And in my view, if you and Fennell were REALLY listening to dogs, you would already know there’s no such thing as a pack leader in a dog’s mind. You wouldn’t need a jerk like me to point this out to you.

Best wishes,
LCK

Thank you for your response. You certainly have a right to your perspective, as we all do. I work with Jan Fennell’s method because it is kind and respectful, and it is very effective in correcting all behavior problems. I can assure you that Dog Listeners would always keep an open mind to any approach that is as kind as Amichien Bonding IF it were to prove more effective across the board.

Best wishes,
Mary Lynne Doleys
Peaceful Paws LLC

Here’s a training tip from one of my newsletters, which is geared for NYC dog owners using their local dog run:

If you want your dog to have a ‘killer’ recall at the dog run, here are some fun ideas: First, bring some treats and the squeaker from a squeaky toy with you to the dog run. Pay close attention to your dog. When he’s not interacting with other dogs, or not sniffing around, and seems to want or need something to do, give a loud whistle, or clap your hands, or squeak the squeaker. (If I’m in a big dog run I’ll use an actual ref’s whistle.)

When he looks at you, show him that you’ve got a treat. DON’T CALL HIM TO YOU YET! Wait until he starts running toward you. Then, while he’s in the process of running, say “Muttsy, come!” in an excited voice. Then reward him with the treat and a lot of praise. (It wouldn’t be a bad idea to jump up and act happy and get him to chase you around a little too.)

This will probably excite not only your dog but several other dogs in the vicinity, so let things settle down a little, and the dogs will start playing again. Wait until there’s another lull in the action, and repeat.

Another cool trick is to play a modified version of “hide-n-seek”: When your dog isn’t paying attention to you, move. Go stand or sit somewhere else. Then, when he looks back to where you were standing or sitting, and can’t see you, he’ll suddenly have a strong desire to find you. When he does, wave a treat at him and run away. He’ll come flying toward you as fast as he can. As he does, say, “Muttsy, come!” in an excited voice, then reward him with the treat and a little bit of chase. (Most dog runs frown on people getting dogs to chase them around, so you have to keep this to minimum.)

After a few days of doing these exercises, your dog will automatically start looking for you more whenever there’s a lull in the action. He’ll even start coming back to check in with you from time to time. It’s vitally important during this stage, that every time he comes back to you on his own, without any direction from you, that you praise him and give him a tasty treat.

One other important bit of advice, if your dog is in the habit of running away when it’s time to leave the run and go home, never stand there with the leash in your hand and call him! Have the leash hidden, and put it on your dog while he’s distracted by eating a treat out of your hand.

Another good tip: after you leash him up, take him for a brisk walk, a game of chase and tug, while running or jogging around or near the dog run. Then take him back inside and let him loose again. If your dog has as much fun playing with YOU as he does with the other dogs, you may find that when you get back inside the dog run he’ll actually hang around you for a while before he finally runs off and throws himself into the tumble of dogs waiting for him.

If you do these exercises often enough, and make your dog’s experience of leaving the run as fun as being inside with other dogs, he won’t associate the leash with the feeling that “the fun is over.” And the really cool thing is, after just a few weeks of playing with him, you can actually show him the leash and he’ll come running over to you to be leashed up. You won’t need to keep doing this every day, either. Nor will you have to keep giving him treats every time he comes (you should gradually wean him off the treats altogether anyway; they’re just a tool for those initial stages of learning).
Have fun at the dog run!

LCK

I enjoyed looking at your website but felt I had to tell you that the views that you espouse about pack behavior are actually sadly out of date. The alpha male and alpha female are simply the breeding couple. They do provide their young with food and security, and to a certain extent they make decisions that impact the pack’s survival, just as human parents do. But subordinate members do not follow the decisions of the “leaders” (that should read “parents”, by the way) without question. That’s a myth. David Mech has observed instances in wild wolf packs where this is demonstrated: for example a pack who “mutinied” and turned the other direction while the alpha male was trying to lead them forward. Every time he circled around and tried to lead them forward, they followed for a while, then turned back. Finally, he gave up and followed THEM. And in Mech’s observations no wolf ever enforces his authority over other members of the pack.

I’m sure your training system (or Jan Fennel’s) is very effective, but your “science” on canine behavior comes from studies of captive wolves, inorganic packs who weren’t related, who didn’t know one another, and had no opportunity to use their predatory instincts to travel long distances to kill large prey. Their supposed “hierarchical” behaviors were actually the result of stress, not instinct. (The need to hunt large prey is the real reason for the genesis of the pack instinct, by the way–and no one wolf leads the pack when they hunt, either.)

Many of the early studies on captive wolves were done in Nazi Germany. In fact, Konrad Lorenz, who was the primary architect of the alpha theory, was a gung-ho Nazi, whose job as a Third Reich biologist was to determine which offspring of German and Polish parents had enough “German blood” to go back into the gene pool, and which had to be sent to concentration camps to be eliminated. His attraction to the idea of a strong leader, supposedly reflected in the alpha wolf and Adolf Hitler, is what probably led him down this misguided (and evil) path. (Oddly enough, he never paid for his war crimes and later won two Nobel prizes for ideas that, like the alpha theory, are also no longer valid.)

Meanwhile, Mech doesn’t like to use the word alpha any longer (except in reference to the breeding pair) because he says “It falsely implies a linear pecking order in which a wolf assumes a place in a hierarchical system.” So there is no hierarchy in real wild wolf packs. Plus, the latest thinking on domesticated dogs (who have different survival needs than wolves), is that they don’t form hierarchies either, or have the faintest “idea” what a pack leader is. They simply respond positively to owners who give them something fun and/or interesting to do.

Of course I don’t know how much of what you’ve written above is just PR to get people interested in your training system, and how much of it you actually believe, but it’s simply not true.

Thanks for taking time to read this,

LCK

A dog who runs off and/or ignores its owner when called probably does not see the owner as the leader. If you look to canines in the wild, you will find that generally speaking, every pack has two leaders: an alpha male and an alpha female. The leaders provide the rest of the pack with food and security, and they make all decisions for the pack so as to ensure the pack’s survival. The subordinate members of the pack follow the decisions of the leaders without question.

Owners who want their dogs to cooperate with them – not because they are forced, but out of respect – need to provide them with leadership in a way the dogs understand. This can be done in a very kind, effective, and non-confrontational way. I highly recommend Jan Fennell’s book, The Dog Listener, which taught me how to achieve leadership with my own dogs.

Best wishes,
Mary Lynne Doleys
Peaceful Paws LLC