10 Principles for Achieving Balance Archives - Page 3 of 7

Be the Pack Leader

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

In my new book “Lessons from the Pack,” one of the things I wrote is this: “The building blocks of pack leadership are respect and trust, not fear and domination.” How dogs teach us to respect is the lesson of the first chapter, and I cannot emphasize it enough. If your dog doesn’t trust you, she’ll never respect you. Without those, she won’t follow you because you aren’t leading. People who try to use fear and domination on their dogs may think they have loyal, obedient animals, but they don’t. At the very least, this kind of style will create

March 3, 2017 No Comments

A Dog's Senses Form His Reality

Similar And Different

A dog and a human are very different species. Our last common ancestor probably lived about 60 million years ago, so while we have a biological connection it is a bit distant. However we do have a lot of shared traits through being warm-blooded mammals — we have hair, four limbs, two eyes, and give birth to live young. Now, I could say the same thing about gophers, hedgehogs, and a lot of other animals, but I don’t think anyone is going to immediately think that they’re just like us or vice versa. And yet, with dogs, a lot of

January 20, 2017 No Comments

Cesar Millan

The Tallest Tree In The Forest

Depending on where you’re from, the words “General Sherman” might mean different things. The Cesar’s Way Offices, for example, are in Sherman Oaks, California, which was named for General Moses Hazeltine Sherman. You might also think of General William Tecumseh Sherman, who led Union troops during the American Civil War. But the General Sherman I’m thinking of is a tree, and it’s currently the largest tree in the U.S. It’s located in Sequoia National Park in California, is around 2,500 years old, and is only about two inches shy of 275 feet (84 meters) tall — that’s as tall as

December 9, 2016 No Comments

Be Aware of Your Energy

You Can’t Change The Weather, But You Can Change Yourself

One thing I’ve learned about the weather in L.A. is that it’s unpredictable. The best way to describe it is “consistently inconsistent.” We can go from gloomy and foggy one day to hot and sunny the next, and if you want to know what season it is, you need to look at a calendar, not out the window. We can go months with meteorologists predicting rain three days away, but that rain never comes. It can make it very difficult to prepare for the day, especially when you head out in the morning dressed for hot and sunny and come

October 11, 2016 No Comments

10 Principles for Achieving Balance

My Dog Is Perfect, Except When…

I talk a lot about energy, especially calm and assertive energy, but now I’d like to talk about two other words that relate to energy. The first is “inertia.” When scientists use the word, they mean it in a strictly physical sense. “Inertia” describes how an object tends to keep on doing what it’s doing. If it’s moving, it will keep moving until something stops it. If it’s not moving, it will sit there until something gives it a push. The second word is “momentum.” It refers to the fact that once an object is in motion, it’s hard to

July 14, 2016 No Comments

10 Principles for Achieving Balance

10 Signs That You Are Not Yet A Pack Leader

Having a dog is a wonderful experience, but in order to have the best possible relationship with your dog, you need to establish yourself as the Pack Leader. From the moment they’re born, puppies look to their mothers for guidance and training. But once that puppy or adult dog joins your family, the Pack Leader torch gets passed on to you. You need to set rules and boundaries with your dog to ensure both of you lead happy, balanced lives. If you’re new to this and you’re not quite there yet, don’t worry! You can learn the skills necessary to

March 15, 2016 No Comments

All About Dogs

Strange Facts About Canine Instincts

Every dog is born with a number of natural behaviors, things they can do without having to be trained or taught. Certain breeds have incredibly visible canine instincts, such as guarding or herding behavior, or strong natural hunting abilities. These are instincts that have been intentionally bred into these dogs over generations. But while dogs can be bred to encourage particular skills and behaviors, there are also a number of natural instincts that every canine shares. Many of them are so innocuous or understandable that most Pack Leaders don’t even think about them. Some examples include dogs’ inborn ability to

December 8, 2015 No Comments

a dog using his senses to smell the ground

10 Principles for Achieving Balance

Mastering Cesar’s Natural Dog Laws

In order to have a well-behaved, balanced dog, every Pack Leader needs to understand how dogs work. To do this, they need to understand dog psychology, which Cesar explains with his Five Natural Dog Laws, telling us, “If you are going to be the Pack Leader to your dogs, you must understand who they are and what they need as dogs.” Learning what the laws are is one thing, but learning how to use them to help your dog is another. How-Tos of Mastering Dog Laws Dogs are instinctual Being instinctual, dogs live in the moment; they react immediately to

November 3, 2015 No Comments

Cesar Millan walks with pet owners and their canines.

Dog Training

Mastering The Pack

One of the exercises that Cesar has everyone who attends his Fundamentals of Dog Behavior and Training I course do is the pack walk. One-by-one, everybody takes charge and walks a pack of eight or more dogs, all at once. It can be an inspiring sight as someone who had trouble walking just one dog of their own suddenly takes the reins and leads a whole bunch of them. If you’re having difficulty walking your dog, you may wonder how it’s possible to walk a whole lot of them at once, but it’s not as daunting as it sounds. Here

July 4, 2015 No Comments

dogs running in the snow, there are natural leaders and followers

Dog Psychology

Natural Dog Law 5: Dogs Are Social Pack Animals.

As descendants of wolves, dogs are instinctual pack animals. They instinctually seek to join whatever pack is nearby. This explains why dogs can get along so well with so many other animals, especially other pack or herd animals like horses, cows, and sheep. There’s even at least one case of a dog and elephant becoming best friends. It’s also why dogs have bonded so well with humans. We too are social creatures and dogs instinctually sense that and seek to join our pack. We humans have become ‘ or should be ‘ their Pack Leaders now. In a dog pack,

July 3, 2015 No Comments