Are you the proud owner of an adorable dog? If so, it is best for you to assume the role of your dog’s pack leader to ensure that it always listens to you.

If you have ever had an opportunity to see feral dogs, you would have noticed that they always hang around in packs, often led by an alpha dog who is mainly a mentor to the rest. Such a social hierarchy is deeply embedded in a dog’s nature, so it is integral to establish yourself as the alpha right from the start so that your dog takes you seriously. If it gathers the idea that it is the leader, it will never follow you and you will be stuck with an animal version of a troublesome teenager.

We are here to guide you on how to be your dog’s pack leader. Even if your beloved pet has already established itself as the leader, don’t worry as there is still hope. Here are some of the key steps and features you should adopt to establish authority and, thereby, boundaries.

Get to know your dog

Before you can start assuming the role of the pack leader, you must get to know your dog first. Every dog has a different personality and distinct self-image. You need to be aware of both these factors before you proceed.

For example, if your dog is dominant and perceives itself to be the alpha, you are in for a harsh ride. The techniques needed to establish dominance with such a dog are drastically different from the steps you are to take to become an alpha leader of a dog who views itself to be a follower.

Right from the moment a puppy is born, the mother dog controls its access to food to make sure its pups are trained and know who the boss is. If you also train your dog to listen to you from the early stages of its life, i.e., before its personality is fully developed, you won’t need to worry about truly understanding the nature of your pet. However, if it is already in the adult stage of its life, this step becomes the most important of all, especially if you wish to avoid dog bites.

Start Slowly

Starting at a slow pace is integral if your dog already considers itself to be alpha. If your dog is aggressive and dominant in nature, you should take baby steps to make sure you don’t pose yourself as a threat to the power of your dog. An abrupt transition could lead your dog becoming more aggressive. For example, if you punish it by taking its food or toy away, it may retaliate by biting you. Starting gradually will help you avoid such incidents.

If you feel like your dog has the temperament and attitude of an alpha, it is best to consult a dog trainer or approach the matter after being well-versed on how to tackle different situations. Do not make the mistake of thinking that your dog will not cause you harm. If it views itself as the authority, it will do anything to retain its power.

Be Composed Yet Firm

When you think of a leader, you imagine a person who has their emotions together. You envision them to be calm and the source of reason and problem-solving when things go south. Such qualities are also required in a pack leader. You can say that a leader is a leader regardless of whom it is leading.

Therefore, make sure you do not give off any nervous energy. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you have the situation under control; what is important is that you do not let your pack pick up on your fear and nervousness. For your pets, you are the lead who has it all figured out. You have the power to be assertive.

Hence, you should ensure that you are calm yet assertive. Your presence should be a powerful enough influence to make your pack do as you command without being blatantly dominating.

Set Clear Boundaries

A way that a dog marks itself as the leader is by letting the pack know who owns the territory. In human interaction, an individual assumes the role of a leader by marking their territory and establishing authority via their body language and approach toward a goal.

To be the pack leader, you need to do the same thing. You have to make your dog understand that the space it lives in is yours and you are the only authoritative figure in the equation. Just like in human interactions, you don’t do so bluntly. Instead, you establish it by subtly making it clear via body language. Such actions will include maintaining eye contact when ordering your dog to do something.

Once your pet understands that the space it lives in belongs to you, it will automatically start respecting you and follow your orders.

Teach It to Wait

One way to assert your power is to instill in your pups the concept of waiting for your affirmation before doing individual acts. As you know, dogs can be trained to respond to certain gestures and words. An essential concept you need to engrain in their mind is the concept of waiting.

This act will fuel into your authority because it shows that you can control when they receive food or are allowed to travel or pee. Start by giving your dog persistent orders related to the idea of waiting and then giving it a reward when it complies. This action-reward combo always works in training basic dog commandments to your pet.

The mere act of understanding this commandment helps in the establishment of you as the pack leader.

Ask Your Dog to Work

Another feature of a leader is how they distribute work and responsibilities to their followers. You can’t expect anyone to follow you if the situation doesn’t demand a leader. For example, if you provide your dog with a constant supply of food and toys and don’t take either of these things away, there is no reason for it to do the assigned chore in the first place.

