Maxi Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 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). Personally.. I find the observations made in the OP article about leadership in wolves/humans & about dogs in Julie Hill's book interesting & yes as I have said before I consider that the similarities intriguing... but one is a general newspaper article and the other is from a book on sheepdog training. .and of course neither should be considered a rigorously reviewed scientific article (lazy or otherwise). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Billadeau Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Maxi, I wasn't talking specifically about these articles; it was a more general observation on the collective knowledge of dog pack behavior. Most newspaper stories on wolf behavior will use scientific publication for guidance; in the absence of these they often extrapolate. Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pippin's person Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Even if you found a dog pack isolated from humans, I doubt it would really solve the human confound in dogs. I suspect (pure conjecture) that human involvement in dogs is as essential to what dogs "are" as it is non-essential to what wolves "are" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Billadeau Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 I agree that dog behavior is intertwined with humans; however, I believe that when researchers want to study the behavior of species they want to do so in the absence of outside influences (which in the case of dogs may not be possible). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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