The Leader of the Pack!

01 / 11 / 2011

I come from a family of dog lovers and this week my sister is on holiday abroad.  So while she soaks up the sun I am charged with looking after her two precious companions; Lulu and her daughter Fifi.  Unfortunately Fifi is quite unwell.  With several cancerous tumours, her days are limited and we are trying our best to make sure she has a good quality of life until she passes over to doggy heaven.  Her mother – Lulu is full of energy, but it seems is quite hard of hearing.  This leads to her being quite nervous and easily startled, so we need to take this into account at all times.

Where's the Leader gone???

Bribery and segregation is my M.O. (modus operandi) and so far so good.  Over the past few years I have read copious amounts of information about looking after and training dogs.  Coupled with my hands on experience, I have come to 3 very important conclusions:

1. All dogs still have deep rooted, wolf pack instincts – therefore there is a distinct pecking order
2. It’s all about blackmail/bribery (or Positive Reinforcement - whatever you want to call it)
3. The carrot is the way to go (definitely not the stick) – a bit like child psychology, you need to reinforce positive behaviour at all times, and completely ignore when they are misbehaving

So back to bribery and segration, poor Fifi needs peace and quiet to enjoy her meals, so I need to segregate her from the other two energetic ones – one of whom (Lulu) is very hard of hearing (possibly even deaf) – so my solution is to show them my bag of treats and use this to separate Fifi from the pack.  Verbal commands and raising my voice gets me absolutely nowhere – but show them a bag of treats and I’ve got their attention immediately.

Next important step is the pecking order.  Going back to wolf like instincts, it’s imperative that the three ladies believe that I am leader of the pack (even if I can’t bark or wag my tale).  How do you establish you are leader of the pack? Simple – Top Dog (Alpha male and Alpha Female) always eats first.

Waiting patiently to eat!

So grab some crisps/biscuits or whatever you have to hand, and once you’ve prepared your dogs gourmet meal, stand up straight, hold the bowl up high and pretend you are eating from its bowl by munching on your own (human) treat.

The result of establishing yourself as Top Dog, is that you command respect (hypothetically), you gain attention (well hopefully) and above all, your dog/dogs can relax as they don’t have to shoulder the huge responsibility of leading the pack.

Having firmly now established myself as the leader of the pack (still can’t bark or wag my tail), I have managed to get through a week with the ladies without shedding a hair!

However, this time tomorrow peace will prevail as mother and daughter, Lulu and Fifi return to their bronzed rightful owner.  And I will return to a semblance of sanity as Honey and I continue on our journey of discovery and investigation in allyourdogneeds.com