Therefore, you should always ensure that your dog earns its food. Take it out on walks and give it food only once it has done so. Make sure you don’t cuddle with your dog unless it has toned down its hyper behavior. Do not give it a treat if it jumps around trying to get it from you without your permission. A minor task of sitting when you ask your dog to can be considered as enough work done to garner a reward.

More Effective Techniques

Here are some of the methods you can adopt if you wish to become the pack leader of your dog.

Power Walks

Embarking on daily power walks is the best way to become the alpha in the equation. Moreover, such an activity, which should range from 30 to 45 minutes, guarantees that your pup remains physically as well as mentally fit.

It is integral that you walk beside your dog rather than behind it. This is because if you let your dog walk in front of you and let it lead the way, it assumes that it has control of the situation. Making sure your dog walks beside you will help you in combating such a perception. However, this task is not easy since dogs love to explore and tend to get overexcited when out on walks. It is a difficult task to teach them not to pull on the leash, let alone to make them learn to walk calmly by your side.

However, if you manage to assert your power, this task is not unachievable.

Establish and Enforce Rules

When you think of a figure of authority, you imagine a person who has the power to make and enforce rules and obligations. It is not just you who is wired to think in such a way. Your pets have a similar thinking pattern as well. Therefore, they associate rule enforcers to be their leaders.

Hence, a fruitful technique is to think of rules you want your pet to follow. These could be universal like calming down before being given a treat as mentioned above or a particular one like restricting your pup from sitting on a specific piece of furniture.

Love and affection should follow these mental exercises and set limitations as a reward. Such an act parallels how a mother dog takes care of its pup and, hence, allows your pets to relate your role as the alpha.

Choose Breeds Carefully

Different breeds of dogs have different requirements. Some are more energetic, while some are more lethargic. Some are naturally predisposed to crave dominance, while others are team players. Selecting the breed of your dog allows you to evaluate and decide how much time you can and want to spend in training them.

If you don’t have enough time, it is better to choose a breed that demands less of you. Such a way of approaching things allows you to be the pack leader without physically or mentally exhausting yourself.

Make Your Dog do Exercises

Just like humans, dogs need to exercise daily to stay fit. These maneuvers, apart from making sure that your pup stays mentally and physically fit, also play an integral part in making sure your dog accepts your role as the pack leader.

Exercises which may help your dog include sitting down commands, ringing a bell, playing fetch, and jumping up and down the sofa. While such workouts may seem trivial to you, they are enough to train your dog, especially if you follow it with a reward.

Move Your Dog Out of Your Way

An alpha dog never walks around its pack. It always directs its follower’s action according to its needs. If you want to establish yourself as the leader, make your pup move out of the way daily. How should you go about doing so? Well, all you have to do is gently shuffle your feet until your dog realizes that it is in your way and moves on its own.

By making your beloved pet move out of your way, it will start viewing you as a parent. Such subtle gestures are more effective than verbal commandments if you don’t want to be blatantly dominant.

Do Not Allow Your Dog to be Spatially Above You

A dog has a different sense of establishing hierarchy compared to humans. If it is above you spatially, it feels as if it is the dominant one in the situation. Combat this literal sense of hierarchy by ensuring that you are always at the height of your dog.

Ending Remarks

If you follow the above advice, you have a better chance of being the pack leader of your dogs. Remember that your dog wants you to be the pack leader. This is because a leader is there for its pack. Such considerate attitude and responsibility are what makes a leader a leader and it is something that all animals crave. They need you to be the leader, so provide them with a hierarchy which mimics that of their natural habitat. They need someone to direct them; be that someone.

As a pack leader, you should be equipped with the natural instinct to protect and direct your pets. Be unselfish and instinctive. Earn your dog’s trust and respect.

Get a dog and start training it early on to achieve favorable results. Don’t let your dogs perceive themselves as the leader. If you do so, be prepared to experience a lack of compliance from your pups. Effectively avoid such a situation from rearing its head by taking proactive action from the start.

Lead. Don’t follow. Take care of your beloved companion, as your dog deserves the best treatment that you can give it.

How to Relieve Separation Anxiety in Dogs?

One of the most common issues dog owners face is something known as separation anxiety. As the name so clearly suggests, it refers to your dog getting anxious when he’s left alone.

Separation anxiety can be a really serious problem, and hence something no good owner would want to ignore. Treating it can be a little complicated, but it can probably be done with a good amount of effort and a lot of patience.

So without further ado, let’s explain you the treatment process in detail.

