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Interesting read! :)

 

Linking it to humans: I have long suspected the dual power structure (male and female) system exists in humans, too. I watch male coworkers, who all seem to be currying favor with "important" guys, striving to climb some power-structure ladder that for me doesn't exist or matter. I'm sure my male coworkers watch as the females in the building likewise dance around our power structures - who is alpha female? whose decisions get enacted?! - and don't really understand what's happening there, either.

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Interesting. Thanks for sharing, Donald. Hope it reaches enough people to help chip away at the firmly entrenched mistaken understandings.

 

Linking it to humans: I have long suspected the dual power structure (male and female) system exists in humans, too.

 

That's definitely true in some cultures. Most traditional Native American cultures are structured like that. For example, with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), although the men have their councils, it was (until they were recently corrupted by patriarchal values) the Clan Mothers who had final say in all matters of governance, including which men would sit on the councils and whether or not adopt treaties or to wage war. Sounds like a good system to me, but sadly that's the important part that the US founding fathers didn't understand (or ignored) when they adopted part of the Haudenosaunee structure for our government.

 

ETA: In the interest of pointing out that these aren't extinct cultures, several of the Haudenosaunee still practice this form of government.

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The Vikings didn't do too badly until the matriarchal ideals were put into place.....

 

Do you mean patriarchal?

 

Most of these cultures believe it's the lack of balance between men and women that's the cause of social ills.

 

Little known fact -- the ancient Hebrews had both a male and female deity who were equal. Somewhere along the way the feminine principal was subsumed in favor of a masculine patriarchal monotheism that became widespread.

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Hum, My Grandmother handled this by wacking her young men with a stiff broom till they understood her superior ways that were to be obeyed..

 

oh...not the brush side......

 

;)

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Let's not forget the Mongols listened to their women's council and look how far they were able to extend their empire with little technology. The Vikings didn't do too badly until the matriarchal ideals were put into place..... hmmm do we see a trend?

Hm, the mongols did never go against a technologically superior enemy. On the contrary, their arms tech was quite advanced for their day, and certainly on par, or better than the European at the time.

I seriously doubt that listening to their woman´s counsel had a lot to do with their success on the battle field.

 

Same thing with the vikings, their ship building technology was very superior to those of the countries they raided. Their success ended abruptly when those countries wizened up and started building ship types that were specialized for battle at sea.

 

On an unrelated note I think that more involvement of women in politics and general decision making would be a very healthy thing for any society.

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Interesting read.

 

With regard to dogs, Julie Hill in her book, The Natural Way (2nd Edit) repeatedly writes that being dominant is not the same as being aggressive. From living with a pack of 10-20 unneutered working border collies for 30 years, she says the following about how different dogs behave when they are 'leader of the pack'

"Over the years, I have come to realise that different dominant dogs actually have very different natures and ways of leading the pack. So when Bill was the dominant Alpha, he projected a calm, firm, quiet dignified, assertive manner. In contrast, when Tig took over he was more obviously a dictator: he had a very short fuse and would tolerate less from lower ranking members. He would often growl his displeasure and if not checked by Bobby [Henderson, her partner] or me, would discipline lower ranking members much more severely. Despite this manner and attitude torwards lower ranking adults, he would still happily nurture and play with pups, letting them climb over him to build their confidence. He took an active role in teaching them how to fit into the pack and was always fair and tolerant with them. He also accepted the position of Kim, the Alpha female, who would sometimes show her annoyance with him and check his overbearing ways (just like a marriage!). Similar to the opposite natures of Bill and Tig, Tess when she was the Alpha female controlled the pack in a different way from stubborn Kim.

I find that pack runs smoother with the calmer, fairer leadership of Bill and Tess and so I also rule in this manner"

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yes Patriarchal took over then the societies seem to decline-hmm a trend? And the Mongols did listen tot he council of the women. Their ideas were respected. Think we could learn something from history?

 

It has been seen in monkey troupes that when a cruel ruler takes over the society is not calm. and frequently the 'dictator' is overthrown by the group.

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I seriously doubt that listening to their woman´s counsel had a lot to do with their success on the battle field.

 

I don't know about the Mongols or Vikings, but the Haudenosaunee (and other Native American cultures') warriors certainly didn't suffer from the women's councils having the final say in whether or not they could go to war and when it was time to end it.

 

They were fierce warriors. Just ask the Europeans who fought against them. It was, in the end, more lethal technology, superior numbers, disease and not understanding the Europeans' more devious and dishonest ways that lead to their defeat.

