What is a pack?

Sometimes I could swear my cat thinks its a dog.  Runs out of the house when they do, plays in the garden with them and when I call, come running back with them.  Plays with them, wrestles with them.... has even eaten and slept with them in the past.  When she was still a tiny kitten we caught her trying to "suckle".  If someone comes to the house she is the first to let me know (sometimes the only one to let me know, great watchdogs I don't  think).  Sure, as ron points out, there's communication breakdowns occasionally.... but the dogs are smart enough to know darn well she is not a dog and seem to make allowances for that.  I think they do the same for us too, TBH.

Maybe my cats are put off by the fast movement, the noise....barking.....all things cats don't care for that much....we are talking 4 big dogs jumping up at about the same time and racing for the doggie door while barking......I have seen my cats scatter when that takes place....

I think of a pack as 3 or more.

Another friend of mine knew of a cat that was orphaned as a little kitten and nursed on a mother dog who was nursing her other puppies. She swears by whatever you deem holy that the cat would bark.

 Also, Snownose, did you ever wish for earplugs. Shadow's loud enough. It would be tough with 3 more as loud as he is.

 I'm still trying to work out how other animals fit into a dog's idea of a 'pack'. When I brought Kit home, our pack was just me and Penny and my housemates at the time. Penny thought Kit was fun for about a day, and then he tried to suckle from her and she had to run and hide under the bed. From that day on, she's been very sensitive of Kit in her personal space. If he gets within a pace of her, she snaps at him. He, on the other hand, seems to think she's an integral part of his family. He adores her and follows her around and ignores her snapping. He's been found more than once lying on her bed. She'd come in, look at him in her bed, then give me a pained look and plod off to find somewhere else to lie. When I got a second rabbit, the rabbit made it clear she wanted nothing to do with stinking dogs and Penny obligingly ignored the rabbit except to occasionally chase it around the table to make it run. As for cats, there were two cats in the house when Penny was growing up. She was quite chummy with one and would touch noses with the other as she passed. The latter to this day will only tolerate Penny. Any other animal gets hissed at and swatted. Penny would generally ignore the cats unless they wanted to interact with her, but the day the one she was chummy with got stung by a wasp, she was all over him with concerned nosings until he stopped breathing and lost consciousness and was taken away from her (he was fine after an emergency trip to the vets). Interestingly, he's the only cat Penny has ever snapped at, over food and to keep him away from me.

So I'm beginning to think dogs rate other animals in their social hierarchy depending on how much they tend to interact. If another animal ignores them, they generally do likewise, but the more interest another animal has in them and what they're doing, the more they are treated like another dog?
 

When I look at how my dogs interact I could not even imagine a cat trying to be part of that. Perhaps it is because of the type of dogs I have, hard playing bullies. As I mentioned the bark is super loud (yes ron......they have scared me many times when it comes out of the clear blue sky...lol). When 4 bodies all weighing over 70 lbs. push through the house while barking the cats scatter......I have never witnessed any of my cats trying to be part of the dog pack.....the cats have each other and the dogs have each other.....maybe it is different with one dog and one cat......I don't know.....but then again we are talking "pack"....and in my experience a pack of dogs is not interested in having cats in their pack.....

corvus

 I'm still trying to work out how other animals fit into a dog's idea of a 'pack'.

I think it is an illusion.  Dogs will shape their behavior in order to get pleasure and avoid displeasure.  As long as I give the dogs respect and care for them, they will reciprocate.  They are dogs and I am human, different species and dogs have an awareness of this.

As evidence of this, there was no bond or relationship between my pack and my African Grey Bird.  Their only interaction was when the bird would coax them over to the cage by throwing food and then when the dogs would come over, the bird would sneak up behind the dog and bite the dog on the rump.  Since this is an African Grey bird, what followed was the birding saying, "Gotcha", "Heehee", and then "Ouch".  Fun time at DPU's house.

Interesting discussion. I have 2 dogs and 4 cats. The (3 out of 4) cats will attempt to rub on the dogs (whichever one happens to be along their path at the time)  The dog freezes with his head held away.  If the cat keeps walking the dog doesn't move. If the cat want to extend the love, the dog is out of there.  Minimal affection is allowed from the dogs, but not much more....unless I ask them to stay for the cat and suck it up.

