Talking on Radio 2 now if you're interested

:( Missed it!!
Any good Chez??

She sounded like Lorraine Chase. :D  Listened while making a lasagne.  Everything was in relation to inbuilt wolf behaviour. So, don't greet your dog for 5 minutes when you come home; dog pulling you on lead is dog showing Alpha dog behaviour. Must show your dog you are Alpha and they are bottom of the pecking order - usual stuff.  Lasagne was great though :D

hello cheryl, what show was this and who was the person interviewed about wolves

Sounds like useful advice for wolves. :-D

I didn't catch it, but it was somebody called Sharon Bolt, who I understand is a follower of Amichien method...hmmm.

Lindsay
x

Well there's a shock!  I just can't fathom it, how on earth do you get from alpha wolf in the wild to pulling on lead=dominance?  Makes no sense at all!

Ah, she she wasnt a 'wolf expert' then.:rolleyes: Was she advertised as a wolf expert or a dog trainer?.
I certainly hope it wasn't the former! You could spend pages picking up Fennell on points regarding her self penned 'amichien bonding' theory on dog psychology arguements alone.
However, this is completely unnecessary once you focus upon the crucial point that her theory is posited upon.
That being the 'popularised' wolf pack theory. This came about 80 years ago when some wolves were made captive and turned into an artificial pack. Conclusions were drawn, and then dog trainers of the time said dog comes from wolves, the wolves in these studies have done a,b and c, so hey presto, we train our dogs 'accordingly' with the 'alpha rules' regarding doors, sofas, meals, stairs, walking, etc, as we human owners are alpha male or female of the pack.
This got into the public consciousness and stuck.

These are said studies: ..Rudolf Schenkel of the University of Basel, Switzerland started it with his 'Expression studies of wolves' in 27th December 1946, after watching wolves in Basel Zoo and went further in 1967 with 'Submission: its features and functions in the dog and wolf' published in the American Zoologist

He cites:
Schmid 1936 on the psychology of canines - wolf - domestic dog - fox
and Young and Goldman 1944 The wolves of North America

However, no less a person that David Mech, whom is a REAL wolf expert and biologist employed by the U.S. Federal Gov, has shown this theory of wolves to be erroneous in itself. As he pointed out, the wolf packs above weren't wild and natural, thus any conclusions drawn aren't valid.
This man spends his whole life studying wolves, and has written dozens of books and research papers.

This is one of his studies, which details conclusions from studies of proper wolf packs.

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/alstat/index.htm.

Called: Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs

Um, where does this leave Fennell now? I wonder if she actually checked out all this herself before she wrote her book, and decided her theory then had strengths and merits anyway, or simply blindly followed´popular *accepted* belief' THEN composed her 'new' dog training and behaviour theory.
I certainly hope it was the former, as this at least would be a considered approach to writing a new theory, as the latter most certainly would not be!!

I heard she has been studying wolves in America recently. *If* this is true, i wonder if she will write a new book updating and correcting her last books?  

Im gonna listen to Sharon Bolt via the BBC Radio Online Jukebox. Whose show was she on? Was it Chris Evans Drivetime?

cheers, clutha

It was one of David Mech's students that went into the wilds of Canada & studied the wolves for 2 years & he made a film(with him as the cameraman)It was brilliant but the life of me I cannot remember his name ! He too showed that all the Alpha's eating first theories etc were totally erroneous Also there were never more than one litter born & it was always to the Alpha pair, unlike in captive packs were there are frequently more than one bitch having a litter

Wow Moonmaiden ,how did you end up being a student of Mech? Are you in America?

Thanks for link Cheryl

double post

It wasn't me it was a young Canadian guy in the 1980's his film was amazing he lived totally alone within the range of two or three wolf packs & managed to get some brilliant footage
He made me laugh as he tried to"mark"over the Alpha's scent markers he had to give up very quickly as he ran out of pee !!

Do you mean Jim Brandenburg?
I know I certainly have a book by him on the time he spent studying Wolves with the guidance of David Mech.

It was Chris Evans drivetime although someone else was standing in for him.

>Was she advertised as a wolf expert or a dog trainer?.

Behaviourist

>Behaviourist<

:rolleyes:

Even worse

Lindsay
x

The thing that has annoyed me most about her is that they aren't 'her' ideas - they never were.  She's just taken the old, useless pack theory and jazzed it up a bit.  And to make it worse, from what I read of her first book, she developed all her ideas by watching her own dogs - a very bad idea.  She has a mix of dogs she's had from pups and rescues; there's any number of factors that may make them behave differently to a feral dog pack or a wolf pack, such as undersocialisation, traumatic events in their past, her own methods of raising them that may result in different behaviours than perhaps they may have shown from other owners, so on and so forth.  I don't recall seeing any suggestion whatsoever that she did research - but, fair's fair, my memory is sketchy and I have thrown the book away!  But I do recall most of the first half being about her observations of her own dogs and the theories she derived from them.

What remains to be seen, if she is indeed going to study packs, is which ones she studies - if she looks at captive packs then she may as well not bother and just keep touting the drivel she already does; but, if she studies wild wolf packs, then she may find herself in the rather embarrassing - and costly - position of realising that she has mislead a lot of people.  It'll be interesting to see what comes of it.

She won't bother doing anything having met her before she was famous & just starting tout to her ideas of "behaviour"& "reshaping"problem dogs I was never impressed Her own GSDs characters leave a lot to be desired both in & out of the ring & as far as I know she no longer shows any dogs leaving the ESS to be shown by her partner who is much more steeped in dogs as just dogs rather than a moneymaking venture
Her TV series showed her for what she really is Her idea of getting a dog that lived at a stables on a chain to accept a new puppy that the  new owners of the stables had obtained(the chained dog was left by the previous stable owners)was to have the puppy being fed before it-result total failure the chained dog was still aggressive towards the puppy & I was told by someone who used the stables for their horse that the older dog "disappeared"one day never to be seen again !

Thanks to you and all the others on this subject. I had never heard of Fennel's theory. But then, I don't have 'proper dogs', just Cavs & Charlies!¬ Seriously, it was very interesting. Thanks again