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I just read somewhere that dog packs do not have the same structure as wolf packs. They have a much looser structure.

Ha, I kinda knew as I was quoting from Ms Hills book that I would get this comment in response.

 

FWIW my own thoughts are as follows.

 

Yes, I completely agree that there are some academic papers published suggesting that dogs do not form hierarchical packs

(for example ...

- van Kerkhove W A fresh look at the wolf-pack theory of companion-animal dog social behavior J Appl Anim Welf Sci. 2004;7(4):279-85

- Bradshaw J, Blackwell, E and Casey R Dominance in domestic dogsuseful construct or bad habit? Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research Volume 4, Issue 3, MayJune 2009, Pages 135144).

 

and yes..some of these academics are noted dog behaviouralists who seem to have made their reputation in part from disproving the hierarchical pack theory.

 

But IMO, this does not mean that (generic) you should just blindly ignore Ms Hills observations. I get the distinct impression from reading her book that she has spent many years (over 30) carefully observing her dogs behaviour and closely watching how intact, non-neutered dogs interact with each other in a stable set-up (I wont say pack, in case this riles some people).

 

Yes, Ms Hill may not have any formal academic training, but this does not stop her using her eyes. In fact, there are definite examples of 'unqualified' individuals who have provided us with profound ground-breaking insights into animal behaviour. Take the eminent animal behaviouralist Jane Goodall.- She was a young woman without formal academic qualifications when she started watching the Gombe chimpanzees - Indeed, her close observations of chimps using tools (and hunting) combined with her belief that the chimps had distinct personalities went against several of the academic notions of the time.

 

IMO one of the main issues underlying the 'dominance/hierarchy' debate is purely down to the semantics that are used to describe/define "a pack". Unfortunately, there seems to be a common pre- (or mis-) conception that the dominant animal has to be aggressive. However, this is probably wrong and in fact in the bit of Ms Hill's book that I quoted, she suggests that within her pack (or whatever you want to call it), dogs with very different behavioural traits can become 'Alphas' - and even when a dog that has a short fuse with other adult dogs becomes 'the leader', Ms Hill notes that this dog still wants to roll over and play with pups. (ETA perhaps similar to 'wolf21' described in the OP article??)

 

So my question would actually be so if (10-20) un-neutered dogs can live together in harmony, and if there is some sort of subtle hierarchy (that could easily be missed by someone who is not closely embedded with her dogs)...and if individuals with very different natures can step up to become 'the leader', then what traits actually make a particular dog become the Alpha? -From what Ms Hill describes, it seems to relate to a calm, assertive, self confidence - similar to what is now being described in wolves in the article that Mr McCaig started this thread with...

 

..and so perhaps un-neutered dogs (living in largish stable canine communities (packs)), aren't so different from wolves

 

I know these ramblings go against the grain with several people who read these boards and obviously this is JMO

 

YMMV

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and yes..some of these academics are noted dog behaviouralists who seem to have made their reputation in part from ‘disproving’ the hierarchical pack theory.

 

Some of what had to be "disproved" or perhaps more accurately, reinterpreted were the conclusions about dominance in wolf packs that were gained through observation of artificial, human created "packs" that didn't resemble wild wolf packs in their composition at all.

 

Wild wolf packs consist largely of extended family members, whereas the captive wolves that David Mech observed when he formulated his original theory were unrelated individuals who'd been thrown together in enclosed spaces and were vying for status and so didn't accurately reflect wolves' behavioral dynamics in the wild. Now he debunks his own early observations and the conclusions based on them as flawed.

 

I don't know how that translates into understanding the behavioral dynamics of groups of dogs. ;) IIRC (and I may not), Mech says the current understanding of wild wolf behavior doesn't apply to dogs.

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Some of what had to be "disproved" or perhaps more accurately, reinterpreted were the conclusions about dominance in wolf packs

yes.... It is a relatively common problem that individuals commenting on scientific literature (and even the scientists themselves) may confuse the observations (actual results) with the conclusions (hypothesis/ theory/guess) that may explain those observations.

 

..and then of course there may be issues with the way the study (experiment) was designed and what parameters were measured.

 

..the joy of science.

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Maxi, I wasn't trying to be confrontational. I just know that they have now pushed back the time that dogs and human remains have been found together to 30,000 to 40,000 years. And that is probably conservative. There were just so many advantages for human groups to have dogs around that it may go back much further.

