Originally
published in slightly different form on May 29, 2011 at PsychologyToday.com.
I would once again like to
thank Dr. Loretta Graziano Breuning (hereinafter, LGB) for her reply to my
latest post. Although we disagree, much of what she says is correct, or would
be if we’d been having this discussion 20 years ago. The difference is that
science now has a more complete understanding of how a wolf pack operates.
However, to prevent this discussion from becoming a continuous circle of
“wolves form dominance hierarchies” and “no they don’t” I’ll focus on three
main issues.
The Wolf Pack as
Totalitarian Despotism
LGB has painted the wolf
pack as a “totalitarian despotism” in which subordinate animals are controlled
by the alphas through a fear of being bitten. But in “Alpha Status,
Dominance and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs,” (1999), L. David
Mech, the world’s leading expert on wild wolf behavior writes, “With large prey
such as adult moose (Alces alces), pack members of all ranks (ages) gather
around a carcass and feed simultaneously, with no rank privilege apparent (Mech
1966; Haber 1977).” At other times, Mech says that “regardless of the rank of a
challenger, the owner tried to retain the food it possessed, as Lockwood (1979)
also found with captive wolves.” And finally, “Wolves of any rank could try to
steal food from another of any rank.”
As for the idea that the
pack is controlled through aggression: “The social interactions among members
of natural wolf packs are much calmer and more peaceful than Schenkel (1947)
and Zimen (1982) described for captive wolves, as Clark (1971) also noted.” And
finally, “The terminology falsely implies a rigid, force-based dominance
hierarchy.”
Question #1: If LGB’s view
of how a wolf pack operates is correct, why do the world’s most respected
experts on the subject don’t agree?
The Urge to Dominate
Is Hardwired
LGB has described the urge
to dominate as a hardwired urge in dogs and wolves. Yet I’ve always won
contests with so-called dominant dogs by acting “submissive,” and have always
been able to control each dog’s behavior simply because, in my view, the dog was not
attempting to dominate me, but was simply anxious about my presence. By acting in a
non-threatening (i.e., “submissive”) manner I defused the dog’s underlying
tension and took control of the situation.
Dr. Karen Overall of the
University of Pennsylvania and other veterinary behaviorists have found that
“dominant behaviors” can usually be managed through anti-anxietal medications.
However, in most cases such behaviors can also be managed, and even outright
cured, by playing tug-of-war, letting the dog win, and praising the dog for
winning.
British zoologist, and
fellow PT.com blogger John Bradshaw said in a recent interview, “Many trainers
advise against playing tug of war games because there is a risk the dog will
win and the dog will think that you are being submissive and he will therefore
be able to control you in the future. We’ve done research into a number of
these things—including the tug of war game—and have shown that the premise is
just completely not true.”
I recommend tug-of-war as
a cure for what other trainers might call “dominance aggression,” and it always
works, particularly when you always let the dog win and praise the dog
enthusiastically for winning. Veteran police dog trainer Kevin Behan was
recommending tug in the late 1970s, when doing so was very seriously frowned
upon by mainstream dog trainers. Now it’s common practice.
Question #2: If the urge
to dominate is hardwired, why is it so easily disposed of by a) acting
“submissive,” b) medication, and c) playing tug, letting the dog win, and
praising the dog for winning?
The Wolf Pack as a
Self-Emergent System
In a previous post I
suggested that it’s silly to think of lobsters, for example, as being focused
on a need to rise in status, yet much of the literature on serontonin’s effects
on “dominant” behavior comes from research done on crustaceans, aquarium fish,
etc., in which these animals are said to “rise in status” when given a boost of
serotonin.
I think the laws of
parsimony should guide us. Morgan’s canon states: “In no case is an animal
activity to be interpreted in terms of higher psychological processes, if it
can be fairly interpreted in terms of processes which stand lower in the scale
of psychological evolution and development.” In other words we should only
consider animal behavior as rational or intentional if there are no other,
simpler explanations that would satisfactorily explain all aspects of said
behavior.
In order to side-step
Morgan’s canon, LGB has said that the urge to dominate or rise in status found
in mammals (and crustaceans) is not necessarily conscious. “Each individual simply
seeks rewards and avoids pain. The new science of ‘emergence’ shows how complex
systems emerge from simple individual choices without design or intent.”
This is interesting since
I was probably the first person to describe the wolf pack as a self-emergent
system in print. In an early chapter of my 2002 novel, A Nose for
Murder, my narrator,
Jack Field, tells his then girlfriend Dr. Jamie Cutter, “I see the wolf pack as
a self-emergent, cooperative heterarchy, based on the need to hunt large prey.”
I was actually preceded,
in a way, by Kevin Behan in his 1992 training manual, Natural Dog
Training, where he described the self-organizing nature of the wolf
pack without even knowing that there was a new scientific discipline called
emergence theory. To Behan “The unifying current in canine behavior is neither
intelligence, as it is commonly defined, nor some vague concept such as
altruism or cooperation.” Instead, Behan says, the organizing principle is the
prey drive.
How so? It had been
suggested for some time that the pack’s hierarchical structure changed
substantially during the hunt where the alpha role was reportedly passed around
continuously, almost like a game of hot potato, from one wolf to the next. And
while there were only two alphas for mating, there were supposedly as many as
five or six during the hunt.
Behan describes pack
hunting as in self-organizing terms. “Each job is not so much a skill as a
different emotional state of inhibitedness relative to rushing in on the prey.
The more uninhibited a member is ... the more direct and straightforward in his
drive to bite. He’ll be the ‘leader.’ The more inhibited an individual might
be, the more circumspect and restrained he’ll act, and he will be a follower.
... In such a flexible system of learning, where each job is emotionally linked
to another, there can be social migration through the ranks, both upward and
downward, as the emotional environment of the group changes over time and the
group constantly adapts to retain the overall balance and synchronization.”
Evolutionary biologist Raymond
Coppinger has also said that pack formation is a function of the prey drive,
particularly prey size. Wolves who settle near garbage dumps don’t form packs.
Coyotes sometimes do but only when they need to hunt large prey.
Alexandra Semyonova was
way ahead of the rest of us. She began her 15-year study
of domestic dog social behavior in 1988 (published in 2003). In it
she clearly shows the dynamics of canine social behavior can be fully explained
through the principles of emergence theory/autopoiesis.
So Behan, Coppinger,
Semyonova and I agree with LGB’s idea that the wolf pack is a self-organizing
system. The problem is, self-organizing systems operate from the bottom up, not
the top down.
Question #3:) How can a
supposed dominance hierarchy operate as a self-organizing system when such
systems always operate from the bottom up, not the top down?
I hope Dr. Graziano
Breuning will answer these questions for us.
None of this means that I
believe dogs or wolves aren’t capable of acts of aggression. But for wild
wolves, aggression is, for the most part, reserved for outsiders, not members
of the pack. Nature, after all, is an economist, and it’s far more economical
for wolves not to expend any unnecessary aggression on pack members when that
energy should be focused on prey animals or members of rival packs.
As for dogs, I said in my
previous post that they’re the most social animal on the planet. That’s true.
But they’re also the most aggressive. This may seem an oxymoron until one
realizes that sociability and aggression come from the same wellspring: the
wolf’s prey drive.
“Life Is an Adventure—Where Will Your Dog Take You?”
Join Me on Facebook!
Follow Me on Twitter!
Join the Rescue Dog Owners Support Group!
Join Me on Facebook!
Follow Me on Twitter!
Join the Rescue Dog Owners Support Group!
No comments:
Post a Comment