We're a Pack

I'm sure many of you have heard time and time again that dogs need to be part of a pack. Yet most owners still do not properly address their dog’s pack needs. This may be due to having difficulty empathizing with your dog’s needs, so lets try to bring this understanding of pack drive a little closer to human nature -- compare a dog’s need for a hierarchical pack to the need for structure by people after they have left one of the armed forces.

Imagine one of your good friends used to be in the army. You spend a lot of time together out hiking in the mountains and laughing over a cold beer after a hard day of work. Whenever either of you have a bad day, you’re always there for each other and support each other. Your friend is fiercely loyal, diligent, and a hard worker. So one day, you decide to hire him into your family-run business. He is the first non-family member to be hired into your business, but hey! He is like one of the family already, right?

At first things go wonderful! Having your army friend around at work seems to make everything run so much better. The environment become less stressful, and your customers have commented on how great things have been lately. You attribute it having another helping hand, and are pretty pleased with yourself for hiring another person.

After a few months, though, your friend appears to becoming increasingly grumpy. He has snapped at a couple people, and your daughter wants to have nothing to do with him anymore since he seems to always be picking on her. You also notice you’re starting to lose your friendship with him as well. Your weekly Saturday hikes get canceled regularly, and going out for a beer is an uncommon experience, laughter being a rarity. Eventually, no one can bare to work with him any longer. He is always flustered and everyone else hates to go to work anymore. The straw that breaks the camel’s back is he redid the entire filing system you have been using for the past 20 years into a system you cannot recognize, and all your friend had to say was, “This way is so much better!”. You finally make the decision to let him go. And unfortunately, the friendship you once had never comes back.

What happened?

As soon as your army friend started working with your business, he saw everything that needed to be done. He saw the pile of papers needing to be filed, the calendar on the wall still displaying 3 months ago, and the box of receipts waiting to be processed next to the computer. He immediately set to work, and you never noticed that the coffee pot was always full, the financial statements always up-to-date and all paperwork you needed was always exactly where it was supposed to be. This was because he was keeping everything straight and orderly.

Once he set up everything in a nice and ordered fashion, however, he became increasingly agitated that the other people working in your business were not maintaining the organization. Files were pulled out and left on top of the cabinet, and someone would always manage to put an empty box of granola bars back in the cabinet. He struggled to get people to follow his lead and eventually ended up yelling at people (he never did have a lot of experience leading people outside of the army).

Your weekly hikes were being canceled because he was busy at the office writing up a proposal for a customer. He stopped showing up to after-work drinks because he was going to the grocery store to stock up the office kitchen and burn off some excess energy cleaning the office. When you do manage to spend time with him, he’s distracted, having half his mind predicting the business’ financials for the next 6 months. Because he would often finish his work early and had so much pent up energy, he decided to take his own initiative to redo your filing system. You didn’t notice until he was done, either, because you weren’t around!

What made the situation worse is that you -- and the rest of your family working at the business -- did not value all of the work he was putting in. You were fine with the way things were running. But, because no one else would make sure there was food in the kitchen, your friend felt he had to cover the slack. Unfortunately, your friend felt he had to cover a lot of slack, driving his -- and everyone’s -- morale to the ground.

Every person is different, and every person who leaves the armed forces will be different, too. Some have no problem going back to their old relaxed ways of doing things, while others turn around and reenlist! The same goes with dogs. Some get their pack satisfaction with little work and structure, while others crave for more. One thing is certain, though -- you cannot pretend your dog has a pack drive less than what it is. You can’t take the army out of the man, and you can’t take the pack out of the dog.

Dogs will exhibit many symptoms if their need to be a member of a pack is not satisfied appropriately. They can show signs that they hate to be alone, such as separation anxiety, barking and destroying property. They can seem aggressive and growl over food, bark at windows and people coming to your door, and snap at you or others. They can also regress inside of themselves and be scared of many things, like going outside, other dogs and people, and hide in small places.

All of these problems can be addressed by ensuring your dog feels like your family is a pack. You may hear dog trainers say you need to “go back to step one”, but what they really mean is that you need to reinforce the structure of your family’s pack for your dog.

Dogs need to be with their pack

It is difficult to feel like a member of the pack if the dog is not actually with their pack. Give your dog moments every day where he can be with the family pack. Watch TV at night and have your dog join you. Have your dog sleep in the same room as you. Plan regular family pack trips where all of you -- including your dog -- can go together. Don’t lock your dog outside in the backyard for most of the day while you are inside doing chores -- your dog’s need to be with you is stronger than his desire to be outside alone.

Dogs need to feel secure

Dogs have an innate understanding of what the pack needs to accomplish: keep watch for enemies, protect pack members, find food and care for young. If your dog does not feel these tasks are being appropriately taken care of, he will take the initiative to take care of it himself. This will make him seem distracted -- or worse, aggressive.

Making a dog feel secure takes time and patience. He needs to feel from you that you have the confidence to protect and care for the pack. If children bother your dog, you must actively block them from your dog. If another dog approaches while your dog is distracted (like having a bowel movement), you must maintain a perimeter and prevent the other dog from approaching. You have to communicate to your dog through actions, “I’ve got your back.”

Dogs can extrapolate that the basic needs of the pack are being taken care of if your dog trusts your leadership. You are fair, but diligent. When your dog needs something, you address it. And you never leave your dog wondering what to do. Over a short period of time, your dog will infer that if you are making sure he knows what to do, you know how to take care of the pack.

