Dogs have an inborn characteristic and tend to behave like ?pack? animals. It seems to be naturally inbuilt within them to bond, have partnerships and believe in teamwork; just like the wolves, their ancestors. Their behavior is like a member of the sports team where players co-ordinate with each other to win the game. Hence, it treats the owner and its family members as its own team and expects them to work as a team for survival, learning home rules and molding its behavior.

In every successful team, each member follows certain common characteristics, so as to maintain harmony, peace, and discipline. Each one has responsibilities and duties and need to respect each other. The same is expected among the family team including the dog, or else chaos shall rein which shall confuse the dog and it will not know whom to consider the leader of the pack.

All dogs and puppies need to know their leader for their happiness, security and the feeling of belonging to the family. It does not matter as to who is the leader for your family or pet, but the pet just needs one and to know who it is for its well being.

You can instill security and sense of belonging in the dog even if your family has many members living together. In time, the dog learns and picks up the family hierarchical structure. For example the dog living with a small family, will learn that the owner has a wife and children who all live together and that is the structure of the team it is living with. Moreover, all the family members are its bosses and have more rights to play a role in the team than it has. Nevertheless, the dog shall feel happy and secure. Please note that if there is indiscipline or rules are lacking in the house, the dog will be in a dilemma and display confused behavior.

By now, you would have realized that for your dog to be happy at home, it needs a clear set of rules and limitations. They are a lot like the kids in need their parents to make and enforce the home rules or else the kids shall have personality and behavioral problems. They need someone to guide and lead them.

If the dog does not accept the family as its team and does not know who its boss is, it is bound to create problems and handling it can be a nightmarish experience. Therefore, it is imperative to set a social structure and order in the family. Besides, you need to be able to read the body language of your dog and understand its thoughts such as who does the dog think is its boss?

Creating a family pack or team shall be easier if all family members coordinate and reach an agreement or understanding as to how should the dog be treated. This saves time and efforts in the development of the family pack and your dog shall be a disciplined, well-trained and happy one.