Book Review Part 1 Dog Sense How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Dog

Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Dog

by John Bradshaw

This is going to be a two part book review due to the length. Please check back for Part 2 at 6:30pm Eastern today

It was the best of books, it was–not the worst of books, not by a long shot, but incredibly annoying in places.

This is a serious effort at collecting in one place the current state of the science of dog behavior. Bradshaw discusses the evidence we have for how and when dogs evolved from wolves, as well as what dogs’ close relationship to wolves does and doesn’t mean for their behavior and needs in human households. For the last century or so, much training and dog management advice has been based on the idea that wolf packs are competitive, internally violent groups, dominated by the fiercest, most powerful male, or possibly the fiercest, most powerful male and female–the “alphas.” Since, the reasoning goes, “dogs are wolves,” dog owners need to establish themselves as “alpha” and dominate their dogs, lest the dogs seize control of the household and become problems and even threats.

Bradshaw explains in clear and understandable terms why every piece of this argument is wrong.

The studies that showed wolf packs as violent groupings dominated by the strongest were done with artificial, captive wolf packs–wolves who were not related to each other and had no way to leave the group if they weren’t happy with. They had no choice but to work out Who’s In Charge Here, by any means necessary. Natural wolf packs in the wild have since been studied extensively, and they are, in contrast, peaceful, mostly harmonious family groups. The “alpha pair” are in fact the parents of the younger wolves. Depending on local conditions, offspring from past litters may stick around for a year or three, helping to raise their younger siblings before eventually heading off to find mates and start their own packs. Where plentiful large game is available, a stable, long-lasting pack may include not only several years’ worth of offspring, but siblings of one or both of the mated pair–aunts and uncles helping to hunt large game and feed and care for the pups.

So wolves aren’t what we think they are. But then, neither are dogs what we’re sometimes told to think they are–and we know this, from our own observations of our own dogs. Most dogs who have had reasonably normal puppy experiences are extremely friendly and social, both with humans and with other dogs. Wolves, as harmonious and cooperative as they are within their own family groups, do not share dogs’ interest in being friendly and social with either humans, or other wolves. Contact with wolves outside the family pack doesn’t always descend into violence, but it’s always an occasion of conflict, with the resident group warning off the intruders. If our domestic pet dogs shared the behavioral traits of wolves to the extent that “dominance-based” training tells us they do, there would be no dog parks. We wouldn’t have the idea of dog parks; it would engender not visions of happy dogs playing, but of conflict between dogs or groups of dogs of different households. Just the fact that dogs form close social bonds with humans is a clue they’re not like wolves behaviorally; wolves are incredibly wary of humans, and even where an individual human has formed a relationship with an individual wolf, wolves don’t have dogs’ inclination to trust our judgment, regard us as sources of information, or respond to human body language.

Bradshaw goes further, and points out that today’s wolves are the descendants of several hundred years of relentless human hunting and territorial encroachment; they’ve been effectively selected for distrust and wariness of humans in a way that wouldn’t have been true of the original wolf protodogs who first started following humans to exploit our leftovers, and then gradually joined our human families and their skills for our skills to the greater prosperity of both species.

The wolves our dogs evolved from don’t exist anymore.

Please See Part 2 for the rest of the review

Reviewer Bio:

Lis and Addy

Lis Carey is a librarian with an odd sense of humor, who finds excitement in helping people find the information they need, and in the varied corners of library work–reference, cataloging, circulation, resource development, reader’s advisory. She reads voraciously and enjoys a wide variety of material–including, of course, fiction and non-fiction about dogs and cats. Addy, her Chinese Crested, is always happy to keep her company while reading, and occasionally tries to help write the reviews.

Check out her Blog Lis Carey’s Library for more Book Reviews.