You've talked about how the alpha theory if flawed when it comes to dogs because the wolf packs studied were artificial, and actual wolf packs are made up of a breeding pair and their young. Aren't our dog packs artificial though? Or have the thousands of years of domestication changed dogs socially? This is really important for me to understand i think, i'm having some issues with my dogs. Thank you!
First, let me put in the standard disclaimer: I’m not a licensed professional and you shouldn’t rely on advice from me to treat a pet’s behavior problems; for that I would suggest consulting with your vet or a licensed CAAB. I deal in behavioral theory, and while theory can be useful in understanding why animals behave a certain way, it is not going to give you any methods to reshape your dog’s behavior. You need applied behavioral science for that.
Disclaimer aside, you are not the first person to ask me this question, and actually it’s one I see pop up a lot in the comments sections of articles on dog dominance. But it’s based on a very flawed assumption: that our dogs live in, as you put it, “artificial” packs. You yourself mentioned the thousands of years of domestication that dogs have been through. Is it more or less artificial, after these thousands of years being selectively bred, for dogs to be in the wild or with humans?
Domestication has absolutely, absolutely changed dog social behavior, and I’ve actually discussed this a bit before. Nearly every aspect of dog social behavior has been neotonized compared to wolves (i.e., development has slowed or halted), and while it varies between different breeds, very few develop the full suite of adult wolf social behaviors. Even the timing of the fear/sensitive periods of puppies has shifted when compared to wolf cubs.
It is pretty obvious when you look at the behavior of both human-socialized wolves and human-socialized dogs what these changes mean. As a wolf grows up, it ‘locks in’ its experiences- meaning, past a certain point, all new things are scary and to be avoided. Mature wolves also develop a drive to become independent and leave their families, leading to behavior that could be termed quite belligerent to a human owner. Most dogs do not go through these life changes- they stop their behavioral development early and retain a kind of eternal Peter Pan mindset. This is perfect for the environment they have evolved in (human intervention or no), because generally we don’t want dogs to leave our families, be terrified of new things, or grow mature and aloof from us.
So it’s questionable to compare a dog’s normal lifestyle to a wolf’s, or even to call a pack of stray dogs a ‘normal’ kind of living situation. Obviously, it isn’t: humans have been part of the equation for a very long time. Still, there are valid comparisons to make between wolf + wolf and human + dog families. Wolf families are formed of adults and their nonreproductive offspring. In a dog family, the role of the parents is presumably filled by their human owners, and the dog stays in the role of offspring eternally.
There are, of course, huge amounts of variation between the way dogs behave and of course between the way wolves behave; certainly some dogs I have had as clients had very distinct dominant-submissive relationships among themselves, but they come from all different sorts of backgrounds and are often poorly socialized. Compared to a wolf, these dogs still have the capacity to very quickly form new attachments to strange dogs and/or strange people. And it is all quite often done without aggression or a power struggle.
In my opinion, people tend to point at an aggressive behavior in a dog and say “dominance” far too easily. It’s possible that the dog is expressing that it is the dominant individual in a relationship when it behaves aggressively, but even if that’s true it tells you nothing about how to treat the behavior. Socially dominant animals don’t behave aggressively because they’re all just assholes. If your dog growls at you, he is growling for a reason that is not itself “dominance;” dominance might only factor in to how much aggression versus fear the dog feels comfortable expressing. The underlying cause of the behavior (perhaps he assumes you are about to do something he finds unpleasant, or the environment triggered a scary memory) is not being addressed if you just try to dominate your dog back.
(In fact, studies have shown that this is a very bad idea, and “dominating” a dog usually leads to more aggression on the dog’s part.)
Social status does not rule every aspect of a dog’s life, and doesn’t cancel out a dog’s needs, wants, and fears. Pointing to an unwanted behavior and saying “this is because my dog thinks he’s the dominant one, I need to prove that I’m the dominant one and it will get better” is just ridiculous. It completely ignores the environmental factors that trigger the dog’s behavior in the first place.
...I ended up going on a bit of a tangent there, but I hope this told you what you wanted to know!
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