Learning by being the pack leader - chris lahaie (reading rainbow books TXT) 📗

What people often miss in their assessment of what constitutes dog training is that it is never just about the dog. It is no different than when parents their wits end with their children and either give up hope on having a good relationship with them or send them off to the expert psychologist to have their child "fixed."

We need to understand these concepts as well when we adopt a puppy or dog. I thought it might be eaiser to understand in more familiar terms. I used the human example to make a point. I thought it would be easier for people to relate with the human psychology model before we started talking about dog psychology and pack leader behavior.

Contrary to the parents hope, their children will not be able to change unless the family system, including the parents, changes too. Several well known psychologists began to understand that often families were deeply connected subconsciously.



If there was a change in one part of the family it will cause another part to go out of equilibrium and take the rest of the family out of their comfort zone.

Usually, the well intended family will vehemently resist taking any responsibility for their family dynamic. Rather than change to help their child they will change doctors trying to find one that will see the problem as their child, uninfluenced by the parents. They may find a doctor sympathetic to their plight but usually it will not result in any real progress being made in stabling the family. It will just continue to perpetuate the denial that will need to be broken for any treatment to prevail.

It may seem like I have gone off topic discussing family dynamics and therapy but it usually helps people understand what is going on in their pack. The family and the pack are systems. Most of them time dogs are just reacting to the environment in which they live. They are no different than children in that respect. Dog owners will send their dog to obedience school or hire a trainer with expectations of having their dog be obedient, calm and stable. They are also in denial about how their behavior and energy in their household is affecting the behavior of their dog.



For a pack or a family to be well adjusted, calm and stable most of the time, the working parts of those systems have to be calm and comfortable. There also has to be a calm-assertive energy that is projected from the leader of the pack, or a parent, for the system to be in balance. It is no secret that if you find unbalanced dogs or unbalanced children, there is a high likelihood there is no calm-assertive energy consistently being projected.

The truth is we can learn so much from our dogs. They can not only offer us friendship and companionship but they give us a mirror to what needs to be changed in our lives. Contrary to the popular belief, dogs are much more than just pets.








Chapter 2


Dog training takes a tremendous amount of patience. Dogs, especially puppies, can be trying on our nerves and if we are not careful we will make things worse by being a poor pack leader. Maintaining our calm-assertive energy at all times is a must. Easier said then done or at least that was the case with me but it is important to keep this ideal energy level as much as possible.

Dogs are willing to follow us in the pack and do what we want but first we have to be trained in the art of living like a dog so to speak. Well we don’t have go completely to the dogs but we do have to adopt some of the behaviors of the alpha dog to project the energy of good pack leader.



First and foremost is to keep our mood as level as possible no matter what our puppies do to push our buttons. Our unstable moods or unstable energy will be acted out by our dogs and they will not be able to be calm and stable until we learn to be calm and assertive as the pack leader. If you are in a state of calm-assertive energy you are naturally being strong in a way that dogs recognize and will follow.

Dogs are natural followers if they have a strong pack leader to fall behind. It is just nature’s way and it has been part of the evolution of the dog because these instinctual behaviors lead, in part, to the survival of the species. Wolf packs and other wild dog packs need an order to their pack structure or they would be constantly fighting one another over limited resources and likely would have extinguished themselves thousands of years ago.

The reality is that dogs know how to behave in the pack structure. They just need a good alpha dog that is a strong leader. This is where we humans come into the mix. By default we have become the pack leader for our dogs but if we act in ways that are not conducive to being a good pack leader or if we are unable to channel our calm-assertive energy our dogs will try to take over the lead role.

Having a dog is really just a way for us to live a better life. Dogs have a lot of qualities that people need to have it they are going to be great friends and great parents. Dogs can teach us so much about the good things in life we should not take them for granted. Even if your dog just gets you to reconnect with your intuition, they are doing a priceless service.

If you have had questions as to whether dogs and other animals have special senses that are more in tune with nature and its energy I have a story that may help you realize how much we have to gain by being connected to our intuition. It will also give more credence to the reality that we need to communicate on a different level if we are going to have a loving bond with are dogs.





Chapter 3
The senses of animals may be more powerful than humans but our intuition has been suppressed by years of language communication. It doesn’t mean we have lost the power of intuition it just mean we don’t pay attention to it because we have learned to rely on the written and spoken word for all our information. But we have had many more years to develop our intuition than we have had speaking so it is still inside of us. Our intuition will nearly always give you the right answer if we listen and pay attention.

The tsunami tragedy in Indonesia that is said to be responsible for killing nearly 170,000 people gave us a great example of amazing animal intuition. In several well documented stories people recounted how the animals made way to higher ground long before the tidal wave. They were making their move to high ground while the beach had no wind or waves and the ocean was like glass. If more people would have noticed the migration of the animals or their agitation it could have saved many lives. But this is the type of thing that most people would fight against believing because it didn’t match with what they were seeing or hearing around them.

Our dogs give us the opportunity to get in tune with our intuition again. Dogs give us the medium within our own world to awaken to our intuition and learn to always pay attention to it. As we learn to be a good pack leader, we will be developing our intuition and our calm-assertive energy. Just projecting a calm-assertive energy on a more regular basis will make a tremendous difference in your life. A better relationship and bond with your dog is only one of the benefits of this attitude shift.

You will begin to see just how much your energy projection influences the world around you. If you stick with the principals of the Dog Whisperer develop your calm-assertive energy you will notice improvements in every area of your life.

Our level of control in our life is directly related to our intentions. Our intentions are a result of our goals, desires and our thought processes. Our intentions are manifested in the physical world by our energy we project. The better we are at projecting the calm-assertive energy that is needed for pack leaders we will also be putting positive intentions out to the universe. As we make the effort to bond with our dogs and to have a well adjusted and stable pack, we are paving the way for other great things to come into our lives. This is one of the rewards for doing the right thing by our dogs.
Cesar Millan quotes from Dr Wayne W. Dyer’s book The Power of Intention and references Dyer’s definition of intention. He defines intention as: the force in the universe that allows the act of creation to take place; not something you do but as an energy field of which you are a part.

He also further goes on to quote Deepak Chopra to further emphasize the power of our creative mind. “Intent orchestrates all the creativity in the universe, as we, as human beings, are capable of creating positive changes in our lives through intent”


Chapter 4

If you are convinced that it is important to communicate with your dogs through you energy projections, you probably wonder what causes people to be so inclined to not project the calm-assertive energy.
Again we can look to Cesar Millan’s book Be the Pak Leader for help. He says that becoming a calm-assertive pack leader takes time and if we come to this assignment with typical emotional baggage, our work has to start with ourselves.
“Many of us have been conditioned from a young age to doubt ourselves, to have low self-esteem, or to believe that being assertive is the same as being aggressive.”
We need to work on these issues to build are self confidence to a level that is more conductive to being an effective pack leader. Our dogs will serve as a guide because once we started projecting more calm-assertive energy we will notice our dogs being calmer as well.
There are many ways to improve your self-esteem that can also help us move forward as pack leader. Cesar gives a list of several techniques that can help us attain more calm-assertive energy. He gives a complete list in “Be the Pack Leader” on page 235.

I will list a few them here.

1. Clear and positive Intention
2. Method acting techniques
3. Visualization techniques