether you want to use that word or not.

Two

To the second point, Mech himself acknowledges that the studies on captive wolf packs are still relevant – if only to captive animals.  Like most captive animals, previously unacquainted adult wolves confined together do form dominance-based hierarchies with alphas, betas, omegas, etc.  So what?

So how is this not similar to our “packs” at home?  Face it, dogs living in our homes with us are pretty similar to captive wolves.  They don’t roam free, they often don’t breed, and heck, many of them don’t even do the “jobs” we bred them for anymore (i.e. tracking, herding, hunting, guarding, drafting).  But they do spend the duration of their lives with a relatively unchanging pack.  They’re going to need to make sense of this environment somehow, and I suggest it’s likely going to be similar to the way captive wolves do.

Three

On my final point, while the studies of Mech and other contemporaries exhibit a pretty important change in way of looking at wolf pack structure, it doesn’t really translate into significant differences when applied to dogs and dog training.  Sure, alphas are biological parents and packs are family units.  That doesn’t really change what the role of alpha was in the first instance – hunter, food provider, progenitor, dispute mediator, etcetera.  And if we take dogs into our homes as members of our “pack” or “family” our responsibility as owner and guardian remains the same.

The Omega

Basically, I do not think the notion of alpha is outdated or obsolete.  In fact, I even think the term is quite useful, especially when talking to someone new to dog training (and unaware of the present controversy) because the word itself communicates a lot of valuable things about unaffected, non-emotional canine relationships.  Especially when compared to the alternatives, “parent female” or “parent male”, which, although may be technically more accurate when referring to natural canine hierarchies, certainly do not help curb humanising tendencies which should always be avoided.

Dogs are dogs – not “fur-children” – and ought to always be treated as such.  And regardless of where one falls on the alpha debate, I appreciate that the debate itself signifies attempts to think about and relate to dogs in their own context as canines and not little furry people.

And, of course, I do want to note without going too far off topic, that social hierarchies – in all species – are notoriously complicated and there are exceptions to nearly every rule, with different hierarchies developing in a variety contexts and environments.  And so I’m going to finish this off with a quote from someone far more qualified than I, and then let you all angrily comment at will.

Take it away, Dr. Ian Dunbar:

Yes, dogs raised and living in social groups develop hierarchies…. […]  Also, rank and hierarchy are not correlated with aggression. All the terms are different. And the more terms we come up with the more differences we illustrate. It would be an insult to dogs to try and describe or define their social structure, or any aspect of their temperament, in an encyclopedic tome, let alone in a blog. […]  People are just fascinated by etiology. Yet each term, reason, definition and category they come up with sparks oodles of objections and alternative opinions from others.  Debating dog social behavior is as fascinating as it is endless.