It’s also why dogs have bonded so well with humans. We too are social creatures and dogs instinctually sense that and seek to join our pack. We humans have become ‘ or should be ‘ their Pack Leaders now.

In a dog pack, there are three positions: front, middle, and rear.

Front 

The dogs in front lead the pack in search of what they need to survive: food, water, and shelter. They both direct and protect.

Back 

The dogs in the back are the most sensitive, and their job is to alert the pack to danger.

Middle 

The dogs in the middle are happy-go-luck mediators. It’s their job to maintain stable energy between the front and the back of the pack ‘ and to settle down packmates that start to show unstable energy, You can easily spot middle of the pack dogs in a dog park ‘ they’re the ones that rush over and break it up when two or more dogs start to play a little too rough or get into a fight.

Every dog can’t be a leader of the pack. Most dog packs have very few leaders, meaning the rest of the dogs are followers. That’s the model for us we bring a dog into our human packs. It’s essential that the humans be Pack Leaders, with the dog following.

If a dog does not have strong pack leadership from its humans, it may become unbalanced, which can lead to confusion, anxiety, or aggression and behavior problems in the dog. A dog can only be balanced and secure when it knows what its humans want and receives very clear and consistent direction.

By bringing dogs into our lives, we make the promise to fulfill their needs, and having a strong Pack Leader meets a dog’s most important psychological and instinctual need.

The post Natural Dog Law 5: Dogs Are Social Pack Animals. appeared first on Cesar's Way.

America recently celebrated Memorial Day, which is a national holiday for remembering all of the members of the armed forces who have died in service. But it’s also a reminder of the military dogs that have served with — and sometimes died with — armed forces everywhere, whether as company mascots, doing search and rescue or bomb sniffing, or as service and therapy dogs.

Dogs have been used by armies since at least the time of ancient Egypt if not before, and they are a very good fit with soldiers. In fact, I would say that the military naturally has the best-behaved dogs for one simple reason.

Dogs & Packs

Dogs are pack animals, with leaders and followers. Humans are also pack animals with leaders and followers. Most of us don’t recognize that or even think we adhere to it, but you don’t have to look very far in your own life to see that it’s true.

Think of all the packs you’ve ever belonged to: family, work, friends, school. Every single one of these groups has its leaders, mediators, and followers.

In a dog pack, there are three positions — front, middle, and rear. The dogs in front are the leaders, and they provide protection and direction. The dogs in the middle are the mediators, and they communicate between the front and the back of the pack. The dogs in the rear are the alert system — if they detect a threat, they sound the alarm.

Humans & Packs

If you think about it, this isn’t that different from any human hierarchy. For example, in a big company, you have the executives, the managers, and the employees.

The executives are in charge of everybody, and their mission is to make the company successful so that the pack survives.

The managers are in the middle. They answer to the executives, but they also explain executive directions to the employees and express employee concerns to the executives.

Finally, the employees are not in charge of anyone. However, they are closest to seeing things that might threaten the pack, and will sound the alarm about it, which helps the leaders protect the entire pack.

You can see how this adapts to other situations: administrators, teachers, students; prelates, priests, parishioners; coaches, quarterbacks, players.

In the case of the military, those three positions are commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, and service people — and those roles apply and are strictly followed. Why? Because survival of the entire pack depends on it, especially in combat. Somebody with an office job probably won’t end up getting their entire department killed if they make a typo. In the military, it’s an entirely different story and everybody knows the importance of following the rules, boundaries and limitations exactly.

A military life is one that also follows my canine fulfillment formula pretty closely: exercise, discipline, affection. What do new recruits do when they come in? They drill (exercise), and they learn the rules (discipline). Affection comes in the form of those short breaks when they get to eat or socialize.

And what do military units do after they’ve gotten through basic but aren’t in combat? They exercise, they practice discipline by maintaining equipment and so on, and they receive affection by being allowed to socialize as a group.

And this is exactly why dogs in the military do so well — because the humans around them are doing the same. Everyone gets up at the same time, does the same things in the same way, and it is absolutely clear which pack members are in charge. Dogs can be confused by novelty but they love routine.

A routine environment provides consistency and clarity and inspires commitment. It can also move mountains and perform miracles, and that is the power of the Pack, whether it be human or animal, civilian or military.

Stay calm and stay in charge!

The post Power Of The Pack appeared first on Cesar's Way.

But love and romance are not always easy, and sometimes there are bumps along the road, often when something comes between the couple. When that something is a lack of time or another person, the problem can actually be easier to solve because it can be easily defined. But what happens when that “something” is the dog?

Couples With Dogs

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of couples with dogs, and I’ve heard a lot of different complaints. Sometimes, one partner doesn’t like the dog. Sometimes, the dog doesn’t like one partner. A big complaint is that one half of the couple pays more attention to the dog than the human, and the biggest difficulties come when neither person can agree on how to train and discipline the dog.

When the couple is not working together as a pack, the dog will quickly learn to exploit it, the same way a child will figure out which parent to ask for something in order to get a “Yes” answer. The dog will try to get away with whatever it can with the person who gives nothing but affection and no discipline, and may even become defensive or aggressive toward the person who does.

