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RSS FeedCesar Millan: Can humans really be a pack leader to a dog?
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| Yes | 91% | 186 votes | Total: 204 votes | |
| No | 9% | 18 votes |
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Add to FavoritesMembers of the canine family tend to be social animals. Unlike some animals who come together only for mating, the male canine generally stays near his mate while the pups are raised. There are occasional individuals who live alone, but most wolves live in family groups and hunt in packs. Coyotes are known to operate in family groups. Foxes have also been observed at times in pairs. I suspect that domesticated dogs would prefer to live in groups, but humans choose where they live and who are their companions.
Cooperative activities are one of the marks of canines. Large game is more easily brought down by a pack than by a lone wolf. Coyotes are known to hunt in pairs or as families. Generally one adult lies in ambush while the mate or members of the liter drive the small game toward the ambush. Working dogs frequently work together to move a flock of sheep or herd of cattle. Sometimes sheepdogs and heelers work under specific instructions of their master, but often they get few instructions beyond a signal to bring in the flock or herd. There are also those people terrified of the potential attack by a pack of wild dogs. Such packs, when they do exist, are often opportunist gatherings of strays or feral dogs, but the dogs do cooperate in a crude fashion.
How does any group of humans or animals cooperate without communication and leadership? There are choices to be made, and someone has to make that choice. When every individual makes their own choice, cooperation breaks down. The enterprise often fails. There is no question that canines follow leaders.
While leadership may be short term, those of us who own multiple dogs have seen how there is a usually a hierarchy. Position in the hierarchy may change from day to day with age and health, but there will be dogs who command the most often and those who seldom do anything but follow. In the case of my three dogs, the little dachshund is firmly in charge of his larger companions.
As it is, my wife and I exert ultimate control. We provide food and water. We offer doghouses with warm beds. Our fences keep dogs in or out of certain parts of the property. We signal orders to be carried out. Thus we are the natural leaders of our "pack". Because of the way we have trained our dogs, it is obvious that they consider me to be the alpha male and my wife to be the alpha female. Though we are kind and loving, we are also authoritarian with the dogs. All three dogs follow the signals we have taught them and respond to both anger and praise. I have even observed differences in how the dogs respond to me in comparison to how they respond to my wife.
Our system of training presumes that each of the dogs will eventually accept our authority whether or not we have a treat in our hand. Thus there is no question that we are the supreme leaders of our "pack".
Now if we can only get the cats to accept us as leaders.
Learn more about this author, Reynold Conger.
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No
Since there's no such thing as a pack leader in nature it would be impossible for any dog to view any trainer, or even another dog as a pack leader. The idea of the pack leader is a complete myth, which originated in the 1930s in Germany by a Nazi biologist who had never actually observed the behaviors of wild wolves when he developed his theories. His Nazi leanings, which made him an avid fan of Hitler in particular and totalitarianism in general, colored his thinking. No wonder he saw the wolf pack as being run by a "strong leader!" That was his entire world view at the time. The idea of the pack leader has been thoroughly disproven and discredited by thousands upon thousands of hours of research on wild wolf behavior done in the last 40 years.
Here are some facts about actual wild wolf behavior:
No wolf always walks ahead of the group when they're traveling. They take turns. That's a fact.
No wolf always eats before other members of the group. That's a fact.
No wolf always goes through an opening or crosses a threshold before other members of the group. That's a fact.
No wolf ever puts one of his packmates in an alpha roll. That's a fact.
No wolf tells his packmates how to behave. That's a fact.
Dominance displays are rare in wild wolf packs and usually only take place between the mother and father over how to disburse food to their young. The female almost always wins these battles by acting "submissive," which would mean she's supposedly subservient to the male, when she's actually almost always victorious.
These are all facts. And here's what they all add up to:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PACK LEADER.
Yes, it's true that in any animal group there will be one member who is more experienced, more knowledgeable, and who has more animal magnetism than the others. And most members of the group will tend to be drawn to or gravitate toward that animal. But animal magnetism-which is felt on a visceral level-is something quite different from rank, leadership, and authority-which are almost purely mental constructs.
