I’ve actually run into this statement quite a bit:
We can’t know much about dogs by studying wolves. It’s about as much as we could find out about human behavior while studying chimps and bonobos.
That’s a cute one!
Unfortunately, it’s a bad analogy.
Dogs are not to wolves as humans are to chimps and bonobos.
Dogs are to wolves what modern humans are to archaic Homo sapiens.
It’s also not dogs are to wolves as humans are to Neanderthals. That analogy would be dogs are to coyotes, golden jackals, or Ethiopian wolves as humans are to Neanderthals (and maybe Denisovans and other descendants of Homo erectus). Same genus. Chemically interfertile. Not the same species.
We can actually learn quite a bit about ourselves by studying humans who were around until 30,000 years ago but were much more robust than any living person.
The line that divides modern humans from archaic Homo sapiens is quite fuzzy, just as it is with defining the difference between dogs and wolves.
Contrary to what you may have read, the line separating dog and wolf is very, very fuzzy. There are doggish wolves and wolfish dogs, and the only physical features separating them are that wolves (at least of the northern subspecies) lack sweat glands on the feet and dogs don’t have an active supracaudal gland. There are dogs that have brains that are proportionally the same size as those of southern wolves, which are the main source for modern domestic dogs.
There have been wolves that were tamed at 6 weeks, and even fully grown adults have been tamed.
And there are dogs that are so nervous and hard to handle that they might as well be wild animals.
Humans are not chimpanzees or bonobos.
We’re actually much more different from them than dogs are from wolves.
For example, most people would never want to breed with a chimp, and humans, unlike male chimps, typically only attempt to devour the faces of other humans while high on bath salts.
However, there are plenty of cases of dogs and wolves interbreeding. Studies of free-roaming dogs and wolves in Italy found that female wolves that had not yet found a mate, would often solicit the attention of male dogs while in estrus.
Most single women don’t want to go on a date with a chimpanzee!
(Though bonobos, well, they are the doctors of love.)
When I see someone using this analogy, it makes me wince.
I know people are trying hard to fight the Cesar Millan-malarkey out there.
But too often, I see these anti-lupomorph or dominance theorists making claims that are just as bad as anything you’d hear from the Dog Whisperer.
Let’s try to get our analogies right.
Let’s understand what we’re actually opposing.
It’s not the entire phylogeny of Canis lupus familiaris.
Just because idiots use that Canis lupus part of the scientific name to make stupid arguments doesn’t mean that you should reflexively reject it.
We’re not exactly the same thing we were 30,000 years ago.
Neither are dogs. (And really, neither are wolves).
Evolution is about change. It’s almost the entire definition of the phenomenon.
But just because things change doesn’t mean analogies don’t work.
It just means they have to be correct.
You can learn more about us by looking at our more immediate ancestors than from animals that derive from more distant ones.
You can know more about your potential health problems by looking at your parents and grandparents than you great-great-great-great-great grandpa.
In terms of its phylogeny, a dog is a wolf.
It’s not anything else.
One cannot evolve out of one’s phylogeny. One can only evolve from it.
Dogs and modern wolves evolved from ancient wolves.
If we saw these animals today, we’d call them wolves, though they’d likely be much more willing to approach us than modern wolves are. They might even be readily tamed and actively seek us out as social partners.
Dogs underwent selection pressures to become more and more incorporated into human society. Most wolves experienced selection pressures that selected for extreme fear and reactivity– the result of all those centuries of persecution by our species.
I doubt that archaic Homo sapiens would have ever fit into urban life. Some of them might, but most would not.
It doesn’t mean that they were a different species from us.
It just means that there were lineages of our species that were adapted to an entirely different lifestyle and potential future.
That’s the difference between wolves and dogs.
They aren’t as different from each other as humans and other great ape species are.
But there are differences.
Nuanced, fuzzy differences.
that pic reminds me of this song
That photo is real. The black wolf’s name was Romeo. He lived in a park near Juneau, Alaska, where people liked to walk their dogs off-leash. When his mate died, he tried to hook up with the dogs. He played with the dogs, and even tried to make a Labrador (I don’t think this particular one) his own mate. He also played a game with pugs that scared the crap out of their owners. He’d grab one and run off with it, and then he’d drop it after running several yards.
