We don’t like dogs that can’t learn tricks fast—at least the simple ones. For some reason, we all want pet dogs because we want to teach them a trick or two. It is said the easiest trick you can teach your dog is to make it follow you around. That one doesn’t need much training and practice. Your dog naturally follows you everywhere. No dog is so hardheaded as to not know how to follow its master. But what’s up with that?
Why dogs form packs
Dogs band together in packs whether they look the same or not. Experts say this has been going on since the time dogs branched out from the wolf family. Dogs band together as a means to survival. So when your dog follows you around, it is out of pack instinct. He sees you as an alpha character, meaning someone whom he can depend and look up to. He sees you as someone who can protect and defend him in times of threat. Ironically, this is quite the reverse of what we think when we walk alongside our dogs. There’s almost no way you can make your dog stop following you around, except when you train it to.
What’s in pack
As the family is the basic social unit to humans, a pack is the basic social units to dogs. It is a circle of dogs that has its own value systems and rank. Your dog follows you because it considers you as a part of the pack. According to experts, this dog instinct comes from and is most observable in grey wolves. You see, not all wolves form the same pack the way grey wolves do. Most wolf packs don’t have a value system that resembles that of a dog’s. A usual wolf pack is formed based on dominance and submission. But a pack of grey wolves is formed and run much like a human family. New evidence suggests that, among grey wolves every member has a role to play–from being the alpha wolf’s sexual partner to a night watchman. Moreover, dog experts have observed newer and far more complex relationships are formed within the pack.
This theory is based on the studies of Dr. David Mech. He studied the grey wolves on Elsemere Island. Dr. Mech had observed that a wolf pack is formed like a human family. There is a parent figure as well as an offspring figure as opposed to a dominant and subordinate models of the past. So parent wolves, and in this case older dogs, tend to lead a pack, while the younger ones play supporting roles. The pack follows a linear rank pattern. But while domesticated dogs can’t form bigger packs, wolves can. A bigger and wider pack is formed by younger wolves setting out to form their own packs.
While you may note that dominance has a place in a family of dogs, this is not anything a dog inherits—it’s something a dog earns either by virtue of seniority or from sheer sexual prowess. In a pack of dogs, the most dominant figure is naturally the alpha male.
The next time you take your dog out for a walk, make it proud for having you around.
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