When several excited dogs live together without clear rules, boundaries, and direction, the problem can become much bigger than any one dog's behavior. The dogs may compete, become increasingly difficult to control, overwhelm visitors, pull against one another on walks, and feed off the energy of everyone around them.
That was the situation Janette and John faced with their three large dogs, Dozer, Bella, and Louie. The dogs could become intensely excited within seconds. Visitors struggled to enter the house without being jumped on. Walking all three together seemed impossible. Tension around toys could quickly escalate. Even getting through the front door had become chaotic.
For Cesar Millan, the central issue was not simply that there were three difficult dogs. The deeper problem was that the pack had very little structure.
The dogs had affection, but they did not have enough rules, boundaries, and limitations. Cesar's work with the family showed how much can change when humans stop negotiating with excitement and begin providing calm, confident direction instead.
What This Pack Needed Most
The biggest lessons from this family were simple:
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Excitement becomes harder to manage when the human adds more excitement, frustration, or anxiety.
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Affection at the wrong moment can reinforce a state of mind the human does not actually want.
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A multi-dog household needs rules, boundaries, and limitations, not only love.
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The most excited dog may need to be addressed first before the rest of the group can settle.
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Pairing a calmer dog with a more excited dog can help create a better rhythm within the pack.
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Calm, Confident leadership from the humans helped the dogs learn to walk, move, and live together more successfully.
Love Was Not the Problem
Janette clearly loved her dogs.
She treated them like family, celebrated them, and gave them plenty of affection. Her sister Jenny even described the dogs as Janette's "babies."
Cesar did not suggest that loving dogs was wrong. His concern was the way that love was being expressed.
A person can love a dog deeply, but Cesar believes problems can develop when the dog is humanized instead of being understood as a dog. In this household, affection was sometimes being given while the dogs were already excited.
While observing the home, Cesar noticed affection being given at the wrong time. Instead of helping the dogs move toward a calmer state, the humans could unintentionally nurture the excitement that was already present.
That distinction became important throughout the process.
The lesson was not to remove affection. It was to add the structure that had been missing.
The dogs needed guidance along with love.
Why Excitement Kept Spreading Through the Pack
Dozer was a five-year-old Rottweiler mix. Bella was a six-year-old German Shepherd. Louie was a one-year-old pit-Lab mix.
At first, the dogs got along well. Louie had regularly visited John and his dogs before Janette and John moved in together. Playing with the other dogs helped drain Louie's energy.
After the dogs began living together full time, however, friction gradually developed.
The dogs competed with each other. Their play could suddenly become intense. Toy possession became a problem, particularly involving Dozer. Their humans said attempts to physically break up the dogs seemed to increase the intensity.
Walking them together presented another challenge. All three pulled hard as they tried to stay ahead of one another.
Visitors created even more excitement. The dogs crowded people as soon as they entered. Janette and John did not know how to stop the behavior, and some family members no longer felt comfortable visiting.
Cesar saw an excited pack whose energy was constantly being reinforced.
Louie was often the trigger, but Cesar did not view Louie as the entire problem. He identified the lack of rules and boundaries throughout the household as the larger issue.
The result was what he described as a pack in chaos.
The Door Revealed Who Was Really in Control
The front door became one of the clearest examples of the problem.
When someone arrived, the dogs pushed toward the entrance. Janette and John negotiated with them rather than calmly directing them away from the space.
Cesar demonstrated a different approach.
He backed the dogs away from the door before entering. He did not allow them to decide how the greeting would happen.
That mattered because the doorway was not only about visitors. It exposed the relationship between the humans and the pack.
Cesar told Janette and John that they should be able to do what he was doing even more effectively because the dogs already knew them.
The goal was not a confrontation with three large dogs. It was clear direction.
Instead of negotiating, the human gives direction from a Calm, Confident state.
Cesar also pointed out that even children have rules, boundaries, and limitations. Janette and John thought of their dogs as their babies, but their dogs were missing the structure that should have accompanied that affection.
Address the Dog Who Needs Direction First
Managing three excited dogs does not always mean trying to correct all three at exactly the same moment.
Cesar focused on the dog in the most intense state of mind.
In this pack, that dog was often Louie.
By addressing Louie's excitement first, Cesar could influence the rest of the group. He described the process as creating a ripple effect.
That became especially clear when preparing the dogs for a walk.
The dogs were initially too excited to leave together. Cesar worked with them one at a time, starting with Louie, then Dozer, then Bella.
Once their excitement decreased and the pack became more manageable, he brought them together.
This gave the humans a different way to think about managing multiple dogs. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by three minds at once, they could identify which dog most needed direction in that moment and begin there.
Why the Human's Energy Matters
Janette had another challenge.
She felt nervous around the dogs' size and strength, and Cesar noticed frustration and resistance during the early work.
He told her that the dogs were responding to what she represented to them: excitement, love, and anxiety.
If Janette expected the dogs to relax while she remained frustrated or anxious, the dogs could reflect that energy.
Cesar wanted her to relax first.
This became one of the most important changes she made.
During Cesar's first visit, Janette felt tense and embarrassed about the dogs' behavior. Two weeks later, her approach looked different.