WOW, what a cool story
the problem with Ceasar Milan isn’t that dogs aren’t wolves, it’s that he is using an entirely erronious concept of how wolf society (including dominance, etc) works. It would be nice if we had the same kind of in depth presentation on wolves and wolf society as we do on lions and hyenas, but somehow “African” animals seem to be more of a draw than European/N. American animals. You just don’t see special after special on wolves compared to lions (yes, there is the “rise of black wolf” — and about 4 other lion specials for that one on wolves). It was apparently a shock that a “cassanova” type wolf like black wolf existed — it was entirely contrary to the “only the alpha pair ever mates” mantra — as was discovering that not all pups in a pack are the offspring of the alpha pair. Ceasar operates on the “tyrant leader ” principal. Wolves actually seem to operate more on the “small tribal community with a leader” system — in a hunt, the first wolf to discover a likely target can signal the hunt, not necessarily always the alpha wolf. They are more like “us” when we were hunter/gatherers in small “semi family” units. If Ceasar were right, those with guide dogs could never surrender their “leadership” for the dog to guide them. It wouldn’t work. That it clearly DOES should have falsified the “you must tyrannize the dog at all times to have their respect” concept.
Africa and everything with it has that “exotic” factor that can’t be beat for viewership. I personally find a mountain lion every bit as fascinating as an African lion, but you won’t find many specials on them either. Having said that I get the impression that African lions aren’t as elusive as either mountain lions or wolves either. They probably make an easier go-to for established camera crews.
Pat McConnell PhD writes a lot about not even wanting to use the word “dominance” in conversation with layfolks about dog behavior, because of the very “tyrant leader” beliefs that have come to be associated with it which you speak of. Constantly needing to come up with new words to represent concepts smacks of the obsession with being politicall correct that normally makes me want to puke ( ever see George Carlin’s skit on how “shell shock” turned into “Post traumatic stress disorder”?), but in this case I can see why she feels as she does. I often send around her blog and recommend her books, making a point of the discovery of dominance as being more about access to resources; that a wolf, even an alpha, that might make a big fuss over the latest kill, will likely just as easily let other members of his pack indulge in something people may see as prime; say, an awesome and secure sleeping area.
I personally never bought into all the extremes the old dominance theorists like Cesar tried to sell on us. For one thing, your comment about the guide dogs rings true with me. I find it amazing that ANY dogs can take detailed, military direction as they so often do, with perfect heels in advanced obedience and such. But what people often forget is that not EVERY dog can do this; certain breeds and individuals have more of a talent for that level of working partnership than others. It would not be say, an attempt at dominance for a coonhound to not catch on to military heeling the way a golden retriever or belgian malinois might. People also forget this is not natural behavior for ANY animal. Civilian humans don’t march the way marines do and they likely don’t do hospital squares on their beds each morning. Why would we ever think wild wolves cannot make a single move or decision in their lives w/o consulting another wolf? That doesn’t strike me as be a characteristic facilitating survival in the wild.
Then there’s the realization that a lot of ideas that sprung forth from tyrant dominance are far more anthropomorphic than these old trainers would admit to. Ex: McConnell wrote about the bevy of ideas people came up with simply over a dog hopping onto the couch. The idea with a tyrant theoriest was that the dog hopping on your couch was attempting to dominate the household by being higher up off the ground and being where the humans are. Okay, a journey may start with a single step, but I really HAVE seen and heard trainers go into great psychological detail over a move as simple as hopping up on a sofa. The nerve! The conniving plotter! The chess pieces are in position! Don’t let that puss fool you, a great politician is making his career plain!
Hm. Your dog is capable of THAT much strategy? I dunno. Seems to me that takes a lot of complicated thinking.
As you go ape shit, the four footed genius poised to take over, lifts a leg to scratch behind his ear, then pauses to notice for the zillionth time that he has funny danglies between his rear legs, and figures they are worth a lick.
Nah, somehow I don’t see the master takeover happening here. I prefer McConnell’s last dig “Did you ever stop to think, maybe the couch is soft and just FEELS nice?”
You can add Saints to the breeds that don’t fall into line like good little soldiers. The one and only time I took a dog to obedience training was w/ our first Saint, Toby. At the beginning of each training session all the trainees (and their dogs) would form a circle. The dogs were expected to sit next to their people. Toby was always good about this, but, typical of Saints, she would sit splay-legged and leaning on me. The trainer, who bred Dobes, hated that and took her for a personal session to show me how she should be handled. After about the 3rd time he’d yanked her into line with his left heel, she calmly took his hand in her mouth and looked up at him as if to say Wanna try that again? He never messed w/ her again after that. (BTW: we did pass the course.)
Perhaps you’ve already forgotten this post, but it is excellent. And I say that as a Linguistics scholar and a dog lover. You’re dead on about the nonsense of dogs being tyrants. In my blog, http://dogsandwolves-smartoldlady.blogspot.com, in one post I comment that dogs want permanent puppyhood, to be fed, housed, and even told what to do (retrieving, herding, being companions, etc.) The last thing they want is to be dominant over people. Dogs, even big, tough ones like pit bulls and Great Danes want people to want them around. (I had a Great Dane, one who loved to fight other dogs and terrorized strangers who came on our property…but docile as a pup with me, although he weighed about 50 pounds more than me and was way taller than me. I was 4’11” tall and weigh less than 100 pounds.)
