“our dog is an australian cattle dog - part dingo. he clearly has that wild side and we recognized that we had to make him totally submissive to us or he would eat our granddaughter. seriously. so now he’s totally submissive to her - she’s 7 and a great pack leader. Bears are not pack animals.”
I had a friend that thought the same way. He made his dog completely submissive to his 7 year old and thought he was a “pack leader”. The trouble is that dogs do not elect “pack leaders for life”. Dogs challenge each other constantly and when the opportunity arose the dog tore a large hole in the boys face. Then he was the pack leader, until he was put down the next day.
I understand that. We don’t allow close unsupervised contact. She sometimes wants to push the limits and we always keep an eye out for that. He’s a really great dog. Once, he chased an intruder out of our home and then hid under a sofa table the rest of the night. I think he was afraid of what we would do to him because he had attacked a human.