In extreme cases, the dog can become possessive and protective. I’ve heard of more than one incident in which a dog has bitten or attacked one partner when they tried to show affection to the other. Sadly, a lot of those incidents lead to the dog being surrendered to a shelter, but it doesn’t have to end that way.

Working Together as a Pack

The most important thing that two people in a relationship with a dog can do is to work together. The dog may have come into the relationship with one person, but as long as they’re all together, the dog belongs to and is the responsibility of both of them. They are all one pack, and both of the humans have to be the leaders.

This means that the people have to have an honest discussion and agree on what the rules, boundaries, and limitations are for the dog — and then they both need to enforce the rules consistently.

For example, if the rule is that the dog cannot get onto the couch, then both humans need to make the dog get down if she breaks the rule. If one of them does and one of them doesn’t, or either of them is inconsistent about it, this just confuses the dog. It could even lead to the dog claiming the sofa and trying to keep the human who does enforce the rule off of it.

If one partner and the dog don’t seem to get along, then it’s time for that human to step up and assume more responsibility for the dog until they do get along, especially by becoming the one who feeds and walks him.

The great thing about dogs and couples, though, is that dogs mirror our energy and emotions and, if there are any problems in the relationship, the dog will let you know (before you do) through her behavior. That’s why a lot of the time my first advice to a couple who is having problems with their dog is, “Look at your relationship first. The dog is telling you something.”

The other things that dogs can teach couples are how to be calm, how to trust each other, and how to respect the pack and relationship. When the couple does that, they will go a long way toward having a calm, balanced dog — and a long-lasting relationship.

Stay calm, and enjoy the romance!

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The post The Dog Is Telling You Something appeared first on Cesar's Way.

Humans are Pack Animals, Too

AsI often say, humans like to think that we’re not pack animals, but we are. And we need to remember that, when we bring dogs into the household, we are not creating two separate packs.

Every member of that household, human or dog, is a member of the same pack. We can run into trouble two ways. First, when we forget that we’re all one pack. Second, when we forget who the leaders are.

On the human side of the equation, everybody has to be on the same page. This means that everyone is responsible for enforcing the same rules, boundaries, and limitations for the dogs consistently. If Mom doesn’t want the dog on the couch but the kids are constantly letting the dog jump up there and stay, this just confuses the dog, until one day Dad tells the dog to get down and gets bitten for his efforts.

To the humans in this scenario, they don’t know what went wrong. Their “perfect” dog just turned on one of them one day for “no reason,” and suddenly there’s a big trust issue in the relationship. To the dog, that couch became “his” because some human pack members allowed him up and he couldn’t understand why only a couple of them tried to chase him out of his territory, so he finally chose to defend it.

Family Members Need to Stay Calm

It’s also extremely important in any family pack with dogs for the humans to be calm with each other, even when there are disagreements. Show me a family that has loud arguments all the time, and I’ll bet that their dog is anxious, fearful, and constantly barking. And if the dog interprets a very vocal argument as a fight and is a middle-of-the-pack dog, then she is going to try to intervene and break it up.

If you want to see middle-of-the-pack dogs in action as mediators, next time you’re in a dog park and a couple of dogs get into a tussle, watch what happens with the other dogs. Some of them will immediately rush toward the commotion to try to settle things down.

Everyone Needs to Be on the Same Page

So, to avoid the problem of forgetting that we are all one pack in the household, everybody has to agree what the dogs can and cannot do, everybody has to agree how they’re going to enforce the rules, and then everybody has to enforce them the same way. Then, everyone has to learn how to deal with each other calmly. I know this can be difficult with children of a certain age, because every imagined slight by a sibling can become high drama, so it’s the job of the parents to maintain that calm energy.

If Billy comes into the kitchen screaming that Sally broke his favorite toy, don’t start the conversation until he’s calmed down. This is exactly the same as not showing affection to a dog that is excited, anxious, or fearful. Don’t reinforce the behavior you don’t want; engage with the behavior that you do want. It works for dogs, kids, spouses, and people in general.

Those are the steps to take to make sure that all the humans and dogs are part of the same pack, but the second part is just as important, maybe more so. We cannot forget who the leaders of the pack are: the humans. And this means every human in the house, whether it’s a parent, grandparent, teenager, child, or even a baby.

It may seem obvious that adults and teens can naturally be pack leaders, but you’re probably thinking right now, “How can a baby be a pack leader?” Or even a toddler. The answer is simple. For children who are too young to actively lead the dogs, everyone else in the house must claim the space around them. Just as you teach the dog to stay off of the couch by claiming that space, you teach a dog that the baby is higher in the pack hierarchy by creating the same boundary around it. The dog cannot invade the baby’s space, but only enter it when you give the invitation.

Dogs understand this instinctively because it’s exactly what mother dogs do with their puppies. Not even the father is allowed to approach a mother with her litter in the den, and it’s a boundary that the mother enforces very strongly, with calm, assertive energy.

Being Pack Leaders Is a Family Affair

Being Pack Leaders is a family affair, and it only works when the humans commit to do it together, as a pack within the pack. If your dogs are misbehaving, don’t blame them but do look to them — because their behaviors are sending you a clear description of exactly what is and isn’t working in the human part of the pack.

Stay calm, and work together!

Is everyone in your human pack working together with the dogs, or are there issues? Tell us about them in the comments!

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