HIERARCHY: WHAT DOES ALL THIS NONESENSE MEAN?

When you hear behaviourists talk about hierarchy they tend to talk about wolf packs and alpha leaders. What does all that mean though and why do you need to know about it when interacting with your four legged friend. All you want to do is take him for a walk and play fetch. You want to be able to call him and he comes running happily to your side. And when he does something wrong you only have to say “No that’s enough”. So do I need to know anything about hierarchy for that? Well actually yes you do. Let me explain.


Now to begin with i’m not going to tell you that your dog is a wolf, because it’s not. Nor is it a small person in a furry coat. But recent research suggests that your dog is a sub species of the grey wolf and the its name was changed in 1993 from Canis Lupis, to Canis Familiaris to reflect that it is a sub species of the grey wolf. Offcourse man has changed the appearance of this sub species over many decades to the many varieties of shapes and sizes of the dog we have today. Initially they were changed to give particular traits; like guarding, hunting etc. However the dogs brain is still hard wired even today to a pack mentality. Just like the wolves in the wild have a pack mentality our dogs have a natural instinct to socially interact with its human pack. So some of the ‘pack rules’ will apply. For example doge will need a structure in their lives, a hierarchy. They need to know who the leader is and if its not going to be you then they will step up to the plate. But being a dog they are incapable of being a leader to a multi species pack of humans and dogs. they don’t have the intellect to be our leader and to ask them to do so would put there under severe stress and lead to all sorts of problems and usually does. So we need to be the leader as do all humans in the ‘pack’. But being a leader does not mean being a bully, a big man, aggressive. Its about having the right attitude, an air of authority. Its about defining the basis of mutual respect. Being clam, confident, and consistent will go along way to building a bond between you and your dog and a basis for communication. When I was a school I had this one teacher, Mr Nelson the Chemistry teacher. He never shouted, or got angry. He never hit me. But he knew how to get me to ‘pull my socks up’. He knew how to encourage me to do better. He had this air of authority that you knew if you stepped out of line you were in trouble.
Recent research carried out at the wolf sanitary in America suggests that the hierarchy found in a wolf pack is very similar to a family pack. There are two adults and one or more generations of off spring. Just like a human family pack, were mum and dad are the alpha and there are brothers and sisters in the pack.
If we think back to when we were kids;
We knew how to behave in the house. There was a time for horsing around and there was a time to calm down and get on with our homework. In my house I have my ‘chair’ that I like to sit on when dinner is over and I want to settle down in front of the telly. Sure during the day other members of the house can sit on the chair, but when I get home they get up and give me my place. Children would never push through a door first in front of their mums and dads. In fact if they didnt stop and hold the door open they might get rebuked. When we have parties and have adult guests over there is generally a spread laid out on the table. Only after the guests have been to the table are the children allowed to take something. When we went shopping as a family, whining about wanting something from the shelves in the store got no response whatsoever. It was not tolerated. Neither was pulling you along the road to get to the play park or other desirable destination. Children were taught how to behave both at home and out in public and woe betide anyone who misbehaved out side and caused such embarrassment. Is any of this starting to ring just a bit remotely true. The multi species pack is no different, the humans are the alpha’s and the dogs being the pack members. It is therefore incumbent upon us to teach our ‘canine children’ what the rules and boundaries are. We need to communicate to them how to ‘behave’ both inside and outside the home. We have the skills we just need to apply them to our ‘other’ children. But before we can do that we need to learn ‘how’ to communicate with them.......
In my next blog entry I will discuss how we can learn to communicate with our canine children.
Till then.

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