The dogs on the other hand (both 60lbs) may get a moment of feelin frisky with the kitty and one swift swipe of the dog style playin paw, and of course the cat is out of there.  The dogs are obviously too rough.  My cats are pretty aggressive about their space though and pop the dogs in the faces when they see fit,  the dogs just laugh at them and walk away like "whatever".   I appreciate how they've all managed to deal with eachother, but I think it takes special cats/dogs to truly accept them into their pack and interact as such.  To eachother, I think they are considered  red-headed step children who are tolerated. 

One of my cats I just brought in from the barn last winter.  The previous summer, Kuda would catch site of her and chase the poor girl til she found a safe place to hide.   I thought if he ever caught her, he'd grap her and shake her like a toy.  Indoors, he has no interest in her.  All she did for him was provide a chase.  Clearly she's no fun anymore.   

What is a pack? To me, a pack is a social group of canids, either temporary, or permanent. A pack can be a momentary thing, such as when a number of feral village dogs pack together to hunt game. Otherwise those feral village dogs live singular lives.

 That is all. I don't think it needs to be any more complicated than that. I don't think cats, humans, birds, and often even other dogs, fit into a "pack" structure. Because to me a pack consists only of canids. Just as a flock of birds consists only of birds. My mice don't fit into a flock.

 Personally I question the "pack" construct when it comes to domestic dogs, because they live such different lives. I'm not sure the term pack applies to dogs living amongst other species, even when numerous dogs live together. The dynamic is totally different and I think a lot of the rules of the game change once interspecies relationships exist. I think the term "pack" is better suited to discussing wild dogs and wolves, where the pack consists of a singular species. I don't think the term was ever meant to be used to describe domestic dogs living within a home with other species.

Kim_MacMillan

I don't think the term was ever meant to be used to describe domestic dogs living within a home with other species.

That may be and a different term might clear things up, as a "pack" of domestic dogs act differently than a pack of wolves. For example, witness the people here with 3 or more dogs and they are able to act as "leader" for that group of dogs. You can't really do that in the wild with a pack of wolves. In the wild, at best, the wolves will simply leave you alone and run off at 40 mph to go hunt.

Personally, it doesn't bother me to use the word pack and I would nominally accept others' definition that it is 3 or more dogs. But we do have to differentiate, which can be confusing, between a pack of domestic canids and a pack of wild canids. As you point out so well, since the behavior of dogs is different is then their domestic group equivalent to that of a wolf pack? It is has been scientifically proven that dogs seek cues from humans and wolves do not. Even wolves raised in captivity do not seek cues from humans. At best, they see humans as a friendly species that they will ignore when necessary. Also, a true pack is a family of wolves, as in bloodline or sanguinity. As opposed to humans and adopted or purchased domestic dogs, often of different breeds.

I have a "pack" of cats (minimum of three, depends on rescues and who I'm living with) and a dog.  At present, the dog and cats are not in a pack together.  They are curious of each other and are still trying to figure out how they are supposed to interact together.  The cats have not changed the way the dog behaves and the dog has not brought any changes to my cat pack.  The cats act as they always have and their social structure has not changed or readjusted, so I can't say the dog is part of that pack. 

Liesje......good observation.......kind of hard to think of cats and dogs interacting as one happy pack.....

Yeah I'm having a really hard time imagining it, maybe time will prove me wrong!  But even if I come home to find three cats on top of my German Shepherd like they all pile on top of me, I still don't think of them as a "pack" b/c neither species seems to affect the behaviors and social structure of the other.  I think humans have more of an affect on a dog pack than cats.  I didn't train Kenya to accept cats as "alpha" as if they are higher than her in our pack.  I just train the dog to leave the cats alone and the cats to leave the dog alone.  I'm a human, cats are cats, the dog is a dog.  I don't really see us as a real "pack", just a bunch of domestic species who respect each others' needs and boundaries enough to cohabitate. 

snownose

kind of hard to think of cats and dogs interacting as one happy pack.....

Yeah, mine don't. They don't interact at all. We have true segregation in this house. Separate but equal. (well, I guess that depends on what you mean by 'equal';) But the dogs are extremely curious about the cats.

Hey RON, At least me and one other person cannot look at your profile. We both get the Oops message when we click on your name. She wanted to PM you and couldn't. You might want to get some help on that as your account seems to have a bug of some sort.
 

I can't get into my own inbox, either. I just assumed, eventually, all the bugs would be worked out but I guess they have to go through account by account, which must be painstaking and difficult.