Quote Originally Posted by lv4dogs
Which is why I said "Yes you should if you have any dominant issues in your house."
Notice the IF?
And I do have dominance issues, just not with the alpha dog. The issues tend to come from the lower ranking dogs who might want to move up the pack order. Ozzy currently is trying to raise his status, but as long as he realizes that he is not my alpha, I'm not changing the way I treat him. Ozzy is spending today in a pen alone because he was a big ol' jerk this morning. If Muskwa had been acting like Ozzy was, he would be in that pen by himself(Punishment in my pack tends to be through isolation. Nothing a husky hates more than being alone)

There are some behaviors I won't accept, even if a dog is trying to move up. Fighting, picking on each other, ect are not ok from any of them for any reason. They can work out the pack order without aggression & without hurting each other--Muskwa is the boss dog and I honestly can't remember him ever being involved in a major fight. I believe a true alpha dog doesn't need to resort to aggression to assert his dominance and that true alphas are rare. Dominance and dog aggression are not neccessarily signs of a good alpha dog.