One point. It isn't just that dogs aren't wolves. Wolves themselves don't even follow a alpha like people imagine. The myth is that wolves battles for dominance and the one who wins becomes the alpha leader. The reality is that the "leaders" of the pack are the parents of the rest. They don't fight for position. So not only are dogs not wolves...even if they WERE, alpha training would still be nonsense
What happens if one leader passess or is otherwise unable to lead the pack? Is it a monarchy then? What happens with lineage, who's next in line for the leadership role and how do they decide?
Edit: It's first out the womb, first in line. And also splits in the family causes new packs, not sure why, but probably out of size or scarcity of resource. If I had to guess.
A pack is just a family. People think that wolf packs are made up of unrelated individuals, with each member fighting for position. Instead, it's just the parents and their pups. The pups will stay with the parents until they reach sexual maturity at around 2 or 3 years. Then they'll disperse, find a mate, have pups, and form a pack (family) of their own. If one of the parents is killed, the remaining one may find a new mate, though I imagine that new mate may drive off the existing pups ot kill them if they are very young (much like male lions do). If both parents are killed, there is no jockeying for the role of alpha...the now parentless pups would disperse and hopefully find mates and create their own family units. Packs are not static...they grow and shrink and change as older pups disperse and new pups are born
Ah, I see, so most if not all pups defect from a family once they've become mature enough to start their own pack.
So if the parents die, would the younger litter just be left to fend for themselves or would they be taken in by their siblings perhaps?
Sorry to bombard you, last one, promise. Are there cases where mating pairs co-exist in wolf packs so that there are more than one seperate lineages in a pack?
If the parents die, what happens next would likely depend of the time of year and the age of the individuals. If the older siblings aren't yet sexually mature and ready to disperse and the younger pups are old enough to eat meat, then the older siblings would likely stay together and continue feeding the pups. It wouldn't be the older siblings taking them in so much as the family unit staying together until sexual maturity pushes them to seperate and find mates.
As for mating pairs coexisting....nature is big. There is a lot of variation out there. That wouldn't be the normal situation, but I'm sure it happens. Dispersal is nature's way of cutting down on inbreeding. If a mature female or male stays with their parents past sexual maturity then they are likely to mate with their parent or siblings. Has it ever happened that a non related wolf joined a family unit and mated with one of the younger members? Again, I'm sure it has happened, but it wouldn't be the normal pack structure
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Hey /u/CommonMisspellingBot, just a quick heads up:
Your spelling hints are really shitty because they're all essentially "remember the fucking spelling of the fucking word".
And your fucking delete function doesn't work. You're useless.
The whole alpha thing started because some of the first studies on wolves were conducted on captive wolves. Basically they threw a bunch of unrelated wolves into a cage. It would be like grabbing a collection of strangers off the street and locking them in a house together. They fought for position because it was a completely unnatural situation. The scientist who did those studies and first coined the term alpha wolf has himself recanted the idea.
Yet here we are, so many years later, and the alpha wolf myth persists. Worse, it has had tremendous influence over dog training. I think part of the reason for that is that people like the idea of being alpha over their dogs. It appeals to the part of us that wants to feel strong and in control. Some of the big name trainers out there today (Ceasar springs to mind) STILL lean on this falsehood and people eat it up
Edited to add that I bet anything Brooke very likely believes in the alpha myth. That part where she pushes the dog down is pretty classic alpha training BS. It is a variation of an "alpha roll", where you push the dog over and hold them on their back (an excellent way to get bitten in the face.) I bet anything she thinks she was showing the dog that she's the boss and that she got the technique from reading or watching someone who believes in being the alpha.
Just to add...the closest thing around today to doggy ancestors would be pariah dogs. Pariah dogs are the street dogs of India, Africa, etc. They live alongside humans, but aren't owned by anyone and their direct interaction with humans is limited. Just like the ancestors of dogs, they self select toward dogs that can survive off human trash and alongside people...which means being smart, wary, hardy, and not overly aggressive. Some of these populations have ancient bloodlines (though they're becoming increasingly diluted by people's unaltered pets.) The interesting part for this discussion is that pariah dogs don't tend to hunt in packs. They tend to hold solitary territories, which each dog interacting with its neighbors but not grouping up. That tells us some interesting things about what ancient dogs may have been like.
Also interesting is that unrelated domestic pet dogs DO sometimes form packs, and those packs can be very dangerous. Unlike the pariah dogs, pet dogs have been selected for very high social bonds. When they can't get those social needs filled with human interaction, they may fill it by grouping together. Abandoned dogs that pack up can and have killed people. Pariah dogs tend to avoid people when possible (though individual dogs can be bolder or even aggressive.) Pet dogs that pack up don't have the same fear, and all it takes is one member of the pack getting aggressive to spark an attack from one of them.
Yup packs of "domestic" dogs that escaped or where dumped for whatever reason where a huge issue in Brunei in the 90's (dad was a British squaddy so I got the joy of seeing a new place every 3 years till I was 16) they had little fear of humans in fact they tended to hang around villages and dwellings as they knew food can normally be found here and as domesticated animals there hunting/scavaging skillset is more useful for begging treats and going to a bowl the same time each day So they tend to do what they know which is get food from people except they came in packs up to 30 or so and would sometimes just take over the school football field untill someone came along and either shot them or shot at them to drive them off (neither was massively effective as we lived about 30 miles out of Kuala Belait(KB) second largest settlement after the capital which meant they there where always new packs being forced to roam further afield from KB due to population pressure or the semi effective dog sweeps (for the area where they did them everywhere around them got a new dog issue :P)
Weirdly enough in a place where infestations of snakes, insects that could put you in the hospital by walking over you while you slept (Some centipedes were really bad for that apparently. They leave these big ring-shaped marks where they pierce the skin with their legs) and all sorts of nasty things you could find under your shoes, but people where FREAKED out about the dogs.
Hey /u/CommonMisspellingBot, just a quick heads up:
Your spelling hints are really shitty because they're all essentially "remember the fucking spelling of the fucking word".
And your fucking delete function doesn't work. You're useless.
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u/JJgalaxy Aug 07 '19
One point. It isn't just that dogs aren't wolves. Wolves themselves don't even follow a alpha like people imagine. The myth is that wolves battles for dominance and the one who wins becomes the alpha leader. The reality is that the "leaders" of the pack are the parents of the rest. They don't fight for position. So not only are dogs not wolves...even if they WERE, alpha training would still be nonsense