Every evening when we relax in front of the television, he grabs my leg and starts humping. I just can't put Mango in a cage, Roberta Cleary complains, but if I leave her alone, she goes crazy, tearing up my furniture and messing on the floor. Shasta, Czar, and Mango are doing what comes naturally to dogs taking the lead when their owners have abrogated their authority. These three pets and tens of thousands of others are benevolent canine dictators, arranging their families to suit their needs and using intimidation when necessary to prove a point. The pack as power Dogs, of course, are wolves in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, but thousands of years of domesticity have moderated their pack behavior.
Wolves band together in family groups to assure survival.
They hunt together, instinctively limit reproduction so that the whole pack can care for a single litter, and keep inter-pack squabbles to a minimum to conserve energy. Dogs don't have to hunt for their food, so they do not need to cooperate with the rest of the pack to chase down a deer or elk. Their reproduction is limited by their owners, not by instinct, and their attitudes towards squabbles depends on breed and circumstances, not on a need to save themselves for the hunt. However, from Chihuahua to Great Dane, they do retain some smattering of pack drives that require owners to exert some authority or risk developing their pet into a four-footed king of the realm. That moderate dusting of wolf behavior inherited by puppies gives dog owners a valuable tool for teaching pet manners and eliminating unacceptable conduct.