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Apart
from when I left home and lived in student accommodation, I've always shared my
life with dogs – always dogs plural, never less than two, sometimes six or
more.
Being
motherless and having a father that was 'busy' this was a trade off, my life was
mostly free of people and the dogs shared my life. Doors and gates were never
locked or even closed none of them ever ran away, others however came and joined
my 'family'.
When
I was very young I didn't know about 'Pack Rules', all the dogs were expected to
behave within a basic good manners structure, come, sit, down, stay, wait, no
barking, no teeth, etc.
We communicated very well and understood each other,
we had no great problems and to this day I have never had experience of a
'dominant' dog and have never felt challenged or outwitted in any way.
When
I was able to read, the first books I got from the library were dog related.
Training, games, breed differences, grooming, health care etc. Later I discovered literature on Pack Rules and how Pack structure was essential for an ordered community and also how status reduction was a recipe for curing 'domination problems'. I stayed on a farm once when my father was away on United Nations duties, the farmer told me how he would bite his collies ear to 'teach him who was boss' How barbaric I thought.
So
having read and re-read the pack rules thing I couldn't make much sense of it.
How could two different two species that did not speak the same language, have
different expectations of life, have different rules and values, live together
and be as one pack??
We
cannot give the postures that dogs give to one another. We do not have a tail,
cannot communicate with our ears, eyes, mouth and hair as they do.
We do not bark or growl, although teenagers sometimes do!!!
A full set of exposed teeth means friendship for us, for the dog it can be
a sign of aggression and yet they are intelligent enough to understand that we
mean no harm when we display this to them.
We
sometimes express ourselves by waving our arms about in an Iconic fashion, we
show emotion by blushing and perspiring. We show nervousness by stammering, biting our fingers. We show impatience by tapping our fingers or feet.
They
do not communicate verbally as we do, in any dialect or language. Our
differences are many and diverse.
Would
we consider living with any other species and expect to behave within the same
confines??
Mans
closest relative is the ape, would we consider living closely with them and be
of the same 'Pack'?
But I thought, well if this is the way it should be
done, then OK, people who know what they are doing will guide me. (No I didn't
bite their ears!)
Now
I'm glad to say that I was a very sloppy Pack leader. I did not adhere too much
of it. It was a case of yes that's how it should be done, but it doesn't suit
me.
I
refused to allow them to run out of a door or gate in front of me, this made
good sense as it was a safe, polite and organized way of proceeding. It was
self-preservation. I can't see the relevance to domination though; their
excitement would surely be in anticipation of going for a walk.
They
always went upstairs before me and down before me, having arthritis and
sometimes being on crutches after operations this was the safest way for me,
that way I didn't get ambushed from behind and could see them at all times.
I was a very 'BAD' pack leader, toys were available all the
time, if someone dropped a ball at my feet I would play. They slept in my
bedroom sometimes, sometimes they didn't.
I
did not eat first, often during long lonely days we would share our meals, I
hated broccoli and sprouts, they loved them, I hated hats, they made great
Frisbees!! They were the only constant in my life, minders came and went, I
can't remember many of them now, and I can remember all my four legged friends
though. Moving ahead to recent years, in Sept. 2000 I have been in the unfortunate position of asking the help of a behaviorist.
As
she entered my home my dogs went to welcome her, they were not rowdy or jumping
up, just approached her with waggie tails for a sniff hallow, Charlie brought her
his favorite pink bunny and wagged his tail ferociously. She folded her arms
and ignored them, which was met by looks of rejection and bewilderment from my
dogs.
She
left after a two-hour session and left me literature with a heavy emphasis on
pack rules, which was to be adhered to, for my 'problem' dog I was to reduce his
status and throw water on him when he misbehaved, tie him to a hook on the wall
and generally be strict and unpleasant with him.
This
I felt would break my heart as well as his and I felt that there must be another
way,
and there IS another way which is based on common sense, compassion, and mutual
respect and with this method we have sorted out our problem, yes it was painful,
depressing, infuriating, dark, dark days when it seemed that there was no
solution in sight, but when the first little chinks of communication started
bearing fruit what a joy! And gradually we got there.
I
believe that teaching and learning are not helped by intimidation. Emphasis is also placed on 'Pecking Order' this system was offered up after studying how birds behaved, are our dogs now birds?? Birds have descended from Dinosaurs are our dogs Dinosaurs then??
