In Animal Farm, what is significant about how the animals arrange themselves as they gather to hear Old Major?

 

Whencalls the animals together to relate his strange dream and his philosophy of
Animalism, they sit in audience seemingly at random:

First
came the three dogs, Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher, and then the pigs, who settled down in the
straw immediately in front of the platform. The hens perched themselves on the window-sills, the
pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to
chew the cud.
(, , msxnet.org)

Of their positioning, however, it is interesting to note that the dogs and pigs sit
together, at the front, while the sheep and cows sit "behind the pigs." This shows how
the relationship between the pigs and dogs will progress, withtraining puppies to serve in his
own private army. It also shows how the sheep and cows serve as a groupthink mob for the pigs,
as they have little volition of their own, and usually simply repeat everything the pigs say.
This is a subtleof their roles in the revolution, as well as the import they place on Old
Major's words; the pigs listen intently, while the sheep and cows are content to mimic the pigs
without putting forward independent thought.

 

href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm