Lupomorphizing

I think they "learn human" better than many who lupo.....ise them give them credit for.  It's been shown that dogs in shelters will readily bond with a human they have had little contact with more than a dog they share a kennel with. 

Another interesting point, aggression in DA dogs rarely spreads to humans - the dog isn;t likely to become HA just because he is DA.  (Wading into a fight and getting bit doesnt count obviously)  Say a dog is DA (not HA).  A dog is coming head on straight towards him, making eye contact and baring his teeth: Challenge.  The dog responds accordingly.  Primates approach one another head on all the time, and humans bare their teeth to express pleasure (smiling)  The same dog won't necessarily react the same way to the human as he did to the dog - he knows that person is being friendly towards him, despite the species divide. 

A puppy who was poorly socialised with other dogs mnay well be very fluent in "human" and completely "retarded" in his own language with a poor ability to express himself adequately to other dogs or read their signals.  Would you lupomorphise him (as an adult) in the same way you would a well socialised dog?  This is over simplifying it more than a bit, but.... Like me adopting a spanish child, speaking to him in english nearly all the time and trying to hold a conversation in spanish when he is older.

Dogs clearly distinguish between the species and "read" them differently.  So (for example) what does a dog really "see" when he is being alpha rolled?  We can't assume he will see it the same way as if a dog did it.  So what's the point?  This is where I think lupomorphising can be harmful... when we think we "know" how a dog will see something just because we've seen a dog do it to another dog, or heard that it happens.

Food for thought on the "dogs learning to read humans" idea.....(yes, I am a big fan of research, if you haven't been able to tell already!)....
 
Human-like social skills in dogs?
[link>http://tinyurl.com/34z85a]http://tinyurl.com/34z85a[/link]
Abstract:

Domestic dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social and communicative behavior – even more so than our nearest primate relatives. For example, they use human social and communicative behavior (e.g. a pointing gesture) to find hidden food, and they know what the human can and cannot see in various situations. Recent comparisons between canid species suggest that these unusual social skills have a heritable component and initially evolved during domestication as a result of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression towards humans. Differences in chimpanzee and human temperament suggest that a similar process may have been an important catalyst leading to the evolution of unusual social skills in our own species. The study of convergent evolution provides an exciting opportunity to gain further insights into the evolutionary processes leading to human-like forms of cooperation and communication.

 
For anyone's reading pleasure.
 
I know there is a bit of terminology that is used that I would probably not have used (such as "human-like", as opposed to simply being "similar" behaviours, regardless of species......humans evolved, after all, it's only reasonable to assume that we got "some" of our behaviours from THEM, not that they show "human-like" behaviours...but that's not a huge deal, the paper is still great).
 
Kim MacMillan

Yes, the amazing thing about the domestic dog is that it is born already knowing a lot about human communication. Several studies have compared dog puppies to wolf puppies to show that dogs look at human faces more than wolves do and that dogs can interperate human hand gestures in ways wolves don't. These aren't adult dogs who have somehow learned how to do this. They are puppies, born with the ability to coexist easily with humans. Even chimpanzees can't interperate a human pointing at an object as a cue to look at the object. They look at the finger. But dogs do that all the time. My dogs do it so well that we have a command built around it: "go". I say "go" and point to where I want them to go, and they go there. It works in any location. At home they are so good at it that if my hands are full I can sort of gesture with my head and body where I want them to go and they comply with that as well. I've never formally trained this command. I never had to. A few weeks living with us and every dog we've ever had has just picked it up.

There's no way you can ever "talk dog" -- you don't have the body structure, same as your dog will never speak english, he doesn't have the throat/mouth structure to do so.

I agree that dogs can learn "human" alright. But, not all dogs are well socialized, and will often resort to their primal behaviors. We can definitely speak dog! Sure we don't have tails and hackles, but consider behaviorists who have to meet a problem dog for the first time. They avoid eye contact, keep their body relaxed, approaching a dog in a curve-line - that's 'speaking dog'. What about us, regular folks, who call a dog to come over? You'd turn in the direction you want your dog to go and move away from it. Although my dog is pretty darn good at understanding my body language, I know that when he gets up late in the evening, turns his body facing the bedroom door and looks at me - this means "Bed time, c'mon. Lets cuddle." He is speaking dog to me and I understand him.

I see that as being like the ability to say "hello" "goodbye" "thank you" "two beers please" and "where is the toilet" in a foreign language.  It's rudimentary.  It will get you by in certain situations and certain introductions, but its a very small part of the communication.