When Louie became excited as she prepared him for a walk, she did not nurture that excited state. She calmly put the leash back and waited until he settled.
Cesar immediately recognized the difference.
Janette was no longer simply reacting to the dogs. She was making a clear decision about the state of mind she wanted before moving forward.
Walking Together Changed the Meaning of the Pack
Janette and John believed walking all three dogs at once was nearly impossible.
Cesar wanted to show them another possibility.
Once the dogs were calmer, he walked them together and continually paid attention to their individual excitement levels. When one dog became more excited, usually Louie, Cesar addressed that dog.
He also changed their positions as needed to help balance the group.
Another part of his strategy was pairing.
Cesar suggested pairing a calmer dog with a more excited dog so the calmer dog could act as a role model.
With Cesar's help, John eventually walked all three dogs together for the first time.
The walk represented more than leash control. It showed the humans that the three dogs did not have to function as competitors.
They could begin moving in the same direction.
From Competition to Working Together
The following day, Cesar continued the work at the Dog Psychology Center.
When the dogs arrived, they were barking and anxious. Rather than trying to suppress all of that energy, Cesar wanted to channel it in a productive direction.
The goal was to help three individual dogs understand that they were going somewhere together.
It was no longer about each dog trying to get ahead.
Cesar again used pairing while working with the dogs around bicycles. Louie and Bella began developing a rhythm together while John worked with Dozer.
Once Louie and Bella were moving in sync, Cesar added Dozer.
The dogs were accustomed to competing with one another, so learning to work together required adjustment. As the exercise progressed, however, Cesar observed them moving as a more functional, compatible pack.
His main role was regulating the speed. The dogs themselves were doing the work of moving together.
For the first time, Janette and John saw all three dogs operating in harmony rather than constant competition.
The next challenge was bringing that same state back home.
Training Only Matters If It Transfers Home
Success at the Dog Psychology Center was not enough.
Cesar wanted Janette and John to transfer what they had seen into everyday situations, especially the leash and the front door.
Their homework required teamwork.
He wanted them to control the dogs as they left the house, and he especially wanted Janette to build enough confidence to walk the entire pack herself.
Over the next two weeks, the couple practiced what they had learned every day.
When Cesar returned, the difference appeared immediately.
During his first visit, simply entering the home had been difficult. On his return, Janette and John worked together. John managed the dogs while Janette answered the door.
The dogs still barked, but the intensity was no longer the same.
Cesar called it the teamwork he had wanted to see.
The biggest change was not that the dogs had suddenly become different animals.
The humans were behaving differently.
Calm Confidence Created a Different Relationship
The final walking exercise showed how much Janette had changed.
Previously, preparing the dogs to leave had produced chaos. This time, she recognized Louie's excitement, calmly stopped the process, and waited for him to settle before continuing.
She was no longer nurturing excitement.
She was leading.
Cesar connected that change directly to the state Janette brought into the relationship.
In the animal world, he told them, who a person is comes through as energy.
By the end of the process, Janette and John had become the Pack Leaders their dogs needed. Their pack could walk together, play together, and live together with greater harmony.
The transformation did not come from loving the dogs less.
It came from combining that love with the direction the dogs had been missing.
The Better Dog Perspective
At Better Dog Supplements, the human-dog relationship comes first. Cesar Millan's work with Janette, John, and their dogs demonstrates why tools or support cannot replace the human's responsibility to provide direction, structure, trust, and calm leadership.
A Functional Pack Starts With the Humans
Dozer, Bella, and Louie did not begin this process by moving together as one pack. They competed, pulled, crowded visitors, became highly excited, and were difficult for their humans to manage.
The turning point was not simply teaching the dogs a new command.
Janette and John had to change the way they interacted with them.
They learned to stop negotiating at the door, address excitement before moving forward, create rules and boundaries, work as a team, and approach the dogs with greater calm and confidence.
Once the humans changed their role, the dogs had clearer direction.
The family that once believed walking all three dogs together was impossible eventually saw them walk, play, and live together as a more functional pack.
Cesar's lesson was clear: love remains part of the relationship, but dogs also need humans who can guide them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why were the three dogs so difficult to control together?
Cesar identified excitement, competition, and a lack of rules and boundaries as the main problems in the household. Louie often triggered the excitement, but the larger issue involved the structure of the entire pack.
Can too much affection make an excited dog harder to manage?
Cesar observed that Janette sometimes gave affection while the dogs were already excited. His concern was not affection itself, but affection given at a moment when the dogs needed calm direction instead.
Which dog should a pet parent address first in an excited pack?
In this case, Cesar addressed the dog in the most intense state of mind first. That was often Louie. Calming one dog helped create a ripple effect through the rest of the pack.
Why did Cesar pair calmer dogs with more excited dogs?
He used pairing to help balance the dogs' energy. A calmer dog could serve as a role model for the more excited dog as they learned to move together.
Why was Janette's emotional state important?
Cesar saw that Janette represented excitement, love, and anxiety to the dogs. When she became calmer and more confident, she was better able to provide the direction the pack needed.
What changed after Janette and John practiced Cesar's approach?
After two weeks of daily work, they showed better teamwork at the door and more control while preparing the dogs for walks. Janette was able to calmly wait for Louie to settle rather than reinforcing his excitement.