Remember a few years ago there were all these dog trainers filming themselves doing “pack walks” with groups of dogs? The trainer was in the lead, and a group of off leash dogs were following them, as if the trainer was some kind of Pied Piper or “Alpha” wolf pack leader on a hunt.
You realize that was all a gimmick, right?
Let’s back up a bit. When wolves go on a hunt, they generally are trotting along, single file, with the dominant breeding male, the “Alpha” in the lead. He generally is the most experienced wolf in his family, and his offspring follow him as he heads out to find prey to kill and eat. He isn’t, however, a dictator. The direction of the group is somewhat of a consensus of the highest-ranking wolves, and he can be influenced by their choice of direction. They aren’t in some kind of herd behind him on a trek, they are single file, and no one had to teach them to do that.
Contrast that to these “pack walks”. The group is not on a hunt and never has been on a hunt. There is no instinctive behavioral mechanism in play, they are walking as a group, and the picture you see was done by normal off leash obedience Heel work.
Humans aren’t wolves. There isn’t a single hunter of any type of dog where they can just let the dogs out of the campground, and with no training at all, expect all those dogs (scent hounds, greyhounds, pointers, spaniels, retrievers, setters) to follow them single file to the hunting grounds. That also doesn’t work with police and military dogs. No police officer or military member jumps out of their vehicle or chopper with an untrained dog, and the dog just follows them on the way to the objective, off leash, behind the handler, with no training, just because the handler is walking like an “Alpha”.
If this person really did have that “Alpha” demeanor, then they could walk into a pack of wolves, or any group of their dogs at an off leash park, without any training with those animals, stand tall, go walk in a direction without any words and no lures, and they would all follow single file, through the wilderness or park or city. You also never see them take a dog in public, off leash, establish their leadership by their demeanor, and the dogs start automatically walking behind them. Those novice dogs are always started out on leash in public. Isn’t that obvious?
In other words, it is a gimmick. It isn’t real.
Now, trainers offer group class walks that they call “pack walks” for past students, with their trained dogs, to walk on leash around one another to practice not pulling on a leash, and to be neutral to the other dogs in nearby proximity. That’s fine, call it whatever you want. That is a normal exercise in any group class, indoors or outdoors. What they don’t do is take all the dogs off leash, let them fight it out into a pack, and then have one person just walk like an “Alpha” (which means only the men could do it) and all the dogs leave their owners and instinctively follow that person, regardless how well trained each dog was.
The term “pack walk” got popularized by the above examples.
It’s not fun to realize you have been manipulated.
Plan accordingly.