Establishing Alpha Status With Your Dog Through Eye Contact
Every wolf pack has a leader, also referred to as the alpha figure. This wolf, usually a male, sometimes a female, controls many aspects of pack life, including, to a degree, territorial rights to favorite pooping spots. Dogs, being directly descended from wolves have pretty much the same pack mentality, except they now live in human packs. Problems arise when an individual dog, either through his genetic makeup or improper training by his owner, comes to think of himself as the leader of the pack.
If your dog thinks that he is the alpha leader, you are in big trouble. How can you know? The biggest hint comes when your dog simply ignores you or worse, growls at your every command. Usually if you have behavior problems with your dog, you are not considered the leader no matter how you think you are viewed by your pet.
One way to establish your leadership or “Alpha” status is to simply establish firm eye contact with your dog. You might think that your dog looks at you quite frequently, but take a moment to think about why. Does your dog look at you but only when he feels like it? That’s not eye contact. That is the dog looking at you because he wants something. You can establish eye contact on your terms by initiating and keep to an eye-to-eye process.