ORIGINAL: Chuffy

I see that as being like the ability to say "hello" "goodbye" "thank you" "two beers please" and "where is the toilet" in a foreign language.  It's rudimentary.  It will get you by in certain situations and certain introductions, but its a very small part of the communication.

 
Wolves and dogs also learn through observation, especially during the formative years. Many social mammals have cultural practices around seasonal game and prey choices which are handed down generationally.
 
The only area that I'm seeing some rather kooky and bizzare stretches of the imagination, is the measures some are taking to divorce the dog from the wolf completely and taking a turn into the twilight zone of the sci-fi relm claiming domestication and co-evolution is making dogs human.
 
Oh well, there's always some piece of science which can be twisted to make a point and make us believe dogs are turning into people. People will believe what they want to believe, until reality bites.
 
I'm sure the "fur-baby" folks will be dancing in the streets over that one. Scary.
 
Anyone have one of those articles handy? []
 
 

The only area that I'm seeing some rather kooky and bizzare stretches of the imagination, is the measures some are taking to divorce the dog from the wolf completely and taking a turn into the twilight zone of the sci-fi relm claiming domestication and co-evolution is making dogs human.

Oh well, there's always some piece of science which can be twisted to make a point and make us believe dogs are turning into people. People will believe what they want to believe, until reality bites.

 
Strange.....I don't think I've seen anybody here do that at all. Unless you're referring to another post from another time. I'm pretty sure all of the members here understand that dogs are dogs, not humans. Or wolves. That they have dog emotions (some of which are shared emotions similiar across many social species, including humans), they have dog behaviours, they have dog needs, and they think like a dog. Whereever are you getting the idea that anybody is thinking of a dog as a human?

The only thing I see here is that people are acknowledging that dogs are not wolves, and that too much lupomorphizing is going on when it comes to dogs, and that perhaps we need to begin to find a happy medium, and study dogs as dogs. Not as wolves, not as humans, but as dogs. There are many, MANY interspecies relationships in the world, and I don't just mean via humans. Situations where two species both play a role in affecting the other's behaviour, and how each provides some benefit to the other in that animal's life (the relationship between crows and wolves comes to mind).
 
It's not unreasonable to see that, through selective breeding (and before that, natural selection), we have selected for a very specific set of genes in our canid friends (or, more specifically, we have selected for how those genes express, as opposed to the genes themselves, as the actual genes have only changed in a very small way) that sets them up to live very successfully in the world that we have created around them, and to very easily learn to understand us in a way that makes sense to them, and that allows them to cohabitate well with us. If dogs did not have that adaptability, they wouldn't be the species that they are, and they wouldn't co-exist with us as they do. lain and simple. And it's not even solely about how the dogs are raised by humans, because numerous studies of hand-raising dog and wolf pups, both individually, in individual litters, and in mixed litters(dog and wolf pups together), have showed fundamentally genetic differences in their behaviours, their critical stages and lengths of such stages, and how they react towards people, even when raised in the exact same manner.
 
So, what have you been reading that gives you any impression that anybody thinks of dogs as people? Because I certainly have seen no such thing. []
 
Kim MacMillan

I wonder if those who advocate the wolf theory, is justifying the harsh methods they use when dealing with dogs.

I call it the "tame the wild beast" syndrome.  If one thinks of a dog as wild and out to dominate their every move, then there is no guilt.

I am thinking of the people who roll their pet wolves daily.

Hey, to take this in a new direction, has anyone else ever read "Dogs" by the Coppingers? I'm reading it now and it really makes a tremendous amount of sense (and is sort of going along the lines of what I've been hunching about for a while).

Anyway, the main thrust is that there is an intermediate creature between our pet domestic dogs and wolves: the village dog. They posit that these dogs branched off from wolves by natural, not artifical selection. These are not strays that got together and became feral. These are dogs that were never pets, ever. They liken them to pigeons in cities. They're around, they're tame enough that you can approach them, but they don't really let you touch them. They subsist on human waste and evolved for that niche. So rather than looking to wolves to figure out pet dog behavior, why not look at village dogs?

Hey, to take this in a new direction, has anyone else ever read "Dogs" by the Coppingers? I'm reading it now and it really makes a tremendous amount of sense (and is sort of going along the lines of what I've been hunching about for a while).

