If you’ve ever looked into the history of dog training, you’ve probably heard about the wolf pack debate.
🔹 In 1947, Rudolf Schenkel studied captive wolves in a zoo. He saw lots of aggression and fighting for rank, and concluded wolves lived in dominance hierarchies with an “alpha.”
🔹 Decades later, David Mech studied wild wolves. What he found was very different: wild wolves live in families — parents raising pups — not endless battles for dominance.
From there, much of the dog training world concluded: “dominance is a myth, so we should throw out the whole idea.”
But maybe the truth is more nuanced.
Dogs Don’t Live Like Wild Wolves
Your dog doesn’t live in a wild wolf family unit. They live in what we could call a forced pack: a human household, sometimes with unrelated dogs, limited freedom, and shared resources.
In this sense, their world is closer to Schenkel’s captive wolves than to Mech’s wild families. And in forced packs, disputes and hierarchies do happen.
So Schenkel wasn’t entirely wrong — but he was looking at wolves in an unnatural context.
Parent, Not Alpha
Here’s the crucial part: dogs aren’t wolves. They’re paedomorphic — in other words, juvenile wolves that never grow out of adolescence.
That means what they need isn’t a harsh “alpha,” but a parent figure:
- Someone who sets boundaries.
- Someone who provides structure and safety.
- Someone who guides without intimidation.
Parent or alpha — the labels matter less than the approach. What matters is that leadership is calm, consistent, and humane.
Why This Matters for Training
Cesar Millan tapped into this truth when he talked about “calm, assertive leadership.” The science community rightly pushed back on punishment-heavy methods, but the core idea still holds: dogs need us to be stable leaders.
Today we have even better tools to apply that idea humanely:
- Dopamine to fuel learning and motivation.
- Oxytocin to strengthen trust and connection.
- Parental-style leadership to create boundaries and security in the “forced pack.”
Put those together, and you get something better than dominance or permissiveness: you get balance.
This doesn’t mean we bring back harsh dominance methods. It means dogs thrive when we provide clear leadership: calm, predictable rules, and a strong sense of safety.
This is why Cesar Millan, for all the controversy, resonated with so many people. He tapped into that truth: dogs need us to be steady, calm leaders.
Final Thought
Dogs don’t live in theories. They live in our homes. And in our homes, they need the best of both worlds:
- The joy of learning (dopamine).
- The calm of connection (oxytocin).
- The safety of parental guidance.
So maybe the question isn’t: “alpha or not?”
The better question is: “are you showing up as the parent your dog really needs?”