Page 8 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • April 23, 2014 Thank you to all the families, Girl Scout troops, and individuals for the incredible Easter baskets that have been coming in. They were so special for all our fami- lies. We have a new family that is in need of kosher food. Gift cards to Zadie’s Kosher Bake Shop and Food Show- Case, both in Fair Lawn, would be appreciated. Meet Mickie: Mickie has been battling an inoper- able brain tumor for a decade now. Although he goes for surgeries to drain fluid as a result of the tumor, the location makes it impossible for the surgeon to remove. The residual damage over the years has been profound. Mickie has had significant hearing and vision loss, loss of motor control resulting in his being wheelchair bound, hand tremors making it a challenge to eat and drink, and numerous infections as a result of treatment, to name a few. He requires constant daily care, and his mom had to give up her job to be his full-time caretaker, chauffeur to doctor appointments, and out-patient therapy provider. Mickie’s pleasures include Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and muffins and getting out to an occasional movie. Gift cards to Dunkin’ Donuts or to the AMC theaters would be a true treat. ShopRite grocery cards would help Mom tremendously as finances are limited. ECF is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide a variety of specialized services, at no charge, to any New Jersey family facing the challenges of caring for a child with cancer. ECF provides direct in-home care to our families. Many do not have the financial or emotional support to help them get through a major ill- ness like cancer, so ECF focuses on providing families with counseling by a professional case worker, mate- rial goods (such as household items, toys, and monthly grocery deliveries), and emergency financial assistance. These individually tailored services are critical in help- ing families get through the crisis of pediatric cancer intact. ECF does not receive any government funding – so donations from the community are essential. Please call the Northern Regional Center at (201) 612-8118 or e- mail Laura at laura@emmanuelcancer.org to see how you can help. • We need volunteers who can deliver grocer- ies to families in Bergen and Essex counties. Spanish- speaking drivers are in particularly high demand! • Turn your event into a fundraiser where you collect checks or gift cards, or donate space in your res- taurant or business for a few hours to host a fundraiser for our families. • Get the kids involved. Proceeds from lemonade stands and sales of baked goods make a difference. •Is your office looking for a community service proj- ect? Collecting food for our food pantry would be a tre- mendous help. • Is your Scout troop looking to earn badges? This is a great way to get creative and have fun while learning about philanthropy. • Does your company have a charitable giving pro- gram? If so, please let us know. If you have a few hours a week to spare, consider becoming a volunteer or just stop by and meet with us, take a look at our food pantry, and see what ECF is all about. The Northern Regional Center is located at 174 Paterson Avenue in Midland Park. Call us at (201) 612-8118 before you stop by. Because storage space is limited, please do not leave items at the center without checking with us first. For more information, visit www. emmanuelcancer.org or “like” us on Facebook: Emman- uelCancerFoundation. As always, thank you for helping the children and their families! Area Debunking the ‘dog pack’ myth We have all been told by various TV shows that dogs are pack animals, but is this really the case? Consider this research done by those who have stud- ied dogs and wolves in the wild. These studies found that typically free ranging dogs are scavengers, or hunt small game, which does not require the formation of the much discussed “dog pack.” Even before dogs were domesti- cated, the purpose of forming a pack was to hunt large game many times their size. Hunting large game was not something dogs did very often. A more appropriate term may be that there is a social hierarchy with free ranging dogs. Free ranging dogs occasionally form social groups when there is a female in heat or a food source, but once the female has mated, or the food source exhausted, the dogs go back to their own lives according to expert dog trainer and author Jean Donaldson. Even more fascinating is that this social hierarchy may be quite fluid. One dog may be more assertive at one time, or may defer at another time, depending on what resource is being challenged and how much each dog desires that resource. As an example, a dog may challenge another over a bone at one time, but at another time be ready to give up the bone and defer to the chal- lenger. This well-intentioned, but misguided wisdom about dog packs was deduced from wolf studies in 1947 and led us to believe that dogs are just like wolves. Dogs are ancestors of the wolves, but they are far from wolves. Even wolf studies have changed over time. This con- ventional wisdom has not served us, or our dogs, well because what developed from this concept, and took hold with the power of mythology, was the pack domi- nance theory. The dominance theory is the belief that the way to earn respect from a dog is to become an authoritarian figure and force the dog into submission, just as the alpha wolf. This led to an era of dominance-based train- ing methods that are still prevalent and are used in the training of dogs in the military where alpha rolls, leash pops, and other similar corrections were overused along with force-based training tools such as choke and prong collars. Behaviors in dogs occur because they have been rewarded, often inadvertently by their owners, and because other behaviors have not been trained as an alternative. Many of the behaviors dogs exhibit are normal for them, but unacceptable to humans. Dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years. They do not need to be in packs to socialize. They have been loners with the exception of breeding season or when they were hunting large game. Rest assured that your dog does not need to be socializing in a pack to be happy, nor is pack behavior common in dogs. This article was submitted by Heidi Wise, president of Coddled Creatures, LLC.