The Colin’s Pack Guide to a Happy Life with Your Dog – By Colin West So, you’ve adopted or bought a dog. Now what? Below is a an introduction to the basics of how dogs think, and what they need from you in order to have a fulfilled and functional life in our human world. It will explain a dog’s pack mentality, and it will provide you with an introduction to understanding why dogs need a pack leader, why you should be one, and how to be a good one. This guide is the result of my experience of working with dogs in packs for slightly over 3 years, watching and studying Cesar Millan’s techniques and philosophy, observing the dogs first hand, and making lots of mistakes. I continue to learn from the dogs, so please take this guide as a blueprint of best practices that I have found. However, I encourage you to follow your own instincts, and learn and improve through your own trial and error. With that being said, this guide will give you a great start in the right direction colin's pack.
Why Be the Pack Leader?
Dogs are pack animals, like us, and all pack animals need leadership in order to function as a pack. Humans form republics, democracies, company structures, etc. in order to create functional packs. Dogs keep it simple; one dog, or a breeding pair, leads. For a pack made up of humans and dogs, the leader will be the most stable, strongest minded animal; if you do not lead, your dog will likely take that position. The physical does not matter so much as the mental; the leader could be a strong minded pet bird, and in most dog and cat relationships it is the cat.. It is instinctive to dogs to follow the strongest mind, because in the wild, that will help ensure the pack’s and their own survival.
If you are not viewed by your dog as a human who is able to lead, then your dog will take it upon himself to lead, whether he knows what to do or not. This is where problem behaviors can arise. When a dog takes the leadership position in a human household in a human world, he will start to do behaviors that come natural to a pack leader; defending his home and his pack on walks–becoming territorial and leash aggressive, defending his food and toys and sleeping space–becoming possessive, and having “bad” behavior,(but really just normal behavior for a pack leader in the wild however). When you are seen clearly as the leader who controls the environment and the pack, your dog will be able to relax and surrender to your good leadership www.colinspack.com. Being a pack leader however is more than just being dominant, you must also be a good pack leader. We must be dominant, but we must also create a stable environment and
structure in which your dog can thrive and be fulfilled. If you are able to accomplish a healthy, fulfilling and functional relationship with your dog, both of your lives will be that much better. THE ENERGY OF A LEADER:
It’s an energy that is always stable, grounded, and powerful. True personal power doesn’t often get upset, frustrated, fearful, etc.; it simply handles the situation and does what needs to be done. Dogs will absorb and vibrate at the energy level that you share with them, and you want that to be a healthy one. To have a stable dog, you must have a stable and balanced energy in your home. Over time, by practicing a calm and assertive way of being, and applying that energy to certain rituals in your relationship, your dog will come to see you clearly as the pack leader, and you can begin to have a fulfilling relationship with your dog. EXERCISE:
Dogs are descendants of wolves, and like wolves, or any other wild dog relative, they are hardwired to travel constantly and to work for their food. According to wolf.org, “They [wolves] may travel 50 miles or more each day in search of food, and they are superbly designed for a life on the move.” If you take those strong instincts to travel miles every
day and to work hard for food, and you shut them up in a house or apartment, it’s a torture for your dog, who just wants to fulfill his duties and to work, and it is going to stifle a very essential part of his life. Though one may argue that dogs have come a long way from their wolf ancestors, it is still engrained in the DNA of any dog to travel. Walking: Walking is the best option for low level energy dogs and some medium level energy dogs. The best part of a walk for a dog is when you have been moving long enough for your dog’s mind to “switch” into a traveling mode; basically the meditative, mindless state that a dog or wolf get’s into when they plan to travel long distances colinspack.com.