 

I would just surmise that one would have to be really careful about making assumptions about dogs based on wolf behavior. It seems to me that most primitive groups that we can still look at have dogs and they may have several together when the dogs are utilized for hunting. They seem to be pretty integrated into the human groups rather than functioning as a "dog pack."

 

After so many thousands of years dogs and wolves have evolved in completely different directions and now may be more different than they are alike. But you know that.

 

But I'm coming from an anthropological point of view. We may look at things a lot differently than someone who may be an animal behaviorist.

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Dear Doggers,

 

While I can't remember the last time I heard a sheepdogger talk about "alphas" or "Wolf packs", most adopt - as I have - some form of "pack leader" theory, encouraging fairness with and authority over one's dogs.

 

One distinction between behaviorist theorists and - say - Julie Hill, is that behaviorists are rewarded by their adherence to certain beliefs, membership in the right societies and careers in particular universities. Julie, on the other hand, is rewarded only if her theories have desirable consequences; ie, if the dog can fetch the sheep in awful weather, if the dog can hold a terrified maiden lamb so the shepherd can assist with the birth and so on.

 

We can argue endlessly about the applicability of old wolf studies. If you would train a sheepdog, you must be its pack leader - a good, kind, fair leader.

 

Donald McCaig

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Tommy - I didn't view your comments as confrontational...I think that some of the disparity in views has been partially caused by how (generic) you define 'pack' and what traits are actually required to make a good leader. I find the comments in the OP article about wolves interesting.. especially when read directly alongside Julie Hill's observations about her own dogs.

 

Mr. McCaig, although you may not remember when a 'sheepdogger' last talked about 'alpha' etc, Julie Hill does use this term in her book that was published last year (this 2nd edit has clearly been completely overhauled and rewritten when directly compared to the earlier version) - see excerpt I quoted in post #9.

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The reason I dislike the terms Alpha and Dominance is that they are so often lazy labels applied by people who are just parroting what they have heard without any real understanding. Labels can build a barrier to thinking about what is really happening. Those terms I particularly dislike because of the possible harm that can be done by encouraging a confrontational approach.

 

Dogs need a benign dictator, not a tyrant.

 

As the OP suggests, Alpha is not what so many believe it to be and if it is so widely misunderstood then should the term still be used?

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I find the human/canine parallels fascinating!

 

As a new 8th grade teacher (30-some years ago) I often heard the "don't smile till Christmas" line. In other words, be extremely stern and strict and don't let the students see you have a sense of humor, or they'll ride roughshod over you.

 

After a few years, I realized that MY best weapon (given my personality, etc.) was to make THEM smile the first day. A kid sassed me a bit? I said, "Hey, are you sure you want to sass your teacher on the very first day of school?" WITH A SMILE.

 

In general, I have found that disarming them by not threatening them - in fact, by revealing to them deliberately that I would not threaten them - has won me a lot more good behavior and happy acceptance than any sternness or threat would.

 

Another teacher? This might not work. The strict and stern deal might win kids over in a different way. (In fact, on my team, the history teacher is adored by the kids because of his formal and stern approach.) A lot of leadership is about using your natural wiring and skills to get what you want out of people. I imagine there are various dog leadership styles, depending on which dogs find themselves in the position to need to lead. Dictatorial leaders do exist - I've had a few jerk bosses - but I'm not sure they thrive in their positions.

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Since wolves and dogs came from the same ancient canine it is not surprising they have some behavioral similarities. However, wolves and dogs are different species with dogs having undergone significant human guided genetic selection (selection first for behaviors and more recently selection for appearance) which makes it highly likely that the social behaviors of dogs are not exactly the same as wolves (which have not undergone human guided genetic selection for behaviors). Why would we expect the social structure of dog packs to be the same as wolf packs? To me it's lazy science to extrapolate wolf pack behavior (easier to study packs not under the influence of humans) to dog pack behavior (much harder to find not under human influence).

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I find it endlessly fascinating to consider that human social structures/dynamics in general are more like canid social structures/dynamics than they are like other primates' social lives (as far as we understand them). This perspective is noted in the NYT article and also by more and more academics who study these sorts of things (Barbara Smuts, Brian Hare, and Mike Tomasello have done great research looking at primates, canids and people--though usually not in the same study). It is perhaps not coincidental that it's dogs who work with people so readily and not chimps or baboons (human meddling in dog reproduction notwithstanding)

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