Everyone is different, and their needs and lives are changed. For me, three dogs have always been the perfect amount.

Dogs are pack animals, and they are still happiest when they are around other dogs. Some dog lovers resist this idea, preferring the notion that they are more than enough, and their dogs are jealous when attention is paid to other dogs.

More than three dogs are complicated, that is a true pack and the politics and struggles deepen. It is also more difficult to train more than three dogs, at least for me. It’s hard to get their focused attention.

Scientists and biologists don’t believe dogs feel emotions lie jealousy. Dog owners and lovers usually do. We get the dogs we need, after all, and we put on them what we want.

People love to think their dogs are jealous of other dogs, even though there is no evidence that jealousy is a dog emotion – as opposed to domination –  it is a very human one. Dogs don’t carry all of our shit around just because we’d like them to.

My dogs have always been happiest when they are settled into their pack; their politics and hierarchies are fascinating to me. Fate is emerging as the leader, the dominant dog in our universe here, she watches over the others, but increasingly, sits above the fray and the play.

If you watch the ears and tails of a dog, you can read their moods pretty easily.

This image shows that our dogs are at ease with one another, and trust each other. They are comfortable with their position in the pack they are all almost always touching one another when they sleep, and the fact that they sleep with one another in so vulnerable a position shows they are at ease with each other.

Zinnia will eventually be larger than Fate, but she is not a dominant dog, she is very diplomatic. She reads Fate well, and leaves her alone, whereas she torments Bud at will. She does the dog equivalent of butt-kissing with Fate, coming up and licking her nose and wagging her tail. Fate isn’t usually impressed.

So the hierarchy here has Fate at the top, Red in the middle, then Zinnia, which is also how they sleep,   and the order in which we will feed them. Dogs have powerful instincts for hierarchy, they usually know and accept their places.

If you have a large number of dogs with several dominant ones, then there will almost surely be trouble. We have only one dominant dog, Fate.

Fate replaces Red, who was the clear pack leader and was left alone and was also above the fray. He got his treats first, and no one messed with him.

Red led by example, he taught the others how to be calm and live in a house.

When things get too loud or noisy, Fate will tamper things down with a loud bark or growl. She has also become good at what I call the “lip sneer,” she curls her lip up in a snarl when she is annoyed or wishes to be left in peace.

We have three dog beds out by the woodstove, two small ones, and the larger flat bed. Each dog has chosen their bed, and they always sleep in the same order. Fate likes the larger flatbed. At night, when Bud is in a crate upstairs and Zinnia is in her crate, Fate switches, and curls up in a smaller bed.

Fate at the bottom, Bud in the middle, Zinnia at the top. Fate chooses the bed she wants, and then the others curl up in theirs. They always sleep in the same order, day or night.

I loved this image last night, the three sprawled out, separate yet quite connected, Zinnia resting her head on my shoes, as she often does. A dog chain.