Is pack leadership based domination or the parental bond?


The dominance theory originates in the work of Rudolph Schenkel who studied captive wolves in Zoo Basel in 1947 in which he proposed the existence of an alpha wolf, that had fought his way to dominate the pack. He also drew on many comparisons with dogs to support his hypothesis as well as giving personal anecdotes about his own dogs. Further weight was given to this theory in 1970 when Meech published “The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species” based on studies of wolves in Michigan's Isle Royale National Park. However as time went on studies moved onto wolves in the wild, and began understand that the wolf dominance theory was fundamentally flawed as wolf packs in the wild were related by blood, that is to say a male and a female would form a partnership and their off-spring would become the pack, so leadership was on the basis of the parental bond rather than domination. As the cubs grew up they would move on, find a mate and begin their own packs. On the other hand, captive packs were artificially created from disparate wolves with no paternal bond and so “dominant” behaviour manifested in order to create a pecking order. Ensuing studies of dogs over the years have largely repudiated the parallels between wolves and dogs on account of the artificial selection process that has made dogs behaviourally and physically distinct despite having in 98.8% of their DNA in common.

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