# A good read about "Dominance Theory"



## zeronightfarm (Jun 15, 2011)

"Pack Mentality" Debunked - 

...It is high time we revamp the notion that our dogs view us as their "pack''. The "pack" language - with its talk of the "alpha" dog, dominance, and submission is one of the most pervasive metaphors for the family of humans and dogs, It originates where dogs originated: Dogs emerged from wolf-like ancestors and wolves form packs. Thus, it is claimed, dogs form packs. The seemingly naturalness of this move is belied by some of the attributes we DON'T transfer from wolves to dogs: Wolves are 
hunters, but we don't let our dogs hunt for their own food.* And though we may feel secure with a dog at the threshold of our nursery, we would never let a wolf alone in a room with our sleeping newborn baby, seven pounds of vulnerable meat.

Still, to many, the analogy to a dominance-pack organization is terribly appealing, especially with us as dominant and the dog the dog submissive. Once applied, the popular conception of a pack works itself into all sorts of interactions with our dogs: we eat first, the dog second; we command, the dog obeys; we walk the dog, the dog doesn't walk us. Unsure how to deal with an animal in our midst, the "pack"notion gives us structure. Unfortunately, it not only limits the kind of understanding and interaction we can have with our dogs, it also relies on a faulty premise. The "pack" evoked in 
this way bears little resemblance to ACTUAL wolf packs. The traditional model of a pack was that of a linear hierarchy, with a ruling alpha pair and various "beta" and even "gamma" or "omega" wolves below them, but contemporary biologists find this model far to simplistic. It was formed from observations of CAPTIVE wolves. With limited space and resources in small, enclosed pens, unrelated wolves self-organize, and a hierarchy of power results. The same might happen in any social species confined with little room.

In the wild, wolf packs consist almost entirely of related or mated animals. They are families, not groups of peers vying for the top spot. A typical pack includes a breeding pair and one or many generations of their offspring. The pack unit organizes social behavior and hunting behavior. Only one pair mates, while other adult or adolescent pack members participate in raising the pups. Different individuals hunt and share food; at times, many members together hunt large prey which may be too large to tackle individually. Unrelated animals do occasionally join together to form packs with multiple breeding partners, but this is an exception, probably an accommodation to environmental pressures. Some wolves never join a pack. 

The one breeding pair--parents to all or most of the other pack members--guides the groups course and behaviors, but to call them "alphas" implies a vying for the top that is not quite accurate. They are not alpha dominants any more than a human parent is alpha in the family. Similarly, the subordinate status of a young wolf has more to do with his age than with a strictly enforced hierarchy. Behaviors seen as "dominant" or "submissive" are not in a scramble for power, they are used to maintain social unity. Rather than being a pecking order, rank is a mark of age. It is regularly on display in the animals expressive postures in greeting and in interaction. Approaching an older wolf with low wagging tail and body close to the ground, a younger wolf is acknowledging the olders biological priority. Young pups are naturally at a subordinate level; in mixed-family packs pups may inherit some of the status of their parents. While rank may be reinforced by charged and sometimes dangerous encounters between pack members, this is rarer than aggression against an intruder. Pups learn their place by being put in their place. 

The reality of a wolf pack behavior contrasts starkly with dog behavior in other ways. Domestic dogs do not generally hunt. Most are not born into the family unit in which they will live: with humans the predominant members. Pet dogs attempts to mate are (happily)unrelated to their adopted humans--supposedly the alpha pairs--mating schedules. Even feral dogs--who may never have lived in a human family--usually do not form traditional social packs, although they may travel in parallel. 

Neither are we the dogs pack. Our lives are so much more stable than that of a wolf pack" the size and membership of a wolf pack is always in flux, changing with the seasons, with the rates of offspring, with young adult wolves growing up and leaving in their first years, with the availability of prey. Typically, dogs adopted by 
humans live out their lives with us; no one is pushed out of the house in spring or joins us just for the big winter moose hunt. What domestic dogs do seem to have inherited from wolves is the sociality of the pack: and interest in being around others. Indeed, dogs are social opportunists. They are attune to the actions of 
others, and humans turned out to be very good animals to attune to. 

To evoke the outdated, simplistic model of packs glosses over real differences between dog and wolf behavior and misses some of the most interesting features of packs in wolves. We do better to explain the dogs taking commands from us, deferring to us, and indulging us by the fact that we are their sources of food than by reasoning that we are alpha. We can certainly make dogs totally submissive to us, but that is neither biologically necessary nor particularly enriching for either of us. The pack analogy does nothing but replace our anthropomorphisms with a kind of "beastomorphism", whose crazy philosophy seems to be something like "dogs aren't humans, so we must see them as precisely un-human in every way". 

