Good article, thanks for posting it

To my understanding, even if wolves do not create random packs they are still pack animals and at the top of the pack is a leader.
Whether the leader is a parent or a "alpah", it is still a pack IMO.

The only point that article has raised, is that packs of wolves are made up of litters and not random wolves.

My dogs have their own heirachy, my sister's dog is definitely the clear leader and when he is not here, Sammy takes top spot. It is not obvious in every thing they do. But if you watch closely you can notice it.

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Do you own a DINOS (dogs in need of space). To find out more and to find a walking buddy follow the link!


www.dogsinneedofspace.co.uk

Wrong again. Unless you can show the dog has some concept of "leadership" and "rules" you projecting far too much into the dog.

When you claim to know the dog's perspective, it is a lie.


It's more than fashionable. It's scientific. The demise of ultra low rise jeans is about fashion.


The homemade expert is invariably wrong and that is what happening here. Your observations don't mean much in the face of overwhelming evidence. Given that humans are fond of making conclusions based on confirmation bias, I don't hold any such anecdotes of the homemade expert to hold much water when compared with solid scientific findings.

It is. In Your poor interpretation of Mech's article you expanded it to include far more than he wrote.

First of all, may I respectfully ask that you temper the confrontational tone of your posts? I enjoy debating, and feel that your points of view are as valid as mine, but I would much prefer that you put them in a more reasonable way. Thank you in advance.

When dogs stand back and let the human go first they are merely doing what they have been taught to do, whether you call it "following rules" or "following the leader", and it is irrespective of any interpretation put on it by the human. It's not projecting anything onto the dog at all.


There are several different theories for just about everything, and these often conflict. For example, physicists insist there is no such thing as centrifugal force and instead say there is a centripetal force, whereas chemists say the exact opposite. These theories come and go depending on the fashion of the moment, and there is fashion in science just as there is fashion in any other field. The fact that you think fashion relates only to clothes indicates a very limited understanding of the world around you.


Hmm. Solid scientific findings. There are a lot of solid scientific findings that later turn out to be not so accurate after all. Take the solid scientific studies that linked autism with MMR for instance. They became fashionable for a while, and lots of mothers didn't have their children immunised. Later scientific findings found the earlier solid scientific findings were wrong. The result was an upsurge in the incidence of measles that necessitated a catch-up vaccination program which is only just reaching completion.

When you live with dogs and observe their actions and interactions day in and day out, you form a pretty good idea of their behavioural patterns. And whatever label you want to put on those patterns, whatever scientific findings are in vogue at the moment (until they are usurped by the next "solid scientific findings", that is) the fact is that these patterns are hierarchical; they always have been and always will be.

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Bergies and borders - what more could anyone want? Siamese and maine coons, of course!

From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on, nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
(But you can always edit your post, of course )

No. You are wrong. Sorry!

When a group of unrelated dogs are brought together in the household, they are equivalent to the "random group of species put together artificially" quoted by Mech. This group, he goes on to say, "will naturally compete with each other and eventually form a type of dominance hierarchy. In such cases, it is appropriate to refer to the top-ranking individuals as "alphas", implying that they competed and fought to gain their position."

No poor interpretation there. You may not agree with it, but that it a different matter.

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Bergies and borders - what more could anyone want? Siamese and maine coons, of course!

From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on, nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
(But you can always edit your post, of course )

You are assuming too much when you claim to know why the dog does it. If you leave by simply describing the behavior then I have no issue with it.

That's false.

Scientific theories have strong consensus in every field. What you incorrectly call theories are no more than uniformed opinions. From Wiki

"A theory, in the scientific sense of the word, is an analytic structure designed to explain a set of empirical observations. A scientific theory does two things:

1. it identifies this set of distinct observations as a class of phenomena, and
2. makes assertions about the underlying reality that brings about or affects this class.

In the scientific or empirical tradition, the term "theory" is reserved for ideas which meet baseline requirements about the kinds of empirical observations made, the methods of classification used, and the consistency of the theory in its application among members of the class to which it pertains. These requirements vary across different scientific fields of knowledge, but in general theories are expected to be functional and parsimonious: i.e. a theory should be the simplest possible tool that can be used to effectively address the given class of phenomena."

Wrong again. All scientists agree on this. Though occasionally for convenience people use the more intuitive, but incorrect description.

Wrong again. Science follows the best available evidence, it's not about fashion.

The fact that you believe the example I used was comprehensive indicates you have a very limited understanding of English.

Actually, the link was never generally accepted among scientists, so it's a bad example. Try again.



That' wasn't science. That was about public opinion which often runs against established scientific thinking. Another poor point. Try again.

YOu are doing more than that. You are claiming to know the reason they behave in a certain manner.


That's not a fact at all. It's something you made up.

Wrong again. Nothing that you wrote had anything to do with the quote.