Pack Leaders Have No Friends

Posted on Aug 11 in The Small Dog-Human Bond, Training A Small Dogby Jeff K.Print

You’ve heard the expression “It’s lonely at the top.” The person with ultimate control of an organization, the pack leader, makes decisions and steers the company from an isolated place. A pack leader, or boss, may seek the opinions of his or her subordinates, but ultimately the decision is his or hers to make alone. When a decision is unpopular but necessary, employees who feel they’ve been slighted or harmed by a boss’s decision may say out loud “Good morning, boss!” while secretly wishing the boss would dry up and blow away. Yes, it’s lonely at the top. I bring this up because it has a direct relationship to the whole concept of being a pack leader among dogs.
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In recent years, we have been told we can help our relationship with our dog by being a pack leader. Pack leadership has become such a popular idea, you will find it plastered over all sorts of books, websites, blogs, and TV programs. What does it mean to be a pack leader? It depends on who you ask.

Pack leadership can encompass everything from the defensive, as in:

Assert yourself and don’t let a dog walk all over you,

to the offensive, as in:

Do what it takes to make the dog respect you.

I’m okay with the first statement. A dog should not dictate how you run your own life any more than your best friend or close relative should tell you how to live. I’m not so okay with the second statement because too many people take the respect thing too far.

Within wild packs of canids—Wolves, Dingos, African Hunting Dogs—there is always a pack leader. The pack leader is universally recognized and respected as the leader. Why? Because that dog, usually referred to as the alpha, dominates all the other dogs in the pack with brute force. An alpha will do whatever it takes to maintain its position of authority, including growling, scratching, and biting subordinates. In very rare instances, an alpha may have to engage in all-out fighting with a challenger. Merely threatening violence usually shuts down a subordinate.

Perhaps you have heard of the term “alpha roll.” It means exactly what it sounds like. An alpha dog will use its size and strength to knock a subordinate dog to the ground and roll the underling on its back. Essentially, the alpha is forcing the subordinate into a position of submission or surrender. Some dog trainers believe the alpha roll is essential to establishing control over dogs that would otherwise be too assertive to handle. Police and military dogs are subjected to alpha rolls during the initial stages of training, for example.

Brute force control may be necessary in rare cases where an out-of-control, potentially dangerous dog must learn either to submit or be put down by at an animal control facility. It does not follow, however, that all dogs must be bent to submission merely to learn their role in a household.

Yes, dogs should learn the rules and limits of living with people in the home. The process of learning can not only can happen without brute force tactics, learning will go much smoother and more quickly without brute force. For example, a dog can learn to walk on a leash without getting it’s neck jerked by a slip collar. A dog can learn to come to its owner without being reeled in on a line as though it were a fish. A dog can learn to sit without having its rump jammed down to the floor.

But, you may say, all the methods I have listed are time honored: using the slip collar, pulling a dog in using a long line, jamming the dog into a sit position. These techniques work. They always have.

To which I say, yes they have, but at what cost? When you make a decision that requires your dog to do something on your behalf, and that decision forces your dog to submit, or causes your dog some discomfort, your dog will comply. He or she has to. You are the boss after all.

“Good morning, boss!”

Will your dog want to be be by your side after you have been a gruff, rough, assertive jerk? Manhandle a dog long enough and the dog will begin to resent its boss. The relationship between dog and owner will be spoiled, and no amount of treats and praise will permanently fix things once that bond has been roughed up.

Here’s one more thing you should know about pack leaders before I wrap this up. In wild dog packs, the dogs who rank just below the alpha are always watching Number One for signs of weakness. When the alpha gets old enough and weak enough, dog number two or three is going to challenge the alpha for control of the pack using the violent techniques they have learned from their leader. Something to think about the next time you try to dominate your dog with shoving, jerking, poking and yelling.

I don’t want to leave you hanging by simply saying “Don’t do what’s popular.” You need alternatives. Those are coming right up in my next few articles. Hang in there. I’ll be back soon.

*The opinions expressed in this article are strictly my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the provider of the accompanying photograph.

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