Treating Mild Separation Anxiety

Cases of mild separation anxiety are seemingly much easier to treat. The simple but usually fairly effective technique through which they are treated is known as counterconditioning.

Basically, it’s a process that tries to influence your dog’s thinking and makes him associate things that it perceives negatively with something positive or pleasant. In other words, it involves manipulating the way your dog responds to things, especially the ones he doesn’t like, to make them like-able for him.

So, in this case, it should turn your dog’s typical response to negative situations – from feelings such as aggression, anxiety or fear – into something pleasant or relaxed. Your task would be to surprise your dog in situations that it otherwise finds unpleasant and reacts with said negative feelings, by making him associate them to something he really loves.

Over time, this will help your dog realize that what it sees as a negative situation actually brings something good and pleasant for him, something that he really likes. Now, coming to using counterconditioning to treat mild separation anxiety, it would basically involve making your dog associate the otherwise negative feeling of being alone with something good, such as treats that it goes crazy for.

Dog puzzle toys are probably going to turn out to be a great tool here. Whenever you’re leaving your home, you can make your dog engage with a puzzle toy stuffed with a treat he loves. You would also want to make sure that it takes at least 20 to 30 minutes for your dog to solve the puzzle and retrieve the treat, or the process may not turn out to be effective enough.

The KONG puzzle toys are apparently the preferred choice for many dog owners, so maybe you would want to consider using them for this purpose. However, something to keep in mind is that these puzzle toys and the special food treats are only supposed to be with your dog when you’re away and he is on his own. If he has access to them all the time, then they will probably lose their special appeal to him, which can again make the process ineffective.

Finally, we also need to address a limitation of this method, which is the reason it’s only useful in cases of mild separation anxiety, and in nothing beyond that. This is simply because dogs that are more than just a little anxious tend to avoid food altogether in the absence of their guardians, so counterconditioning is obviously not going to work for them.

Treating Moderate to Severe Separation Anxiety

A moderate or severe case of separation anxiety calls for a much more complex version of the counterconditioning method, something that can also be termed as desensitization. The underlying idea here is to make your dog accustomed to short periods of separation that don’t get to the point where the dog starts getting anxious. You’re supposed to gradually increase the time of these separation periods, but over a long period of time, usually many weeks, in order to not let the anxiety set in.

We will now walk you through the important basics of this process. However, please note that this is going to be more of a general, brief idea of the process than an exact blueprint of what you need to do.

This is because it would probably be almost impossible to offer an “absolute” solution here that’s going to suit your needs perfectly, as it usually comes down to things that may be specific to you, and these things are obviously going to be different for every dog owner. With that said, let’s get to it now.

First things first, desensitization or advanced counterconditioning is in no way an easy process to prevent your dog from encountering separation anxiety. The feeling of fear has to be avoided completely, which requires a great deal of caution. Even a single encounter of your dog with fear may lead to the process backfiring, leading to issues worse than what you were dealing with in the first place.

Another important aspect of this process is going to be professional help. This is because the changes in your dog’s behavior are going to need a change in your strategy, and you’re certainly not trained or experienced enough to interpret those changes.

You would want an expert to help you right from the beginning, with a board-certified veterinary behaviorist (Dip ACVB) or a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB or ACAAB) coming up with a desensitization and counterconditioning plan for you. In case you fail to find either of these professionals, you can even consider a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT), though it will require more effort on your part, especially for ensuring that he or she is qualified enough for the job.

 

Step One: Dealing with Predeparture Anxiety

Some dogs start showing signs of anxiety as soon as they get a hint that their guardian is about to leave. These signs typically include pacing, panting and even whining. And the “hints” usually include you getting ready to leave for work, such as putting on makeup, or a coat or shoes. If your dog doesn’t get anxious before you leave, though, you can consider skipping to the step two instead.

However, if these things do make him anxious, you’re probably in for some serious hard work. Such a dog may get extremely anxious even when subjected to a few seconds of their guardian’s absence, which is certainly a serious issue to say the least.

To deal with it, however, you would want to make your dog confuse these things with a general activity, and no longer see them as predeparture cues. For example, you can put on your shoes or coat even when you’re not heading to work, and just sit on the dining table for a while. This may help make your dog feel less anxious when you’re leaving for work, as he won’t simply associate these things with your absence.

