actually a lot of those ideas come from research around wolves which is very very discredited. they overgeneralized from things which were true of wolves in captivity but untrue of wild wolves.

but yes, you do kind of have to have a tougher attitude.

one day we got a new puppy. puppy ran up to the dog/wolf and barked at him, tried to get him to play with her. bit his tail to get his attention. he turned around, grabbed her head in his jaws, and held her head against the floor for at least 30 seconds. then he just walked away.

my suspicion is that domesticated animals have less adrenaline or something. there's some kind of hardwired seriousness in a wolf, where dogs seem a lot more daffy.