 Speaking about a pack, most of people will probably imagine scary howling wolves that older fans of adventurous novels know from the books by Jack London. Truth is that some animals live in packs and among those is also the dog. Since the time when the dog lived on his own and had no idea about the fact that he will be the first domesticated animal, many things have changed. With only few exceptions, most dogs live in the human community and they meet other dogs only on the walk. But the dog still remains a “pack” animal and this is the origin of many problems in the dog-human relationships. Not every dog owner realizes that from the view of his four-legged friend, the pack is the human family where he lives. It is not only necessary to know, that husband, wife, children, grandmother and other members of the family form a pack from the dogs view, but also the fact, that life in a pack has its rules. It is very important to show who has which status in the pack, simply said, who is listening to who. The scientific literature speaks about the hierarchy of the pack and to mark the members of the pack uses the letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, delta…). As the alpha is marked the leader of the pack, the individual, that all the others listen to and who protects them. The second individual on the imagined ladder of obedience in the pack – beta – listens to the leader of the pack, but can “lead” all the others. This way it continues on and on, according to the number of the pack members. The status of certain individual in the pack is not random. It is ruled by many factors. A major factor is how the individual member behaves in the pack, which status he manages to achieve and also which status the other members of the pack will allow him to achieve. These rules are valid in every pack, also in such a pack, which is formed by for example one dog and his owner or owners. For life of man and dog together, a basic rule should always apply, and that: “No matter on the number of the members of the “human pack”, the dog has to be always the last one in the hierarchy.” That can be difficult with large breeds that have a dominant attitude (for instance CSW´s) in families with small children. It is not possible to expect that these dogs will be willing to be completely submissive to small child, and so they should never be left alone with children without supervision. Also children should be forbidden (and controlled) in their attempts to “command” the dog.  In common “animal” pack these rules function without exceptions. In the “human-dog” pack though, one basic rule should be known. A man should not be only “alpha”, but more something like “super alpha”. In nature, even the alpha sometimes looses its status and it is “kicked down” to a lower rank by other members of the pack. Of course, in a “human-dog” pack, this should never happen. The owner cannot accept the dogs attempt to overtake leading of the pack. In practice this means that dog listens to all his people and they take care of him and protect him. The reality is often different. We love our dog, we take care of him, we protect him, but the submission to the leader of the pack is somehow gone, on the contrary, the man submits to the dog and his moods. Many owners simply are not able to show their dog strictly, who is the boss here and the results can be and often are, smaller or bigger problems. As usual, it is not wise to solve the problems only once they occur; it is much better to prevent unwanted trouble. That’s how it is also for breeding and educating dogs. The whole problem could be divided in several parts:
1) Choose of the right breed
On the list of International Cynological Federation (FCI) are almost 350 breeds. They vary in size and coat type, but also in character. It is also important to know for which purpose the breed was intended, so that we chose knowing what kind of efforts we will have to make, not only to teach the new family member the basics of good manners, but also how much work it requires to make the dog remember what we taught him. Not only is the character of the dog important, but equally important is our character, that of its owners. Czechoslovakian wolfdog belong to Group I. – Shepherds and herding dogs. Its original use was to serve as a guard dog at the borders. From there come his characteristics – high intelligence, endurance, resistance, and independence. At first sight these are positive features, but on the other side, these features often make the education and training very difficult. This is why Czechoslovakian wolfdog does not belong in hands of people who do not have enough patience and consistency for their education and training, or to people that see wolfdogs only as beautiful companion dogs. Also our choice of the puppy from the litter can play a big role. A temperamental little devil is definitely more suitable for sport or working use, than to become a pet in a large family that often entertains guests.
