What are Dogs? In Wikipedia, it stated that "Dogs perform many roles for people, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and military, companionship, and, more recently, aiding handicapped individuals. This impact on human society has given them the nickname "man's best friend" in the Western world. In some cultures, however, dogs are also a source of meat. "

How to train Your Dog? "How to train your dog" can be a confused thing if you don't know how to do it. The first thing to know about a dog is that they aren't kids. You can love them like your children and teach them like your children, but they don't think like children. Children can be solitary, or they can be in groups. They can be older or younger than their siblings. Regardless of how many you have, we always teach our kids that everyone is equal. No one is the boss of anyone else, and no one is better than anyone else. This is a fundamental mistake when dealing with dogs people make all the time. In the dog world, no one is equal, and trying to teach them that they should be is unnatural to the dog and will only frustrate you in the long run. Why? It's really rather simple. Though we've bred them down into our own pretty sub-species groups over the years, we've never managed to rewire their brains, nor should we attempt to. Regardless of how much we anthromorphise them, they still possess and are guided by canine instinct. Canine instinct also includes an ingrained desire for order, pecking order to be precise.

Every family of dogs has a pecking order, and every time a new dog (or a new human) comes into contact with another dog or established group of dogs, that pecking order is revised. Don't discourage this. It's their way of making sense of things around them. If they know where they stand with each other and with the humans in their life, they are much less stressed and much happier overall. Humans do things for a variety of reasons - because our parents expect us to, because society expects us to, because it's "right", because it's fun, because it will earn us a promotion, because it will earn us a gift or reward, etc. The reasons are almost without limit, and not always rational. Dogs do things for two reasons, and only two reasons, and they are always completely rational:

1. It's fun as they enjoy it.

2. They respect or fear their superiors.

That's it. Don't be confused about the fact that I mixed fear and respect. I'll get to that in a moment. Back to their social order - to understand what I just said. Dogs do things for fun, just like we do. They chase a ball, play with each other, run around the yard, stalk the family cat, dig a hole in the garden, lay by the fire and bask in the heat, etc. They enjoy these things, so they naturally do them. The only other reason dogs innately do things is because their pack leader demands it of them. Much like horses, every dog is either higher on the food chain or lower on the food chain than every other dog they encounter. No two dogs consider themselves equals. At the very best, you will find some that consider themselves first among equals, which is what most family-pet dogs tend to believe. There is always an "alpha" in the pack and contrary to popular belief, it's not always a male. My dogs are led by an alpha female, even when males are present in her pack.

If you don't believe me, look for examples in your own dogs. Don't say anything to them and don't let them know you're paying attention to them. Just watch them and look for signs of who the boss is. In every pack of dogs (even if it's only two of them) there is a leader. It's harder to spot the leader than it is to determine the followers. Their behaviors are easier to read, more submissive. The submissive dog will

1. Roll over and offer their belly to the dominant one when playing in the yard. (This is ultimate submission. )

2. Drop the ball and let the other one have it. (This isn't sharing. This is giving the boss what they're asking for. )

3. Let the other dog take over their food bowl.

4. Move from the comfy spot when the other dog walks to it.

5. Look at the other dog more often, to check for cues that they aren't in trouble with the boss.

6. Drop their tail when the other dog acts in a commanding manner.

7. Lower their head to the other dog and look at the ground or away.

All of these are cues that the dog is acknowledging the dominance of the other. The dominant dog doesn't always do anything about it - sometimes they just rest easy in the knowledge that they're in charge, and go on about their business. Other times they'll take the ball and then drop it a moment later and walk away, just because they're the boss. Don't discourage these behaviors. These are natural to a dog and you can't change them without confusing the animal's natural instinct for order.

Why is it Important?

Knowing all these signs helps you understand the pecking order of the dogs around you. It also makes training the dogs easier, but not for the reasons you might think. If you train the dominant dog that you're in charge, the submissive dogs automatically put you higher than their pack leader, letting you assume complete control of the pack. They learn that they have a pack leader when you're not around, but when you come around - Whoa. . . here's a creature even our pack leader respects. They are automatically inclined to respect/fear you. You are NOT ever your dog's best friend, even though he or she may be yours. You are either above them in their chain, or you are below them. There are a hundred small things you can do to train your dogs that you are the boss, and few of them involve beating. I'm not against spanking a dog when they do something wrong. In nature, they'd get mauled by their pack leader, sometimes seriously injured. In the family they instead get a swift smack on the rump followed by a "no. " But there are other ways you can train your dogs that can lessen the times you need to do this or even remove these instances altogether if you understand how they think.

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