Dogs need to know their rank within the pack

When dogs feel secure, they will know who is the one responsible for keeping them secure and will understand that they are below that person in the pack’s hierarchy. However, it is also important to ensure they know their rank relative to the other members of your family pack, otherwise he may feel it is within his job description to give other members orders -- and corrections.

Everyone else in your family pack should follow your lead in making the dog secure. Watch out for his back, and make sure he always knows what he has to do. Once your dog understands that everyone in the family pack has the pack’s best interest in mind, he will happily slip down to the bottom of the hierarchy and let the rest of the pack members take care of everything.

A dog’s pack drive describes the dog’s need to be in a pack, be aware of their pack’s hierarchy and know how they fit into that hierarchy.

Dog’s are social animals and yearn to be in the company of others. They need to feel as a member of the team. Fortunately, dogs have evolved to see humans as potential pack members and will eagerly join your family.

Dogs are hierarchical animals and need to know what their job is and know that all other jobs are being taken care of adequately by the other pack members. They have an innate understanding of what the pack needs to accomplish: keep watch for enemies, protect pack members, find food and care for young. They want to be instructed as to which job is theirs. Simultaneously, they will also need to understand that the other fundamental jobs are being taken care of appropriately, otherwise they will feel as though it is their responsibility to take care of it.

And finally, they need to know their rank within the pack’s hierarchy -- who tells them what to do, and whom do they instruct. Dogs will dutifully obey whatever those above them in the hierarchy order them to do, while they will enforce their instructions to who are below them. You need to be aware of this, because dogs do not understand that most humans do not understand their language and will inadvertently ignore the dog’s orders! Fortunately, dogs acquiesce command to whoever demonstrates that they can manage the position better, and will gladly drop to the bottom of the hierarchy and let the rest of the pack manage everything.

Taedyn was diagnosed with cancer in the beginning of March. She's had surgery to remove the tumor, and chemo to eradicate what is left. It has been a week and a half since her second dose of chemo, and I noticed she was feeling slightly restless yesterday. This has not been unusual. She has been having diarrhoea on and off and so has been feeling somewhat upset. Her stomach has been grumbly and she's had gas (both burping and farting) for weeks. I thought yesterday's minor discomfort was merely related to the general intestinal discomfort she's been having.

This morning we went to an office for some contracting work, and she shortly became quite restless and would keep moving to lay down in a different spot. I finally put her in a down stay, which gets her to calm down when she merely needs something to focus on. She obeyed, but whined up a storm. I released her, and she wandered around some more, stopped, looked at me and whined. Seemed like the typical, "I have diarrhoea, let me out to poop!!" look, so I promptly took her out. She immediately had a loose stool, and I figured that had to be the problem.

A few minutes after we both settled down, Taedyn started to retch. I ran over to put a trash can under her. She tried and tried, but could not produce anything. My co-worker and I thought she swallowed the vomit. I thought she would try to vomit again, so I sat with her, gently running my hands on her to try to sooth her. She retched again, and again did not produce anything -- but this time she started to drop thick, clear drool right before retching. I laid her down on her side, and ran my hands gently down her body hoping that relaxing for a bit would help settle her digestive track. She then got up, and had a series of walking around, laying down, getting up, retching, licking lips, laying on her side, sitting up, head down, head up, and whining -- basically, she just could not get comfortable.

After she wretched a fourth time, I got her to calm down a bit and lay on her side again so I could run my hands down her body again. This time, however, her stomach visibly looked different than it had the previous time I had her lay down. It looked like it was slightly larger than it just was. I ran my hands over her stomach, and it just didn't feel right. I've felt her stomach so many times grooming her and just petting her. On top of it, with the chemo and special diet, she has been losing A LOT of weight, so she generally has had a concave appearance, but now she seemed to be just starting to be convex.

I immediately thought, "crap. She has bloat." My co-worker is also a dog owner so I asked him, "What's the symptoms for bloat?" "I don't remember." "Can you look it up? Like... right now?" All I remembered was that it was very serious and minutes mattered. He rattled off the symptoms and we both agreed it was very likely she had bloat. So... now I had to get to the vet!

I had no car, so I asked my boss if he could drive us. He was busy, so I asked my co-worker -- he took the train today! At that point I just called out to the office, "I need a car!" Another co-worker did have a car today, so we rushed out. I didn't even pack up my stuff; I just grabbed my phone, wallet and leash and ran out the door!

When we arrived, I told them I suspected she had bloat. He paged the triage nurse. I told her Taedyn has been having unproductive retching and a distended stomach, and she whisked her in the back. A few moments later she came back with a graven look, "Do we have your permission to do x-rays?" I nodded vigorously. They came back confirming it was bloat and that she needed surgery. They also said she was doing amazingly well, and everyone kept asking, "How did you know??"

I put her in a down-stay at around 10:25 (I happened to look at the clock). I thought it was serious enough to ask my my partner to drive us home at 11:03 (he was busy). I checked Taedyn into the vet at 11:30. I walked out of the vets at 12:10. All in all, very fast.

She's out of surgery and doing great. Her stomach had twisted and they put it back and pined it. There was no damage to any of her organs. Taedyn is very fortunate that I was able to figure it out and save her a lot of pain! She's also fortunate that I have a "for emergency use only" credit card because the surgery cost $4k!

She's staying overnight, but everything points to her having a full recovery. I've been reading stories of other dogs that have bloat, and its been scary how many have gotten into surgery and died on the operating table.