There's another factor. In wolf packs it was long believed that the alpha or leadership role changes hands during the hunt. We now know, through the principles of emergence theory, that the reason this seems to happen is simply because one member of the pack will have a better skill set for a certain type of terrain at some point during the hunt, or another wolf may have more emotional flexibility for adjusting to the changes in the prey animal's energy during that part of the hunt, or what's even simpler: one wolf may suddenly be in closer proximity to the prey at certain points, giving the impression that the others are now "following" his leadership when in fact the hunt is always led by the prey.
Going back to dogs, in any situation where dogs are in conflict it's always about who has control over resources, i.e., things in the environment. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but you automatically have more control over your dog's environment than he does. Who has the keys to the car and the house? Who knows how to operate doorknobs? Who knows how to use a can opener? Clearly, if a dog is capable of perceiving things like leadership or superiority, your dog already sees you in that light.
So why doesn't your dog listen to you the way the dogs on TV listen to Cesar Millan? Because he acts more like a predator than like a pack leader.
A predator?
Yes. The spatial relationship between two dogs or wolves takes place on the horizontal. Their eyes face each other. They're on the same level. But the spatial relationship between dog and human is quite different. We move through space on the vertical. Our eyes are far above theirs. They look up at us, we look down at them. Spatial relationships-which are concrete and visceral-are far more important to dogs than intangibles like leadership or status-which again are more abstract and conceptual in nature.
This brings up an interesting point about wolves, which is that in the wild the only animal that poses serious threat of deadly harm to a wolf (other than homo sapiens) is the same animal the wolf usually hunts: elk, moose, deer, bison. These animals have sharp horns and hooves that could easily kill or maim a wolf. When a moose, for example, is running away from the wolf, the wolf is energized by its movement, and is highly attracted through his desire to chase and bite. But if a moose finds itself cornered, and as a result it turns and stares down at the wolf, brandishing its antlers, the wolf will stop dead in his tracks.
In the wolf's experience the prey has now become the predator.
Note the similarities in the spatial dynamics between the moose and wolf on the left, and the dog and man on the right. Essentially the wolf (on the left) and the pet dog (on the right) have a horizontal axis of symmetry while the moose and the man are vertical. Now note how different these two images are in comparison to the two wolves in the center. They're facing each other directly; they're on the same horizontal axis.
I'm not suggesting that a dog thinks his owner is a moose. What I am suggesting is that even there were such a thing as a pack leader in wild wolf packs (which there isn't), and even if dogs had inherited that behavioral tendency from wolves (which they haven't), there is no way a dog could confuse a human being for another dog, i.e., his "pack leader." It simply could not happen. As I said before, the relationships between objects in space is concrete while the idea of the "pack leader" is more abstract and cerebral. So when you add yet another cerebral element-that the human owner or trainer is a stand-in for or symbolizes the already abstract idea of the pack leader-you're getting into mental territory that is way beyond what a dog's brain is capable of.
The facts of nature and evolution strongly suggest that wolves, and by extension dogs, have a long adaptive history of being cautious about any animal whose eyes are set in a large head and are looking down at them from above, particularly when that animal is facing them directly. They would feel even more fearful or cautious if that vertical being happened to be coming toward them.
Now think of the way Cesar Millan acts when he enters a room and believes he's being a "pack leader." Picture the way he stands and stares down at a dog. The level of gaze he has seems "magnetic," correct? The dogs are on their "best behavior." Is that because they see him as a pack leader? Of course not. The spatial dynamic is nothing at like that between a supposed pack leader and another dog or wolf. But remember, when a moose suddenly turns and looks down at a wolf, the wolf stops dead in his tracks. And that's exactly how most misbehaving dogs act when Cesar Millan enters a room.
Another of looking at is that when Millan acts the way he does the dog isn't thinking, "I respect your authority and leadership over me so I will submit and do as you ask." It's far more likely that the he's thinking, "What can I do to survive this moment? Show me how I can keep from being injured or killed." So while he probably means well, the feeling Millan is actually stimulating in dogs is the polar opposite of magnetism or leadership. It's really just a form of intimidation, pure and simple.
Learn more about this author, Lee Charles Kelley.
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