If every dog owner would think and act a little more like a real alpha leader in a wolf pack, the dog would understand and obey their owner much better.
It is my conviction that we should look a little more on the wolf, when we train with our dogs, when I start with new dog owners I start out to tell them something about the leader of a wolf pack.
Even if it can be hart to see it, the dog still has a near relationship to the wolf, many of our dogs does not look like wolves at all, but some still have the upstanding ears and the same build as wolves and with those it is easier to put a band between the two canine kind.
But even if you are a owner of a not very alike dog kind, you should try to look after some similarity, it can be small things like, the way your dog greet other dogs or people.
Does your dog greet different to different dogs, maybe your dog has self-confidence or is very dominant, or the other way around, your dog will in any way show that Hi's nice and very little - all these moods are very wolfish and would be used in a pack of wolves when they greet each other.
One thing that we as dog owners often forget is to be the alpha leader, that doesn't mean that you have to shout and be violent actually you just have to be secure and concrete and your dog has to have some limit as well as children.
It is easier to draw a limit if you now that it will be the best for your dog.
An example, the alpha leader always:
eats first
shows the way
meat other people first
walk towards the door first
If you keep some of these rules, with your dog you have done a great job.
Unfortunately we all make mistakes, often we try out some of these leader things but the dog seams not to understand what the point is, and he doesn't and that just tells you that you haven't done a decent job, and that you have to try again.
Well most people has a well acting dog and most problems have a solution, but sometimes it can be a god idea to ask a pro out about these things, they might ask you the question that make the difference.
A very important thing in the wolf pack is the pack behavior, and you can compare the pack with your family.
When your dog look at you as the alpha leader your family will be the pack, I don't think that children always have to be above the dog, children have to be a certain age before they are above the dog, small children I would put on the same level as the dog and, when you manage to be the alpha leader you would not have a problem between children and your dogs.
If you don't have children yourself try to visit and get visited by people with children in a early stadium in the dogs life, it will make things easier later on, and children and dogs can have a lot of fun together.
In my family my sister has two children, and when they were small they had a dog of their own, so they are use to dogs, but my German shepherd haven't been seeing the children very often and that made him very insecure, and especially if the children were running and shouting, and the only way hi could tell them that hi didn't like the noise and turmoil, was to walk away ore growl, then my brother-in-law isn't exactly found about GSD's (I think hi is afraid of them) and was very nervous about this growling, and I told him that the dog has no other way to tell the kids that hi fells unsecured, but that I trust him, and we had a talk with the kids and now they now that when they visit me their are other rules than home with them selves.
Today the children love to come her, and my GSD are very found of both the kids, hi still doesn't like when they tumble, but that is because dogs see that different than us.
When people hug and get friendly the dog often try's to go between, often people mistakes this as jalousie but in the dogs eyes you are about to get in to a fight, often you stand close for a wile and after that you start to hug.
If you compare that with the wolf pack behavior that would be the start of trouble.
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