 2) Start early
The start of the education is often a big problem for the future obedience of the dog. A man brings home a puppy. The little fur ball pisses around, cries after its mother and siblings, makes big eyes on us and the whole family adores it. The little dog quickly understands its chances and starts to set its position. Here he growls, if somebody touches his food bowl, there he snaps, when we try to take away its favourite toy. And calling of the master that is something he should never react to. The family smiles and its members say:” He is small, he can be like that, when he will be bigger, we will educate him!” That is a big mistake and to educate such a dog without a help of experienced trainer will be in future probably impossible. Very important period in the life of the puppy is the time from his 5-6 weeks to his 3 months. It is called the period of the early socialization. It is the time when the dog realizes there is something like the hierarchy of the pack and he starts to communicate. The period of the early socialization is enormously important for the future life of the dog and his co-existence with people. The dog realizes the individual status in the pack already at the time when he lives with his sisters and brothers and the mother. However, he has to understand them also after coming to the new owner. Czechoslovakian wolfdogs mature in this sense very early, in comparison to the other breeds, and so it is very important to place him to a new pack – family, very early. A puppy, who’s owner allowed him to gather a variety of information and contacts in his early socialization period, will be most probably once a very clever and balanced dog. Sometimes we hear about the proverbial smartness of the mongrels and foolishness of the pedigree dogs.
The difference in their abilities is not big. Only those mongrels are not in their “toddler” time prevented from contacts with outside world, as the future champions. The difference is thus not in the intelligence, but in the information, that the individual dog had chance to get.
3) Everyone has to manage his dog by himself
Many people buy a dog and then they ask somebody more experienced to train the dog for them. But if the dog’s owner does not show enough authority to his dog, he can never expect that the dog trained by somebody else will listen to him and respect him as a master. In most cases, such kind of training is completely unsuccessful for Czechoslovakian wolfdogs. Everyone should decide self critically, if he has also physical ability to master the dog. It is not too pleasant experience, to meet on a walk a small lady that “flies” behind her forty-five kilo shepherd.
4) A dog should remain a dog
On the biggest problems of the recent time is humanization of the dogs. We had in our surgery a lady that was punishing her dog with a very strange method. If the dog did something, that she did not like, she told him, she will not speak with him for a day, two or three, according to the seriousness of the thing. The lady meant it in a good way, her approach was, as she said, very helpful in partner relationships, but of course it did not work with the dog. We advised her a bit and then, if the dog did something wrong, she immediately showed, that this was a bad thing to do. Within a month, the couple found the right relationship and cleared up, who was the master and who was the dog. But there are also other cases. A young teenage girl, who’s puppy was growling at her even during a simple manipulation, like grooming, disliked our attempts to explain her, this was not acceptable manner from the dog. She told us: “It is my dog, it is a personality and I will not suppress his shows of personality.” After some time, the dog was not growling, but biting and the girl did not speak about personality, but about an aggressive individual, that must be euthanised. Luckily, the poor dog ended up with a wise older man that suppressed his personality and calmed the dog so effectively, that from a difficult animal the dog became very nice and very obedient animal that was making no trouble when visiting the veterinarian. From both of the above cases and I could easily write about many others, it is clear that the dog has completely different model of behaviour than a human and that he does not care much about loving reprehensions. The praise and disagreement has to be shown clearly and understandably and immediately after the dog did something, that we like or dislike.
The dog in the family, and especially where there are children, can be source of great joy. But he can also be source of big misery. Injury to the human is definitely very bad thing, but the co-existence of man and dog can be accompanied also by other problems. For instance bothering the neighbours with barking and howling, dog running on the highway, dog killing the hens and rabbits of the neighbours or dog attacking every other dog in the park. It is also no pleasure to listen every midnight a lady calling her dog back for half an hour. The dog has totally different interests than to return to her. Everyone who is getting a dog should count on the fact, that he will educate him. The argument like: “My dog is only a companion and that’s why I do not want to train him” leads only towards trouble. Everyone should realize first the correct answer to a question:” Who is listening to whom, the dog to the master, or the master to the dog?”
Vladimíra Tichá (Czech Republic)
PS: The article was originally written for the daily news Pravo, where it was printed out in shortened version. For our server it was edited and updated by Helena Hubáčková with the kind approval of the author.
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