first I want to share this: yesterday my Aunt got her dog back, he was lost since last month and was reunited because of the microchip, so people tag your pets, Anyway I was wondering I have watched a LOT of National Geographic and Discovery Channel(Animal planet is under Discovery) episodes about wolves and sometimes about wild dogs, and I never saw a "pack member" stray too far from the "Pack", if so then why is it that a lot of dogs Run away from their homes or "Packs" in the US alone or whenever they have a chance, just like what happened to my Aunt, are dogs really pack animals? Please tell me how it works
Answers:
Yes, they are pack animals. The dogs are not really "running away". It is their nature to roam and explore their territory.
When they get out and take off, they have no intention of not returning, but end up getting lost, or someone picks them up.
This is another reason why their daily walks are so important.
If we, as pack leaders, take the dogs on minimum half hour walks a day, the dogs need to roam would certainly lessen.
And it establishes us as the "pack leader".
was her dog neutered? if not, he might have smelled a female in heat and went searching for her. They do that sometimes.
my dogs would leave my property and go snooping if they got a chance (they don't).
If your aunt hadn't formed the proper pack bonds with her dog, the pack animal logic is out the window because they aren't a pack.
The instinct of a canine to be pack animals is prevalent in the wild state. Domesticated dogs are several times removed from this instinct, but given the situation where they are living with multiple dogs, the instinct of being in a pack surfaces, and one will be the alpha. A single dog, raised by himself, does not look at his home or the people who own him as part of a "pack".
What Maxmom said is absolutely correct. Dogs are pack animals, but instictively want to check out their territory. I have one dog that has found her way out of the yard a couple times. Each time when I go to look for her she is running down the street coming back home. They want to be with their packs, but they also want to know what is going on around their home.
Ahh, the age old question about pack instincts in dogs! (by the way, microchips - best thing ever. Really, people, get your dog 'chipped,' you'll never regret it!)
Getting to the point. While dogs may be pack animals, you have to realize, not everything goes well in wild packs. There are fights, outbreaks, drama: everything you see in daily life!
Some dogs are not happy with being at the lower end of the 'pack' chain. I have a dog who is very prissy, she's an alpha of sorts (although the humans in the family ... with the exception of one who is just a complete pushover with them .. are the 'top dogs.') - so she often conflicts with us in odd ways, such as.. clearly disobeying our orders, ignoring us, or doing things she's been scolded for right infront of us!
Also, some dogs are runner dogs. Elsie, the prissy one I was talking about in the previous paragraph, is a retired racing greyhound - as is Tillie. Mango's the oddball... miniature dachshund (but damn can she run).
Some dogs like to explore. Mango, for instance, is extremely curious - being a puppy. She loves me to death and has .. fairly bad seperation anxiety (.. that I need to work on), but if I let her loose off of her leash in the front yard, she'd be gone. Why? She loves to explore new places. She is naturally inquisitive - but she loves me. So, why would she run away?
Who knows. Dogs think like humans. Why do kids sneak out at night, yet love their parents? They want to roam and be free! They don't want restrictions from curfews and other such things.
Then.. there's this last 'option,' if you will. If you dog is not spayed/neutered/fixed (one, you have to get them neutered/fixed! Please!) they are naturally going to want to go out and continue their lineage. This means, either finding a female in heat if the dog in question is male, or finding a ready male if the dog in question is female.
Un-neutered male dogs, especially, have this problem. It is a big instinct in dogs, to want to continue their lineage. It's a survival mechanism, as odd as it may sound. Male dogs are always ready, and never tied down with pups - they can mate several female dogs within a days time. This said, they will often jump fences, dig under them, or find ways out to try and catch that female dog! This is especially true if there is a female in heat in the area.
My friend had that problem. He would get out daily to try and 'find a mate,' but would only stay in the neighborhood, usually. But when he was neutered, he could care less about the females in heat wandering around the area.
Only good thing about having a unneutered male dog if it gets out? Likelyhood is, you won't have to care for the pups. That said, always neutered unless you're doing professional breeding.
Like many other people have said, dogs have the tendancy to want to roam their territories. They want to know what's going on, who's left their scent where, and if there are any new dogs in town. So, best advice to saite this need? Take your dog on walks around the neighborhood, let it sniff and mark its scent here and there. Likelyhood is, if they escape, they either want to find a mate if they're not fixed, or they want to explore the territory - or possibly heard another dog and wanted to go check it out.
Need anymore help? Feel free to contact me. Sorry for the long-winded advice, and hope it helped!
I am uncertain if dogs see us as 'pack members' the way so many suggest. Read onward...
Wild dogs--those born outside human contact, and raised without humans over several generations-- have unique temperment, muscle and skeleton build which suit them to the life of a scavenger more so than of a predator, and their social interactions are dictacted from that.
Dogs are happy to form loose associations with other dogs--these seem to be very fluid and even domesticated dogs will form temporary packs when given the chance. While wolves are a hunter primarily, dogs in the 'wild' are primarily scavengers--they have weaker jaws and less biting pressure than a wolf. Dogs can hunt small prey--no doubt--but I don't expect to see Lassie take down a full grown deer.
The dog 'pack' is more like that of other scavengers--there is a strength in numbers which may help the dog pack run off others from their kill or find, and defend the find as other opportunists may try to run off the dogs. Being in a pack also prevents higher level predators from attacking the dogs.
So, no, dogs are not innately like wolves. Yes, they can interbreed but so can killer whales and dolphins, folks--and tigers and lions for that matter. Dogs are not fluffly wolves.
Let's look at a theory that can explain a bit your story...
Basically, the ball tossed about theoretically is that dogs can toss things into long term storage and the short term memory get's purged real real fast--any other sense of time is not really required--after all, dogs and wolves both react to stimuli, they are pretty hard wired in the wetworks area. It allows them to learn from experience (the ten percent they can mold in their brain) yet also doesn't clutter their small processors with unrequired data.
Dogs point of view: Why do I need to know about yesterday? or the day before? CAN I even think of --the day before?! I just have RIGHT NOW, and EXPERIENCE. So if you're gone for a day, or five--I just know you're gone--and I've got this whole RIGHT NOW thing to deal with.
there are a couple of things involved here...first, yes, they are pack animals. Sometimes, though, we are not great packs. In nature part of the role of the pack leader is to keep the others from wandering off. And sometimes we're not so great at that. Also, in nature dog or wold packs are migratory. They don't exactly have "homes" so they really don't get that concept as much as we;d like sometimes. It really IS in their nature to wander around.
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