That being said, this is going to be no easy task, of course, given your dog might have years of experience of interpreting the predeparture cues, and may very well be knowing what they mean for him. So it’s likely going to require following the fake cues several times a day, over a considerably long period of time.

Once you reach the point where your dog no longer gets anxious when you’re leaving, you will probably be ready to get started with step two.

 

Step two: Introducing Graduated Departures

Once your dog can handle the predeparture cues without losing his calm, or if he never used to get bothered over them, it would probably be time to take things to the next level. This step is basically going to be about introducing shorter departures without letting your dog get to the point of anxiety.

The most crucial thing in this step is going to be keeping the departures shorter than the time your dog can stay alone without succumbing to anxiety. You can start the out-of-sight training by an inside door, such as a bathroom. You can make the dog “stay” outside by using commands such as “sit” or “down,” while you get out of his sight, to the other side of the door. You would ideally want a Certified Professional Dog Trainer to assist you with this process, though.

You can then gradually start increasing the time you stay out of your dog’s sight. If you think your dog is getting fairly comfortable with it, you can also throw in some training to take on the predeparture cues, by putting on a coat and taking your purse with you when going to the other side of the bathroom’s door.

Once things are looking well, you can shift the location to your bedroom door, and then an exit door. However, don’t go for the usual exit door first. The back door would be a better option at first if you use to the front door to leave every time. When you start doing these exercises at the exit doors your dog must have reached a point where he doesn’t get anxious when you leave through them.

And this is when the absences can come in. Although, they need to be extremely short at the beginning, ideally only one to two seconds. You can gradually take it from there and get to absences that last five to seven seconds. Once you do get there, you can let in some serious counterconditioning by simply leaving your dog with a stuffed food toy before an absence. The toy may act as kind of a buffer, helping make the dog feel that it’s a “safe” separation.

However, it’s crucial to have very long “breaks” during these sessions. When you’re doing the absence exercises, you should stay with your dog for a few minutes after an absence. If the time gaps are not enough, it’s likely to make your dog difficult to handle your next absence. This can obviously lead to making things worse rather than better for you.

Being calm and quiet is going to be important, too, in order to not make your dog look at your absences as something clearly out of the ordinary. Similarly, a common mistake to avoid is increasing the absence duration faster than you should be. Many pet owners end up doing this mistake – as they want things to progress faster – resulting in making the dog more anxious and thus worsening the problem.

Instead, you would want to keep watching out for signs of stress during these absences. They commonly include salivating, yawning, pacing, panting, trembling, exuberant greeting as well as dilated pupils. If you see any of these signs, or even any other signs of stress in your dog, you should immediately slow things down and decrease the duration of the absences. Once you’re sure your dog is feeling relaxed with your absences, you can start increasing the duration of your absences again, albeit very slowly.

Now, perhaps one of the most important things of this process that may very well make it a success or a terrible failure is your patience, or the lack thereof. This is because it may take really long to get to 40-minute absences, as a dog tends to be extremely likely to get anxious during the first 40 minutes of your absence. So you will probably just find yourself increasing the absence duration by a mere few seconds every session or two, depending on how well your dog manages to handle the absences. And this will most certainly go on for a few weeks.

However, once you get to the 40-minute breakthrough, the increments can get significantly longer, starting with 5-minute ones and then jumping to 15-minute absences. It’s believed that when you get to a point where your dog can tolerate 90 minutes of separation, he becomes capable of being alone for four to eight hours as well. But you would want to have separations lasting four hours first, before going for eight hours, just to be on the safe side.

With sufficient hard work and consistence, you may be able to successfully complete this unique training process in a few weeks. This would basically require several daily sessions on the weekends, and at least two daily sessions each on the workdays, preferably one before leaving for work and the other later in the evening.

 

An Integral Component of the Process

Finally, let us also tell you that you may never have success with counterconditioning or desensitization without completely preventing a full-blown version of the “cause” of your dog’s anxiety or fear. You would want him to only experience a mild or low-intensity version at the most.

This means that you won’t be able to leave the dog alone during the counterconditioning treatment, except when doing it as part of the process. Some of the alternatives you can consider include:

• Taking your dog to work
• Having a family member, friend or dog sitter look after him when you’re away (separation anxiety can be avoided by simply having someone with the dog; it doesn’t necessary require your presence in particular)
• Doggy daycare or a dog sitter’s house