They also want to be able to reproduce without the constraint of a pair bond.
Some wolves have been able to produce many offspring simply by mating with the unpaired daughters of a breeding pair.
Dogs use almost exactly the same strategy.
Great post for stimulating thought. I don’t entirely agree that “Evolution is about change.” It’s more about generating diversity and selecting among the diverse. The resulting change need not be one-directional and with a specie with a huge range, it’s likely to have large geographical differences. What works in a cold dry climate may not work in a jungle. I’m sure there are / have been packs more based on cooperation and packs more based on dominance . . . and there are probably places where the lone wolf is the norm and packs are the exception. For that matter, there may have been wide behavioral differences among Neanderthal groups, but that’s a hard hypothesis to test.
I think it’s off base using CM as a straw-man. Academically speaking, dominance theory is a load of crap. But turning to Cesar Milan for canine behavior theory is like turning to an athlete for information about sports physiology. You’re better off watching an athlete’s moves than his or her mouth. See, eg.,
http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_05_22_a_dog.html
(which interprets CM from a McConnell lens and sees the good side).
I’m not a natural dog handler, and in my brief flirtation with the show ring, couldn’t even get my own dog to show off in the ring, much less someone else’s. It was much easier for me to let someone else, who knew how to block and handle the lead to get the dog to stack up well, to take over. No amount of ethology would have helped me. In general the natural handlers knew little about science as related to canines. They just had a knack. I haven’t watched a lot of CM, but when I do, I turn the sound track off and watch body language only.
“the problem with Ceasar Milan isn’t that dogs aren’t wolves, it’s that he is using an entirely erronious concept of how wolf society (including dominance, etc) works.”
Funnily, this is one reason why I can’t read werewolf fiction. All the authors of such books don’t seem to know much about how wolf packs actually function. =P
The argument between theoretical and empirical is as old as science itself.
I think Cesar Milan began from observation and practice (ie, naive empiricism), not theory. I think the media world pushed a story line / theory on him. It’s a stupid story line . . .no surprise. Media is a corrupt way to seek truth.
I think people would get something out of CM by reading McConnell’s empirical observations and focusing on body language, gesture, eye contact, etc. rather than theory as expressed in words. It is sad that wannabe dog whisperers are using bogus dominance theory to justify kicking and throwing dogs. But if you’re getting a ‘be mean’ message out of CM, I think you went in looking for that message . .. either to justify your own propensities, or to berate CM.
The discussion gets still murkier when the word ‘cruelty’ is introduced into the discussion. What is a foot tap, what a kick? We get stupidly anthropogenic when we perceive pain. I’ve seen dogs get hurt very badly (eg, with full on assault on a porcupine) and neither come away with fear/cowering psychoses, nor any lesson learned (same stupid dogs launched into a porcupine again). A fetch-mad Labbie I once owned got hit, full arm strength, by a tennis racket in the nose by a 14 yr old boy. By human standards it would have hurt, big time, and she should have been cowering. But, no. She came right back with that “do that again, please, please, please ” look of the fetch mad dog. Physical pain doesn’t seem to affect dogs in the same way it affects most pain-phobic humans.
Bravo! Excellent response about Ceasar Milan’s ignorance of wolf behavior.
The hang-ups and misperceptions reflected in these analogies come about because of our all-too-human need to name things, to define them in a binary manner–this or that. Nature, and by extension evolution, is fuzzy, w/ lots of gray areas. We don’t have to like it but there it is.
Also, If we are to liken wolf society to any human society, my vote would go to the Algonquin-speaking peoples of eastern N. America. Its hard to winnow historical fact from perception–the European colonists interpreted the Algonquins through there own hierarchical lens–but it seems clear that their “tribal” units were much more democratic in structure then those of their European replacements. “Leaders” among these people achieved their positions thru respect and general acceptance and a leader among them was just as likely to be female as male.
Hi, i would like to know your opinion about this text:
http://canedapresa.forumfree.it/?t=55389328
What do you think about this theory for the pantherine-like characteristics always mentioned in molosser breeds? The bull and molosser breeds are one of the furthest breeds from the wolf in therms of genetic right?
I have written something like this in the comments on the blog. I have long thought that certain molossers were a selection to produce a lion from the dog lineage.
I don’t know if they are that far removed from wolves in terms of genetics, but in terms of phenotype, they definitely are.
The dogs of this type are very diverse and actually aren’t all descended from the same ancestors. Newfoundland dogs, for example, are very closely related to golden and Labrador retrievers, and there is a definite mountain dog lineage that includes Rottweilers, St. Bernards, and (strangely) Great Danes.
