Dog psychology – what is it?

Psychology means study of the mind and behaviour in a particular environment.

Let’s start off with the most important message that I will be repeating throughout this course.. Dogs are an animal they are not human. So ok this is an obvious statement that we all know to be true but how many people including yourself treat your dog as if they were a human?

We humanise our dogs. We bring them in to a human family and environment and we expect them to understand what we are doing and saying, we expect them to feel the same as we do about things.

We give them names and personalities, we even give them breeds. Dog doesn’t care about any of that, all they care about is “Am I the leader or am I the follower? “
Dogs live in the moment, Humans live in the past and the future, we only tend to live in the moment when a near death experience occurs and then we start to see life as it really is and think everything is beautiful.

What I have learnt from dogs is to live in the moment… If a dog attacks somebody or something yesterday then they are given a label as being aggressive and that’s the reputation they get and have to live up to. People become afraid of them and the dogs then react to that fear and are likely to bite again. Dogs bite fear.
Just because they attacked and bit yesterday doesn’t mean that is who they are today.  We need to look closer at why they have attacked and change something within ourselves.

Once we understand the needs of our dogs we can fulfil our roles as great dog caretakers – great pack leaders.

Let’s look at dogs as animals
Animals do not communicate by using words. They communicate through constant energy and vibrations. They communicate through body language and thought. Every thought has a vibration. A happy thought will have a high vibration and a sad or negative thought will have a low vibration. We as humans are sensitive to these vibrations as we know when our partner or boss is in a bad mood. But as humans we can hide our emotions and feelings to suit those around us where as animals do not so this and will express who or what they are feeling in that moment. They are more highly tuned into these vibrations than most of us are.

Dogs in particular can tell what’s going on inside of you as you will be emitting vibrations and body language that accompanies your subconscious thoughts. There for if you are feeling afraid or fearful then a dog will pick up on this instantly and may see it as his job to protect you.

It is never the dog’s job to protect you. A dog is no more intelligent than a one or two year old child, we would never give the job of looking after us to a one or two year old so we should never give this role to our dogs. They just can’t cope with it. When a dog thinks he is the leader of a human pack this is when he will become stressed and misbehaviours will start.

To be a great leader of your dog you need to look after him and show that you have everything under control. The best leaders of any army or any company or family are the ones that show calm assertive energy at all times even when everything around them is in chaos. This is when you look to your leader to provide you a way out of the sticky situation and the best ones do in a calm but assertive manner.

We have a all had a boss that shouts and screams at his team, gets aggressive and barks orders at them. They struggle with leading the team in an efficient way and they become agitated and fearful. No one respects a boss like this and no one trusts a boss like this. It is the same when it come to our dogs, if they think we are not up to the job of leader then they will feel obliged to take over the role and this is where the problem begins.

Let’s look at dogs in their natural habitat with out the humans. The wild dog pack.
The wild dog pack needs a hierarchy system in order to gain order control and survival.
Each wild dog pack will have and Alpha male and an alpha female, and then the lower ranking dogs which are there to help to look after the pack and baby sit the pups.
Only the Alpha Male and Female are allowed to mate in the pack. It is vital that the strongest genes of the pack are carried forward. The alphas of the pack work together and make all the decisions for the pack. They are the pack leaders. They are the first to head the hunt, make the decisions about which prey to kill and give the commands for the kill to take place .They then are the first to eat on the kill. They will take all the best bits of the kill to ensure they survive over the others.

When the wild pack does have pups then The other will enter the den and no other dog even the alpha male is allowed into her den until she say so. The rest of the pack will wait outside the den and protect it against any danger or threat.  The alphas of the pack never show fear and always have calm but assertive energy around their pack. If any of the pack act out of line then it will be up to the higher ranking dogs and the alphas to discipline the dogs and teach them what behaviour is acceptable in their pack
Let’s look at the mother and her pups.

The pups have to find a place in their pack and that becomes their status. They either become the leader or the follower. They do not have names to identify them like we do they have status.