My
understanding of the analogy behind the Pack Rule system is that our domestic
dog is descended from wolves and wolves live within a pack system, they should
therefore respond to their owner as Alpha.
The
pack leader, the Alpha (Greek for A) eats first, chooses the best place to sleep
and has the pick of sexual partners in order to transport genes to the next
generation and beyond.
Wolves
come into oestrous once a year while dogs have two seasons, which is yet another
difference between the species.
This
pair will make all the decisions, only they will produce pups and the other
wolves male and female will assist in rearing them.
To
say that the dog is descended from the wolf is a very loose statement. Wolves as
we know them today and our domestic dog shared an ancestor and that ancestor is
extinct.
I
fail to see the connection of when a dog enters our home he is joining our “pack”
and therefore should defer to its leader and be subordinate.
Dogs
do not or only very rarely exhibit pack behaviour; I can't see how dogs
understand what we are telling them when we exhibit this supposed alpha wolf
behaviour.
Wolves
will pack during hunting in order to kill large prey, afterwards they will
return to their dens to regurgitate food for their pups. Usually no single wolf
or pair can kill large prey or raise a litter alone - therefore the pack often
comprised of family members works well for them as a survival strategy.
It
is not safe to say that because our domestic dogs have descended from wolves and
therefore have wolf qualities. They have evolved by natural selection and
therefore the wolf qualities are severely modified.
Our
domestic dogs are really descended from scavenger dogs; these were descended
from wolves that were less frightened of humans, who lived in the villages and
rubbish dumps of Mesolithic people.
These
less fearful wolves mated with other less fearful wolves that decided to make
their life near people.
These wolves changed shape as they embraced their
new lives, their brains and head sizes and teeth became smaller as they gave up
hunting and made their life scavenging instead.
Today’s
wolf’s heads are large with big brains that hunt and dogs have smaller heads
and brain sizes.
These
scavenger dogs would not have needed to hunt as a pack to feed on these dumps.
They did not have a pack structure, they were semi-solitary animals.
Dogs are no
help at all to other dogs in these circumstances and would only be considered as
competitors. There would be no
motive or advantage to feed other dogs pups; therefore the pack behaviour is of
no use to them.
The dog does
not behave socially like wolves, nor do wolves behave socially like people.
Therefore I
would argue that our dogs do not think like wolves nor do they behave like them,
to say that they are descended from wolves does not make them wolves, just in
the same way that we are descended from apes doesn't make us apes.
Dogs are not
wolves pure and simple, we are not wolves either, so the thinking that we
should, both very different species, live, as a pack is unworkable. We cannot be
a pack with a different species.
THE RELEVANCE OF THE PACK RULES MODEL TO TRAINING.
Misconception
and misunderstanding of pack theory (dominance theory) has led to problems with
the application of this theory by dog trainers, behaviourists and the general
public alike.
Pack
theory has been used to describe and to predict dog behaviour for the last 60 or
so years. It describes the social behaviour of dogs partially on the
observations of captive wolves in the 1940s.
The
theory is based on the hierarchy structure among wolves with the most dominant
male at the top and each member of the pack in a linear relationship below him
and suggests that each member is always striving for higher rank while the
dominant alpha wolf continually asserts his position with aggressive displays.
David Mech studied non captive wolves on Elsmere
Island in Canada from 1986 to 1998 and he says that 'little is known about the
interactions between breeding males and breeding females under natural
conditions and about the roles of each in the pack and how dominance relates to
these relationships thus no one has yet quantified the hierarchical
relationships in a wild wolf pack. He says that the term alpha is a common
source of confusion and misrepresentation and that much of the interaction based
on determination of the alpha were invalid and misleading. He explains that a wolf pack family in which there is breeding pair who raise young that disperse usually at or before 2 to 3 years of age. During that time the breeding pair are dominant over the cubs and the breeding pair are role orientated and only rank orientation within that context. When it comes to the cubs, the female is dominant over the male and when it comes to issues of food providing the male is often dominant
He
also says that dominance or a submissive display are rare and argues that the
breeding pair should be called 'breeders' rather than alphas.
In natural wolf packs the alpha male or female are
merely breeding animals, the parents of the pack and dominance contests with
other wolves are rare if they exist at all.
During
Mech's 13 summers of observation he saw no dominance contests. Therefore calling
the wolf an alpha is no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a
doe as alpha.
