Respecting the Free Will of Dogs?

[Questioner]

Evidently, dogs have an instinctive need to either be dominated or to dominate. Hellllooo does this sound familiar? Doesn't this describe the STS path???

Hi Monica, it looks like this thread has gone to the dogs You might need another thread for the kids.

I'm also a fan of Cesar Milan and his TV show, "The dog whisperer" on National Geographic channel. You can also find video clips and articles online. Much of what Cesar teaches is so much easier to understand when you see the same principles used with dog after dog and person after person.

In Cesar's show, occasionally, a very aggressive dog needs to be rehabilitated. In 90% of his situations the solution is really training the people to provide the leadership the dog so much wants to have provided!

I have a substantial essay in my journal about what this all means to me, and I'd like to share it here in segments.

In this part I'll focus on what I've learned from Cesar's show about dogs and how people can actually help dogs by treating them like well-treated dogs, rather than like people! After that I'll respond to your comments about how this relates to STS mentality in people. I think there are a couple of important distinctions worth exploring there, once we see how things work with the dogs.

Cesar teaches that the nature of dogs is to live in packs. Each pack has a leader who determines the rules and leads the pack.

Sometimes there's a need to go hunt, or to protect against threat, or to relocate the pack. The good leader will guide the pack to do these things. When the current situation is fine, then the leader's best leadership is to demonstrate that it's time to relax and enjoy the current safe situation.

This works out well for the survival of the pack, if the pack leader is calmly assertive, and if the leader has a good direction to lead the pack.

Within the direction and rules of the pack, the pack members guide each other by example to follow the rules. Within the leadership and rules, the dogs are free to do as they like.

If the leader is proven to be incompetent, the pack picks a new leader to follow.

When a new dog comes into a healthy pack, it learns by observation and experience. It learns to identify the leader and to discover the rules.

If a dog knows that it doesn't know what's going on, it looks around to find the pack leader to follow for direction. If there is no leader, the dog gets anxious because it apparently has to be the leader. Every pack must have a leader, in a dog's mind. But it has no idea how to make itself a leader with guidance for the humans who obviously, in the dog's mind, are looking for the dog to lead them!

Cesar demonstrates to people that with kindness, they can demonstrate the calm, assertive leadership that makes a dog realize that the dog is not the pack leader, you are. With aggressive dogs, Cesar is only physically forceful enough to restrain the dog's attacks. With out of control or bewildered dogs, he takes them to join his pack. He has a couple of dozen dogs at any time in this pack in a big yard.

The dogs already there help demonstrate to the new dog that there's no need to freak out or to attack. They show by example that Cesar and other calm people are the pack leaders. If the dog owners continue to behave with consistent leadership when they take the dogs back home, the dogs continue to live by the new rules. Hey, the dog seems to say, this is a pack where I get to know what to do, and the rules help me be safe and balanced. Cool!

Dog Whisperer fans, do you feel this captures Cesar's vibe? Am I missing anything important?

This is running a bit long, so I'll divide it here. I'll write my perspective about how this relates to the Law of One in a subsequent post.