No multiple sources have explained that 'alpha' implies competing with others and becoming top dog by winning a contest or battle. Here is another. https://wo

No multiple sources have explained that 'alpha' implies competing with others and becoming top dog by winning a contest or battle. Here is another. https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/ https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/ You are offering a false dichotomy and suggesting that gaining dominance through force or challenge is the only path to authority. Also a 'dominance hierarchy' can exist without the need for contest or battle. If you have worked around dogs outside of the silly 'alpha' concept you will notice that dominant members can impact the behaviors of other members with a simple look or by withholding attention and positive reinforcement. This is why real professional dog training for working dogs is almost exclusively positive reinforcement these days. Fear and intimidation is a rather poor training method for domestic dogs. Of course if you want to discard the original meaning of 'alpha' as presented by the people who originally coined the term for your own personal definition no evidence they offer that their previous research was wrong will fit you expectations. 'Alpha' was specifically coined to describe their misunderstanding of behavior at the time and doesn't simply imply 'first' in their context. Dominance and aggression are separate behaviors that may have intersection but gaining status through aggression tends to result in unstable relationships and is incredibly expensive to males in species where it is a predominant method of gaining status. Wolves rarely gain status within their group through aggression, thus labeling the primary breeding pairs as 'alpha' by default is scientifically incorrect. Most of the status of the breeding pair was gained through breeding and not aggression and in reality true aggression is simply not typically tolerated by the dominant members of the pack.