Genetically, it’s a very complex question.
But in terms of morphology, I certainly agree that this sort of dog is an attempt to breed for a lion’s body in a dog. This type is also very old,but the breeds might not necessarily be (or even closely related to each other).
I had a boxer cross that looked and moved very much like a black jaguar!
I think these sorts of dogs could only exist with domestication. There are no feral dogs of this type anywhere in the world, and all extant wild canids have a very different body type from this. It may be that these animals just have such a hard time getting rid of heat that they are inefficient as wild predators.
But we did have dogs that were even more like this in the past. The Borophagine dogs of North America could be described as being like big cats or hyenas.
Heat elimination is definitely problem w/ this type dog. They’re much happier in cool temps/climates.
But cold climates exist. Why haven’t canid ‘lions’ (or mega lions) evolved in the tiaga? There were once cold climate mega-predators, eg, Panthera leo atrox. Why didn’t Canis lupus evolve to fit the niche voided by their extinction? Why did a pack-hunting smaller top predator evolve rather than a BIG BIG dog?
(sorry, I’ve always been better generating questions than answers)
The American lion also went extinct with all the other megafauna that created its niche in the first place.
So Canis lupus never could have evolved to fill it.
Canis lupus did not NEED to evolve to fit into the niche of a megafauna predator. The evolutionary process is not about fixing things that aren’t broken.
Specialization is generally less successful, and more risky than being a generalist.
Is that to say that the American lion’s niche required the wooly mammoth and kin? I don’t know. A moose is a pretty big beast. Why not a Canis predator that could take on a moose or a bison with one or two individuals (as lions with large grazers) rather than requiring a full pack (as with modern wolves).
The interesting link cited by Pict (http://canedapresa.forumfree.it/?t=55389328) refers to “underlying phenotypic plasticity in the wolf genome able to explore different predator morphologies.” Are there inherent limits to this plasticity?
The pack structure of a wolf, say the North American wolves where you see a mom, dad, year old pups and baby pups, most likely evolved to maximize offspring survival. If so, evolving great size in order to specialize in hunting very large prey animals obviously didn’t balance that out.
Wolves not only do not necessarily specialize in large moose, they also don’t maintain packs all the time, either. What they hunt and whether they stick together is often dependent on prey available, which changes with the time of year. Do you think it would be an advantage to evolve large size, which would require more food due to a larger energy expenditure, just in order to hunt adult moss during the winter?
You might as well ask why true land-based megafauna analogs of the Giant Ground Sloth, the Cave Bear, the Wooly Mammoth, or the sauropods didn’t reevolve. I’ve read a lot of theories regarding oxygen levels, climatic warming, etc., but I don’t know to what extent any of them are true.
What I do know is that molosser type breeds don’t handle heat as well as lighter built breeds. I suspect that it has to do w/ the square cube law (an increase in surface area of x requires an increase in mass of 10X). When applied to animals this equates to skin area vs. body mass–the larger the animal the harder it is for it to shed its excess heat. (This is likely one of the reasons elephants have such large ears.) Conversely, smaller animals have to work harder to stay warm. Another factor is that molosser breeds are more brachycephalic than say huskies or GSD’s. As Scottie has pointed out in the past, this reduces the size of a dog’s sinuses–a major source of heat dissipation for a dog.
The dire wolf at it’s largest probably had some “mastiff” type qualities. The reason one doesn’t see them any more is the same as why we don’t see mammoths, etc — currently, the environment for them doesn’ exist. If African elephants were to become extinct, another very large elephant would not take their place. Possibly the smaller African forest elephant might expand somewhat, but currently there are too many other animals and people to provide a large “mega herbivore” an easy living. That doesn’t mean that it would never happen — environments can change. Specialist animals are always more vulnerable than generalists — the smaller C. lupus could eat moose, deer or even rabbits if needed. The dire wolf was pretty much stuck with very big game. Canadian lynx are more at risk than bobcats because they are pretty much “one prey” specialists and bobcats aren’t. How close some of the “bear dogs” came to mirroring the mastiff type physical structure is a good question. Be interesting to see some serious comparisons. I know that the Los Angeles La Brea Tar pits have yielded thousands of dire wolf fossils but most of the studies on them seem to have been done by people who really didn’t know much of anything regarding dogs, let alone mastiffs. They seem to presume that all mastiffs are like the conformation Neopolitans and assume that the dire couldn’t do much more than lumber along. I don’t think that was the case, although they probably weren’t the fast endurance runners that C. lupus is. A well structured dane or bouvier can get up to a pretty darn good speed although they cant sustain a gallop for that long– the bouv can certainly keep up a trot for quite a while (note the comparable “stumper” Altdeuchers).
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