Thursday, November 17, 2011

The difference between an Alpha and an Omega

Now, this post has nothing to do with the silly children's movie that came out last year.  Rather, it's on the subject of relationships, whether between two dogs or between two people.  If you've been around a group of dogs (and I'm assuming most of my readers will have) you'll know that they'll have a pecking order worked out.  There's the alphas; the strong, smart dogs, sometimes aggressive, sometimes not, who boss around their fellows and are the kings and queens of the pack.  Then there's the omegas, who are lowest in the the pecking order; the weak and cowardly, less intelligent, always submissive. Mango is the omega in my kennel - he's very sweet, but not very smart and very submissive. The rest of the dogs will fit somewhere into the middle, submissive to alphas, dominant to omegas.  In my kennel, Hadrian has always been the alpha male.  When he came here, there were no male dogs on the place, and Hade staked out his claim then and has held onto it ever since.  He's a cocky, macho dude, but isn't aggressive.  If any of the male dogs are involved in a fight, it's almost always the lower ranking males, because Hadrian is the established alpha, and the others respect him.  He doesn't need to reestablish his status, it's concrete.  When a new dog comes in, there's usually some minor squabbling; depending on how cocky or submissive the new kid is.  Just like how students will test a substitute teacher to see what they can get away with, the current pack will test the new dog to see whether he'll give in or stand up for himself. When my newest dog, Sprout, arrives from Alaska next month, this is what he'll have to go through.

  I've found that the way a dog pack operates is quite similar to how a family or group of humans get along with each other.  In the traditional family, the father was the alpha and the wife and children were expected to be submissive and give in to whatever the father wanted.  Growing up as I have, I've had to deal with a number of older males - my dad, my (maternal) grandfather, friends of the family, etc. who always saw me as a "lower ranking dog" to boss around.  My dad wasn't around for much of the year and other guys would see me "lacking" a father figure and think they needed to step in and fill in the blank.  I've never much cared for those kind of men, the macho guys who think women and younger guys should be subservient.  It's just gotten worse over the years; now my parents are divorcing and moving on, which solves some of the problems.  But not all.

  Yesterday I made stew for dinner and was in the kitchen, waiting for everyone to come to the table, and talking to an older guy, Pete, who's a friend of my mother's.  Well, in the middle of that, my grandfather came in, and as he often does, barged in and started telling me "Just say yes sir" despite the fact that Pete and I weren't arguing about anything, just talking.  Now, this isn't the first time he's jumped into a conversation and given me his unwanted opinion on whatever it is we're talking about.  Before I've always ignored it and gone on with things, but yesterday, I was tired of always putting up with this grouchy old fellow who always has treated me like I had about as much sense as a grasshopper, so I told him very calmly "This isn't any of your business, thank you very much."  At which point he got mad and left the house (never did eat any dinner).  My mother wasn't pleased about it but Pete sided with me so she got over it and we ignored my grandfather for the remainder of the evening.  It might not seem like much, just a small petty disagreement, but I felt very good for the rest of the evening because I'd taken a step in a different direction.  Instead of just doing as I'd done in the past, begrudgingly rolling over and showing the white flag, just like Mango does, instead of acting like a submissive little omega, I stood up to one of the people who'd been bullying me and felt **** good about it. When a new dog comes into the kennel and the current residents size them up, there's two possibilities as to what might happen.  If the new dog is unconfident and scared, it will roll over and give in, accept it's lower rank.  But if it stands up for itself, stands up to Hadrian and his pals, then they'll respect it and the dog won't be pushed around like Mango is.  It's the same way with human relationships - if you always back down and differ to those who boss you, then they'll keep on treating you the same way.  But if you stand up for yourself, then you might well earn the respect of the person.

Woof!

~Garrett

1 comment:

  1. (for some reason blogger gave me an error message, so I'll just write it again)
    Thanks for this interesting and personal story.
    What you say has a lot of truth in it, and I would like to add:
    you conclude with: "might well earn the respect of that person." Bear in mind that you do not need respect in the sense of 'approval' of anyone unless you choose to.
    You do not need any approval of anybody to be who you are: just be your own leader so to speak. In time you will gather people around you who will respect you in the sense of accept, support and even love.
    Actually, since you are a writer (and hopefully reader) and dog lover: you would probably like Be the pack leader, by Cesar Millan. Which is a great book.

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