Mech
concludes that the typical wolf pack structure should be viewed as a family with
adult parents guiding the activities of the group and sharing group leadership
in a division of labour system in which the female predominates primarily in pup
care and defers to the male primarily for food provisioning and the travels
associated with that.
Mech's
research provides valid data from which to formulate a model of canine social
behaviour, he clarified misconceptions about wolf pack behaviour, which might
help to understand the misconceptions of popular theories of dog social
behaviour, but problems arise when dog owners looking for an understanding of
their pets behaviour make false assumptions based on this information. The value of Mech's theory comes in predicting wild wolf social behaviour, which can help man manage wild wolf populations. It does not however offer data to understand domestic dog behaviour within a household.
Some of the rules laid down for a dog human “pack”
are
1 Do not allow your dog to eat until you (top dog)
have eaten first.
2
Do not allow your dog to leave the house before you.
3
Do not allow your dog to climb on to the sofa or bed.
4
Do not allow your dog to climb up the stairs before you.
5
Do not cuddle or stroke your dog.
6
Do not interact with your dog unless you are involved in training.
7
Do not let your dog look in your eyes.
8
Do not pick up your dog and cuddle him.
9
Do not greet your dog when you come home from work/shopping. The list goes on and on do not let him pull on the lead, lie in doorways undisturbed, control games, win games and so on. All of these rules are to supposedly reduce the rank of the dog and keep him in his place so that he does not get the wrong idea and think that he is in control.
So
to be a good trainer the dog must know who is boss and the owner must be “Alpha”.
Somehow
it has been decided that if you are “top dog” this will make the dog a
better pet and solve training problems.
The
dominance idea assumes that the repressed dog will be obedient, which does not
fit in with the thinking that dogs learn by repeating behaviours that are
rewarding to them and not repeating behaviours, which do not bring reward.
Very
often a dogs body posture is looked upon as “dominant” when he might be
fearful or defensive. If this fearful, defensive dog is corrected by a
misinformed owner who is acting in accordance with dominance theory, the result
might be that the dog becomes even more fearful and defensive.
Working
with the dog using the dominance theory which is based on a large set of
negatives, sets up the owner and dog for confrontation rather that cooperation
it also leads to putting in place policies with the dog which are of no use and
may not deal with the real issues which need to be addressed.
In
recent years trainers are advised to use positive reinforcement and kind methods
of training, the use of the clicker is now widespread, this is not based on
dominance and does not appear to fit in with the pack rules analogy.
One
could consider the ability of a mixed 'pack' to keep stable and understand each
other considering their different values and different way of communicating, no
other two species live together and operate together using the same rules and
structure.
One could also ask why, (and risking
anthropomorphism), we think that we can know how animals feel about their
relationships? And how do we think that we can live as the same “pack” and
use this orientation for training purposes.
In
a multi dog household a new edition will on the whole, be accepted easily and
although the group dynamics will change, eventually all members will settle down
to an ordered existence.
In
conclusion, using the idea of the domestic dog as an inherently pack oriented
animal to facilitate training by adopting 'Pack Rules' is not a workable one,
comparing the behaviour of breeding wolves to dog training is silly, the alpha
or breeder wolf does not train other members of the pack. As well as that wolves
are not trainable. The ideas don't connect at all.
Mech's research shows that a free pack of wolves
does not have an Alpha ruling over them; dominance challenges between wolves are
rare if at all, they act as a family sharing the upbringing of the young and
feeding them.
The leadership idea based on control by using rank
reduction only sets the owner and dog up for a confrontational rather than a
cooperative relationship. Also by being a very negative principle, it does not
fit in with Thorndykes Law and positive reinforcement.
The
dog is an opportunist, he will take advantage of rewards for complying with his
trainer's instructions, how can we assume that he should consider himself or his
owner to be pack leader? He is not capable of planning ahead, does not consider that he should promote himself to pack leader in order to better his future nor is he able to gauge what the future benefit of being pack leader is.
Being
an opportunist, he will though take advantage of a weak and non- consistent
trainer, but the raising of his status because of this weakness, will not lie
easy on his shoulders and this is where discord can arise.
One
can offer the similarities to a stroppy teenager and provided that the dog knows
his boundaries and lives in a loving environment with a consistent and fair
owner/trainer who is an authoritarian guide and does not allow the him to be
rude, unruly or disobedient, the owners need not act like wolves to achieve this
goal and there should be no need to apply outdated pack rule dogma. |
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