Comment

Comment by Joanna Kimball on January 6, 2010 at 4:12am

Since I've had a "pack" rather than individual dogs for a very long time now, and spend thousands of hours watching them, I have come more over to the "they're wolves" side, not less.

Puppies, who actually have a VERY well-developed status system within the litter and actually fight a heck of a lot more than the adults do, do mature. Neoteny is something that's well established in some areas of the dog's body and brain but not all. For example, dogs go through a major shift in behavior and expectations at around 18 months to 24 months, which is the age when they would leave the natal pack; there's a huge jump in what we humans would call undesirable behaviors and many people give up on their dogs at that point.

Other areas in which mature wolf behavior is carried over pretty much intact:
- Physical punishment to any dogs perceived as chaotic or inappropriate (including the full vocabulary of wolf signals, nose poke and open-mouth strike and so on and so on); this is poorly developed in the puppy or litter but exquisitely developed in the adult pack
- Oldest bitch controls the group; this works really well if she is calm and balanced and causes huge problems if she is not
- There is a clear division in the dogs' minds between puppies and adolescents; they never punish puppies but around 3-4 months they will begin to punish the adolescents and continue to discipline them well into maturity
- Bitch hormone cycles make the resource status of individual bitches rise and fall through the year. The oldest bitch is still looked to for signals of how the pack should behave, but she will back away from food or give up a bed to a bitch who is pregnant and she will be attacked by a bitch with puppies

There are a ton of these kind of examples, so I don't like to think of dogs as eternal puppies. Puppies are treated very differently in the pack and very few owners ACTUALLY treat dogs like dogs treat puppies (and if they did there would be a big problem, because puppies are allowed all kinds of license).

I do think it's pretty useless for us to try to figure out or replicate a rigid hierarchy of individuals. In a healthy group of dogs the definitions are very well understood by them but they aren't nearly as clear-cut as "I'm one, you're two; you're three; you're four." You can have a dog that's at level one in resources (always gets the food first) but level three or four in pack signaling (when that dog sounds the alarm, everyone ignores her). Or you can have a dog who is level one in guarding/signaling (she always sounds the alarm for the pack and everyone jumps up) and level two in resources but level four in decision-making (when she sounds the alarm and everyone jumps up, they look at a different dog for an indication of what to do next).

We are very rarely able to follow that line of communication and ranking well enough for it to be useful when we try to train or teach our dogs. It's not about having a line of 1-2-3-4. It's about being the "1" consistently when it comes to the top-line issues of decision-making. If the group is running to the door and you can make them stop, you're the top. If you have to go physically haul them away, no matter how consistently you discipline them you're NOT the top. And when you're not the top, somebody else (four-legged) is going to fill in that role.

Comment by Sarah C. on January 5, 2010 at 6:34pm

That's why I think the children/student analogy stands up so well. So many people refer to their dogs as their "babies" when in reality, they would never let a child get away with, say, stealing from their plate, or pushing them off their bed, or hitting(biting) them, or running out the door and into the street, or jumping on strangers... the list goes on.
I think a lot of people treat their dogs a lot more like GRAND children, then their own children. :p

Comment by Beth on January 5, 2010 at 6:19pm

Being a teacher is a great analogy for people to use, if they can think of a teacher they respected and liked. One thing I love about The Dog Whisperer is that he has people sort of channel the image of a person they personally see as a great authority figure, or asks them how they deal with problems if they themselves are in a position of authority. It gets people to assume the appropriate postures and attitudes in a way that is meaningful to them.

I guess my biggest problem with the pack structure analogy is that for too many people, it tends to make the focus way more on discipline than on teaching appropriate behavior. The best way to stop an unwanted behavior is to replace it with a desired one. You need a positive goal to train to (i.e., my dog will walk quietly by my side) rather than a negative goal to train away from (i.e., my dog will not pull). People try to replace the negative behavior with nothingness, which is not something the dog can grasp. Nearly every time you ask your dog to stop doing something, you should be giving them something appropriate to do instead. Dominance theory does not really focus as much on that aspect of training as it could.

Comment by Stephanie on January 5, 2010 at 5:53pm

I treat my dogs like I treat my students at school - we have fun when it's appropriate, we're quiet when it's appropriate and we practice the things we want to be habits. My dogs are no more mini wolves than house cats are mini tigers.

Comment by Beth on January 5, 2010 at 5:27pm

I have been thinking of making a similar post myself, but never got around to it. Thanks for starting the conversation. :-)

There are two main problems with me in the wolf analogy:

1) Dogs have been selectively bred for thousands of years, and self-selected for probably many thousands more, to behave in a very UN-wolflike manner. They maintain puppy-like traits, as mentioned. They are much more biddable, and much more likely to follow human guidance. They behave more as scavengers than hunters (at least most breeds do), constantly having noses to the ground looking for bits of things to munch on. And

2) The wolf-pack analogy does not even hold up under scrutiny with wolves. Many of the original wolf studies were done with captive "packs" where unrelated wolves were thrown together in an enclosure.

In the wild, wolf packs are primarily (though not always) a breeding pair and their current years pups, plus a handful of older offspring that have not yet dispersed. There is an "alpha" wolf and we would call that figure "dad" in our own lives. Most of the lower-ranking wolves actually mature into alphas themselves when they disperse to form their own packs, though some may choose to stay with their natal pack for a long period of time. And so the more "submissive" wolves are such because they are still learning how to be wolves from their parents. The dominant wolves control by having the control of the resources, not by force.

Your dog should be deferential to you because he respects you, and he should respect you because you meet his needs, make good decisions, and clearly communicate with your actions that you are confidently in charge of the situation.

Where the analogy is useful, though, is in getting people to think of behaviors such as controlling the food and sleeping areas in terms of showing confident control in terms a dog understands. People are wonderful (unfortunately) at not thinking of things from a dog's perspective and not realizing that what the humans see as acts of love are often deferential behaviors towards their dogs, which make the dogs think they are meant to be the decision-makers and therefore causes huge problems with out-of-control and anxious dogs.

I think people go to the other extreme too though and think of every act of defiance as their dog "wanting to be in charge" and the strict hierarchy behaviorists tend to put forth that line of reasoning. The best analogy I heard was that every time a two-year-old throws a tantrum, do we think "He wants to be the mommy"? No, of course not, that would be absurd. Yet too often when a dog tests its boundaries, someone will say "Well, he's trying to be the dominant one." My very submissive female is much more likely to exhibit behaviors some would say are status-seeking, such as pawing you to demand attention. But very submissive dogs/wolves in a pack situation WILL solicit the higher-ranking animals for attention all the time. The subtle explanation is that higher-ranking animals have more social freedom and can accept or deny the request for attention. But when you read things online, they miss the subtle and jump right to the mistaken statement that a dog asking for attention is showing dominance. *sigh*

I guess I see some benefit some times in the wolf pack analogy, but have also seen severe misunderstanding in its use as a teaching tool.

Comment by christy fry on January 5, 2010 at 5:02pm

I agree whole heartedly with what your saying =) I'm not a forcefull person and feel uncomfortable with being "Dominant" no alpha rolling for me...I'd much rather my pups follow me out of love/respect/curiosity of what I'm doing than hide or do it out of fear. I'm a big fan of behavior modification techniques myself but that's what makes sense and works for me.

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