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Left to their own devices, they would develop their natural packs within a few generations.
i'm sure there exist dogs who have been feral for "a few generations". can you show me proof of feral dogs who have a wolf-like pack structure? i'm not talking about some dogs running or hunting together, i'm talking about any kind of stable pack or hierarchical structure.
humans may not have bred specifically to eliminate pack structure (although some modern breeds have been selected for antipathy to other dogs), but that has clearly been a side effect. in fact i wouldn't be surprised if the pack mentality was weeded out when wolves were first domesticated, so that they would be loyal to their human masters rather than other wolves. the first humans who domesticated dogs were not primarily interested in appearance, they were interested in behavior.
if wolves and dogs are not different, why do scientists refer to dogs by a different latin name from wolves and consider them a subspecies? a chihuahua and a rottweiler and both canis lupus familiaris, a grey wolf is canis lupus.
there's more to the difference between alpha wolves and breeding pairs than just terminology. l. david mech, whose studies i linked to earlier says: "Calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a doe deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its young offspring, so "alpha" adds no information."
the idea of alpha pairs/breeding pairs being violent, forceful leaders is a human construction. they are parents. they tolerate a lot from pups, not as much from older offspring. like any parents. and generally, the offspring eventually go off, breed, and form their own packs.
and there is a HUGE difference between a dog/wolf rolling over of its own volition and being forcibly rolled over. as i said earlier, wolves roll over for other wolves to show submission, but wolves roll other wolves over when they are going to kill them. rolling a dog over by force mimics the latter, not the former.
you make it sound as if dominance theory is the norm in the scientific community and just a few scientists are questioning it because they have some bizarre agenda, but in fact the general consensus among people who study wolves has been for decades now that they do not engage in force-based dominance displays in their natural packs. as i said earlier, the studies that showed that they did that were done in the 30s and 40s, were studies of wolves living in captivity, and many of the wolves' actions were misinterpreted. the conclusions of those studies have since been discredited. this is not just my opinion or the opinion of a few lone behaviorists. this is the current consensus in the field.
some more information, from ian dunbar, who spent 9 years doing a formal study of dog behavior. i know, i know, he disagrees with you therefore he's just basically lying to prove points that he knows are really untrue.
The original alpha/dominance model was born out of short-term studies of wolf packs done in the 1940s. These were the first studies of their kind. These studies were a good start, but later research has essentially disproved most of the findings. There were three major flaws in these studies:
These were short-term studies, so the researchers concentrated on the most obvious, overt parts of wolf life, such as hunting. The studies are therefore unrepresentative -- drawing conclusions about "wolf behavior" based on about 1% of wolf life.
The studies observed what are now known to be ritualistic displays and misinterpreted them. Unfortunately, this is where the bulk of the "dominance model" comes from, and though the information has been soundly disproved, it still thrives in the dog training mythos.
For example, alpha rolls. The early researchers saw this behavior and concluded that the higher-ranking wolf was forcibly rolling the subordinate to exert his dominance. Well, not exactly. This is actually an "appeasement ritual" instigated by the SUBORDINATE wolf. The subordinate offers his muzzle, and when the higher-ranking wolf "pins" it, the lower-ranking wolf voluntarily rolls and presents his belly. There is NO force. It is all entirely voluntary.
A wolf would flip another wolf against his will ONLY if he were planning to kill it. Can you imagine what a forced alpha roll does to the psyche of our dogs?
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Finally, after the studies, the researchers made cavalier extrapolations from wolf-dog, dog-dog, and dog-human based on their "findings." Unfortunately, this nonsense still abounds.
Article: "Wolves Social as Dogs" By Patricia McBroom JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
Excerpt: "Until her death two years ago, the vicious number one female terrorized all others of her sex, stated Dr. Rabb. With a series of body blows and leg nippings, she became so dominant, she could control the others with no more than a look."
Article: "How Wild Wolves Became Domestic Dogs" By Jeffrey Cohn JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
Excerpt: "Wayne's studies suggest that the dog's complicated evolutionary history has yielded an animal of great genetic diversity. Even recognized dog breeds show remarkable genetic variation. Part of this diversity, Wayne thinks, stems from intermittent breeding that occurred between dogs and wolves even after domestication."
Article: "Man-Made Dogs" By Juliet Clutton-Brock JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
Excerpt: "I believe that the highly developed social behavioral patterns of man evolved as a response to the needs of the hunter of large prey, as they did with the wolf, the progenitor of the dog. If a predator is to succeed it must either kill animals that are smaller than itself or, if the prey is large, a team effort must be employed, and this necessitates social structure."
Article: Ecology of Feral Dogs in Alabama
Author(s): M. Douglas Scott and Keith Causey JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
Excerpt: "Feral dog packs (data were not obtained for solitary feral dogs) showed a definite seasonal change in habitat utilized for daytime resting areas (Table 4). Data obtained represented only those radiolocations where dogs were definitely known to be inactive. In many instances dogs were moving or movement status could not be positively determined. Bottomland habitat, used mainly during the warm season, consisted of moist flood plains along stream courses. Upland habitat, which was pre- ferred in the cool season, was drier hillsides and ridge tops."