We and our dogs come closer to being a benign gang than a pack: a gang of two (or three or four or more). We are a family. We share habits, preferences, homes; we sleep together and rise together; we walk the same routes and stop to greet the same dogs. If we are a gang, we are a merrily navel-gazing gang, worshiping nothing but the maintenance of our gang itself. Our gang works by sharing the fundamental premises of behavior. For instance, we agree to rules of conduct in our home. I agree with my family that under no circumstances is urination on the living room rug is allowed. This is a tacit agreement, happily. A dog has to be taught this premise for habitation; no dog knows about the value of rugs. In fact, rugs might provide a nice feeling under the foot for some bladder release.

Trainers who espouse the pack metaphor extract the "hierarchy" component and ignore the social context from which it emerges. (They further ignore that we still have a lot to learn about wolf behavior in the wild, given the difficulty of following these animals closely.) A wolfcentric trainer may call the humans the pack leaders 
responsible for discipline and forcing submission by others. These trainers teach by punishing the dog after discovery of, say, the inevitable peed-upon rug. The punishment can be a yell, forcing the dog down, a sharp word or jerk of the collar. Bringing the dog to the scene of the crime to enact the punishment is common--and 
is an especially misguided tactic. 

This approach is farther down from what we know of the reality of wolf packs and closer to the timeworn fiction of the animal kingdom with humans at the pinnacle, exerting dominion over the rest. Wolves seem to learn from each other not by punishing each other but by observing each other. Dogs, too, are keen observers--of our
reactions. Instead of punishment happening to them, they'll learn best if you let them discover for themselves which behaviors are rewarded and which are led to naught. Your relationship with your dog is defined by what happens in those undesired moments--as when you returned home to a puddle of urine on the floor. Punishing the dog for his misbehavior--the deed having been done maybe hours before--with dominance tactics is a quick way to make your relationship about bullying. If your trainer punishes the dog, the problem behavior may temporarily abate, but the relationship created is one between your trainer and your dog. (Unless the trainers moving in with you, that wont last long.) The results will be a dog who becomes extra sensitive and possibly fearful, but not one who understands what you mean to impart. 
Instead, let the dog use his observation skills. Undesired behavior gets no attention, no food: nothing that the dog wants from you. Good behavior gets it all. That's an integral part of how a young child learns how to be a person. And that's how the dog-human gang coheres into a family. 

*Not only do dogs not typically hunt to feed themselves--whether encouraged to or not--but what hunting technique they have is, it has been noted, "sloppy." A wolf makes a calm, steady track toward his prey, without any frivolous moves; untrained dogs hunting walks are herky-jerky, meaning back and forth, speeding and slowing. Worse, they may get waylaid by distracting sounds or a sudden urge to playfully pursue a falling leaf. Wolves tracks reveal their intent. Dogs have lost this intent; we have replaced it with ourselves." From a book written by Alexandra Horowitz called "Inside of a dog"


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## JohnnyBandit (Sep 19, 2008)

This person whom ever she is... Has done little research on wolves and spends a lot of time spinning words that mean the same thing essentially. 

Pack-family-gang. All the same thing... A group of living beings coming together towards a common goal. There are leaders and followers in packs, families, and gangs. IF there were not, there would be chaos. Of course some families do not have any leaders. We call those dysfunctional. This person spent two thousand words explaining that dogs do not form packs but are family or gangs.... But they are the same thing.... End of story there. 

Additionally she has never spent time with a pack of hounds, curs or terriers that are successful hunters. Because there are clearly leaders and followers in any working pack of dogs. Your GREAT pack that is the envy of every hunter in the state can fall completely apart if your lead dog gets hurt, sick or dies. IF you do not have a dog that is ready to step into his or her place. And if you do have a dog that is ready to step in and take the lead, you had probably go ahead and retire your lead dog when you notice age and work slowing him down. Because your number two dog may retire him for you. Your pride and joy may come limping back to you bruised and bloody. This is more common in curs than hounds but I have seen it happen in both. 

And then you have feral dogs. I am not talking about the urban scavengers. I am talking about domestic dogs that are packed up and successfully hunting both wild and domestic animals of significant size. IF a person is hired by a rancher to remove a pack of feral dogs, the person does not have to kill all the dogs to know be successful. Say you have a pack of ten dogs working a ranch. You need to pattern them and set up on them. Then figure out who the leader is... That is easy because it will be the dog that all the others are submissive to. You can pick that dog or dogs (often there are a couple but sometimes just one. You shoot the leader or leaders and everything falls apart. With the sound of a rifle they go from successful killers of livestock to total chaos. So you shot the leader of the ten, three or four will probably die immediately or later from wounds resulting from the battle the erupts attempting to reform the pack. The rest will likely be resigned to fighting with the vultures for dead possums and armadillos. A few more will starve. The ones that are left, will likely wander to survive. In time they might re form or join another pack. But that pack of ten is done... 

I smile every time I hear this dominance stuff....


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## Naliwali (Nov 7, 2013)

I could not have written your response any better if I tried...applause!!!


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