Yesyesyes! I have that book and in evolution/behaviour terms, it's by far one of my favorites, and it's what I recommend to most people if they have an interest in behaviour or evolution, even if it's to someone who has a totally different view of it. It's such a fascinating book, and it just.....makes so much sense. It really does.
 
Many thumbs (and paws!) up for this book.
 
Kim MacMillan

As with any single book, the Coppinger's is also filled with a lot of personal opinion. Sometimes a lot more opinion than science. It is widely held in high esteme and embraced by those who want to use the studies to prove that dogs do not form packs, do not need a leader, and thus we do not need to be Pack Leaders, alphas, dominant beings, grand poo-bahs, or whatevers to our dogs.
 
I found it to be an interesting book (which I will probably go back and read through again) though I don't have a copy anymore. Some scientific flaws in both the remarks made by the authors (something about neanderthals and dogs living together), and their emotional references to service dogs as existing in a sad and sorry state as slaves to their wheelchair-bound owners...hope I'm not getting a couple books mixed up here. [8D]
 
I agree with some of their observations on how loose and nonstructured the village dogs lived as they had no need to form packs to actually hunt.
 
But, to conclude this still applies to dogs who live within our homes in cramped quarters with humans and other dogs and who actually need a pack structure to be stable from a "social" point of view, is the same stretch as drawing across-the-board conclusions about the family dog based on wolf studies alone. IMO

But, to conclude this still applies to dogs who live within our homes in cramped quarters with humans and other dogs and who actually need a pack structure to be stable from a "social" point of view, is the same stretch as drawing across-the-board conclusions about the family dog based on wolf studies alone. IMO

I agree.

Did the book discuss studies on village dogs in captivity? If you take these free running village dogs and separate them from their food source - garbage, leftovers from hunts, etc.; put them in captivity forcing a social structure upon then (like we do with our dogs) would they NOT form a hierarchal structure?

It is widely held in high esteme and embraced by those who want to use the studies to prove that dogs do not form packs, do not need a leader, and thus we do not need to be Pack Leaders, alphas, dominant beings, grand poo-bahs, or whatevers to our dogs.

 
Don't forget though, the bias goes both ways. Those who want to be alpha and Grand poo-bah, and alpha roll, scruff shake, and dominate their dogs are just as quick to point out "their" studies, books, and articles, and try to put down anything other than agrees with their views. Two sides to every coin, as they say. []
 
Kim MacMillan

And just to point out, just because somebody happens to agree with somebody's writing doesn't mean they are necessarily just picking out everything that agrees with "their" views (if that's the case, then ro-dominating/alpha believers do the exact same thing, FWIW.......). There are things in the book that I don't necessarily agree with. There are few authors I've read yet, in which I agree with "everything" that they say. However it doesn't change the fact that the book is a very fascinating one, and it provides a perspective that some people have never considered before (including the debates on the real relationships between dogs and their people, including in the service dog world).
 
Kim MacMillan

ORIGINAL: Angelique

As with any single book, the Coppinger's is also filled with a lot of personal opinion. Sometimes a lot more opinion than science. It is widely held in high esteme and embraced by those who want to use the studies to prove that dogs do not form packs, do not need a leader, and thus we do not need to be Pack Leaders, alphas, dominant beings, grand poo-bahs, or whatevers to our dogs.

I found it to be an interesting book (which I will probably go back and read through again) though I don't have a copy anymore. Some scientific flaws in both the remarks made by the authors (something about neanderthals and dogs living together), and their emotional references to service dogs as existing in a sad and sorry state as slaves to their wheelchair-bound owners...hope I'm not getting a couple books mixed up here. [8D]

I agree with some of their observations on how loose and nonstructured the village dogs lived as they had no need to form packs to actually hunt.

But, to conclude this still applies to dogs who live within our homes in cramped quarters with humans and other dogs and who actually need a pack structure to be stable from a "social" point of view, is the same stretch as drawing across-the-board conclusions about the family dog based on wolf studies alone. IMO

 
I agree, not because dogs have been living with humans that means they stopped being dogs first, or not because humans live with dogs they stop being humans []
 
Some people bring the "dogs have evolved since living with humans" card but they forget that evolution takes millions of years to have an specie change something about it
 
Let's not compare them with wolves then but i dont see a lot of chances of finding a lot of wild packs of dogs in this country to really see how they behave (in case they do it in a different way), to really really find out how a specie behaves you need to  have it in its natural habitat, you can study an specie by having it living with humans because then they are in a "human habitat", just like you cant study a person and how social he/she is by having that person in the middle of the jungle