Article: Attacks by Packs of Dogs Involving Predation on Human Beings
Author(s): Peter L. Borchelt, Randall Lockwood, Alan M. Beck, Victoria L. Voith JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
Excerpt: "In cases 1 and 2, the animals were known to have a history of hunting together and probably had been pursuing prey soon before their attacks on people. The dogs in case 3 did not have a history of hunting, but they routinely fed together without conflict. Thus, in all cases, after one or more individual dogs had initiated an attack, previous group interactions could have facilitated predatory behavior by the entire pack."
Here are just a few articles that illustrate my point about the intrinsic instinct to group into packs in dogs, and the closeness of dogs and wolves.
Here is another article which explicitly details the dominance hierarchies in free ranging dogs.
"Agonistic behaviour of free-ranging dogs (Canis
familiaris) in relation to season, sex and age" 1998
By S.K. Pal, B. Ghosh, S. Roy
Excerpt: "Dominance hierarchies were established among the adult dogs of either sex based on aggressive encounters. Although individual differences in agonism were observed, overall levels of aggression were higher among the adult females than for other groups. In contrast, overall levels of submission were higher among the juvenile males than for other groups. The results from this study suggest that reproductive season, sex and age have a significant effect on the agonistic behaviour of free-ranging dogs.
In nature agonistic behaviour is mainly aimed at survival. Urban stray dogs have been reported to defend a common territory, have dominance hierarchies and share food. The dominance hierarchy among the dogs is constructed based on agonistic encounters. Moreover, priority of access to local resources may be influenced by aggressive encounters among the dogs. Sometimes, dog aggression is used to man’s advantage, e.g., guard dog breeds are specially bred for security purposes.
Agonistic behaviour includes both aggressive and submissive postures, as well as structured social relationships. It has been studied extensively in many carnivores by several authors in different social contexts.
Agonistic behaviour and activities associated with aggression and submis-
sion in stray dogs have been previously discussed but most of these studies were made to illustrate the development of aggressive behaviour, and the aggressive behaviour during the oestrous period. In this paper, seasonal patterns of agonistic encounters among the free-ranging dogs were quantified, and data were collected in order to compare the intra- and inter-group agonistic encounters in different seasons. It was also
observed how dominance hierarchy was developed based on aggressive encounters. In addition, attempts were made to evaluate levels of aggression and submission in relation to sex and age, and in different situations."
i guess you did find one (sort of) recent study - with the exception of one from 12 years ago, all of those studies are 25-40 years old. edit: oh and 1 from 11 years ago.
and one of them is about dog bites by packs of dogs - the fact that dogs form packs at all does not mean that they form permanent or hierarchical packs. the one before that offers no evidence of stable or hierarchical packs either, it just says that dogs form packs. i've never disputed that they do, but a pack that forms for a few days or weeks or even a couple of months is nothing like a wolf pack.
the study from 1997 shows interbreeding between wolves and dogs. uh, yeah. so? did i say they couldn't interbreed? my point is that dogs are different enough that they are considered a subspecies of wolves.
so basically, what we have left is an article from 1966 that probably suffers from the same misinterpretations of submission displays and play behavior that the earlier studies did. body blows and leg nippings? that sounds like my dog at the dog park.
edit: oh ok, the 1998 article in your last post makes the point you want it to about dominance/aggression based hierarchy. however, shortly after that was released, in 1998, l. david mech released the findings of a 13-year wolf study that changed the face of the field. and the last article i posted cited *five* studies that find the opposite.
i guess you did find one (sort of) recent study - with the exception of one from 12 years ago, all of those studies are 25-40 years old.
edit: ok, and 1 from 11 years ago.
however, a year after your most recent citation, l david mech's wolf studies changed the scientific consensus.
One study cannot change consensus unless the studies findings are judged to be universal. It is obvious from the last study I provided that Mech's conclusions are not universally acknowledged. Are you saying that the last study because it is oh, a little over ten years old, is not valid? I can find you the same difference in perspective whether it be 2 years ago, or 2 months ago. Did you bother reading the study at all? I can send it to you.
how is it obvious from the last study you posted that his findings are not universally acknowledged? that study came out before his most major work, so it has no bearing whatsoever on what anyone thought of his findings. in any case, one contradictory study does not mean a lack of consensus. you can find a study that contradicts pretty much any widely held scientific theory.
i edited my post a bunch before you responded, so please re-read it.
the study from 1997 shows interbreeding between wolves and dogs. uh, yeah. so? did i say they couldn't interbreed? my point is that dogs are different enough that they are considered a subspecies of wolves.
My point is, if dogs have been interbred with wolves throughout their history with us, than they are not as separate from wolves as you like to make out. Its not like they were cut off from all genetic contact with wolves 10,000 years ago, like some people claim. The genetic proof clearly points to the fact that interbreeding continued well into the dogs' domestication.
how is it obvious from the last study you posted that his findings are not universally acknowledged? the last study came out before his most major work, so it has no bearing whatsoever on what anyone thought of his findings.
i edited my post a bunch before you responded, so please re-read it.
and yes, you did meet the challenge, congrats!
The study I posted was done independent of Mech's study. And even in light of Mech's theories it still does not change the observations that were done at the time of the study. The study details dog aggression, pack structure, and hierarchy. How does anything that Mech proposes in his study disprove what was recorded in the study that I gave?
Excerpt: "The widely accepted notion that urban stray dogs are ‘asocial’ animals is contrary to studies which have suggested that long-term affiliative bonds exist within groups of urban stray dogs Group composition, excluding pups, in this study was more or less stable throughout the study period, and relative stability in the social groupings was also
reported by Boitani in feral dogs."
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