The mother or father of the pups will always project calm assertive energy towards their pups, they will not project nervousness, anxiety, tension or fear. What they project is calm assertive energy. This is what we call balanced energy.

All animals behave in this way with their young. It really is only the human that has unbalanced energy from their world leaders. They show fear, greed, guilt, and anxiety and get the rest of us into that state of being too.

When we invite the dog into our home and we take in the puppies we want to look after them like they are our babies, we start from day one to humanise them. This is only fulfilling our human needs and we are forgetting what the dog really needs. This is when the puppies first get to start to know about the energy they are sharing with you. They don’t know your name, your race, what or who you are or have achieved, all they know is the energy you share with them on daily basis.

Puppies will not follow an emotional leader, they will not follow a lovable leader, Puppies and dogs will follow a calm assertive leader. You see homeless dogs and they follow their leader, they go where their leader goes and do not need to be kept on a lead. Domesticated dogs are taught with extendable leads to go out in front on their leads putting them into a leadership state of mind and creating a dog that is uncontrollable.

Pack leader qualities
How does the mother of the pups create calm assertive energy?
    They create rules limitation and boundaries from the moment the pups are born. This is how the mother creates respect from her pups. She will tell them how far they can go from the den, make them wait for their food, she will bite their necks to keep them line and carry them by their necks.
    So the start of becoming a great pack leader is to start by creating rules limitation and boundaries.
    This is often the hardest thing for the human to do as they just want to love their new puppy or rescue dog and show it masses of affection.
    The simple rule to follow to create Rules limitations and boundaries is exercise, then discipline then affection. We must exercise our dogs first to drain them of their excess energy and keep their body and mind fit and healthy.
    We must then give discipline, we must create rules for them to follow and stick to them. We discipline calmly when they are out of line or out of balance. When the dog is in a hyper state or leader state of mind then we must not give them affection as this will only reinforce their unwanted behaviour. We only give them affection when they are in calm state of mind. Affection must come last.
    It is typical of the clients and dogs that I see that the dog owner is giving maybe love and then exercise then discipline, sometimes they just give affection and the dog does not know any rules limitations or boundaries and controls the roost.
Most dog owners find the discipline the hardest to give and often say “what ignore my dog”. “but I feel sorry for it or it is hungry or it needs my attention”… it is ok to give affection or food but at the right time and it must be on your terms. The dog must never demand things from you. This will put him in the leadership position and this is when danger can arise.  

Dogs as Breeds
Let’s look at Breeds of dog. Many people put unwanted behaviour down to the breed and believe it is natural for a breed to behave in a certain way. We as human get caught up in the breed of the dog.
   For example if a German shepherd is being aggressive it is not his breed that makes him that way but because his energy is out of balance. Every breed of dog is just a dog, an animal. It is the human that gives the dog a breed.  The breed is just the skill or outfit he is wearing, it’s about how they look not how they behave right?
   Let’s take a look at the Siberian husky, they have the ability to travel over long distances over a period of days, but all dogs can travel, it’s just that the husky can do it for days without tiring.
    We have to remember that we have invited the closest descendant of the wolf into our homes and we need to treat them as an animal and not a breed.

Dogs are ANIMAL, DOG BREED THEN NAME
Us Humans like to think it is NAME, then BREED, then HUMAN
This is how a dog becomes a human in our eyes.
So it is not the fault of the breed so do not focus on the breed, focus on the animals energy.

STRONG BREEDS
Any dog can cause damage when they bite, but the larger the dog the larger the damage. It is important to recognise the power of a strong breed, the Staffordshire bull terriers, the mastiffs and German Shepherds come in. These are the large dogs that can lock onto their prey and destroy. These are the types of breeds that it is vitally important that we learn how to become pack leader with.  Even if you do not own that type of dog it is important that we learn how to handle them should they come into our lives. Even smaller breeds like Jack Russell can do some serious damage so we must learn to become pack leaders with all breeds of dog.

Check Out the Canine Angel Website for more information on how to be a great pack leader to your dog, including videos, radio interviews, Blog, free tips and lots more at
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