Top dog
As top dog , a male will Hirsch called making its debut defended against conspecifics. Deer show this behavior in the rutting season , i.e. the mating season.
The decision and the assertion of which stag has the right to the place is fought with the antlers. Such comment fights, in which the deer struggle, repeatedly lead to injuries. "Forkeln" is derived from the term fork / fork and is based on the "fork-shaped" ramification of the antlers. The antlers rarely get caught in such a way that the animals can no longer free themselves and die of starvation and thirst.
The female animals are called in the hunter's language Rottier with red deer and Damtier with fallow deer . They stay with the strongest stag and mate with it. Younger deer only occasionally come into play.
Figurative meaning
In a figurative sense, this term is also used polemically to refer to people who are assumed to defend rights that are perceived as ancestral in the event of a dispute. If, on the other hand, companies, institutions or products are called the top dogs, one would rather describe their leading, established, but often also overwhelming market position or position of power.
At German universities , the top dog is a professor who places his own students and doctoral candidates in academic positions in order to increase his own influence in the subject.
literature
- Herbert Cerutti: worries of a top dog . 30 amazing animal stories, dtv- Taschenbuch 20409, Munich 2001 (first edition by NZZ- Buchverlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-85823-789-2 ), ISBN 3-423-20409-5 .
- Ilse Haseder , Gerhard Stinglwagner : Knaurs Großes Jagdlexikon , Augsburg 2000, p. 597, ISBN 3-8289-1579-5
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kai Toss: Professors under suspicion. Top deer at universities. In: Deutschlandfunk. Campus and career. November 26, 2005, accessed April 2, 2018 .