Pack Behavior Pop Psychology

Another interesting article in the Winter Edition of Off-Lead magazine, Ian Dunbar sounds off about pack behavior based training modalities.

“Entire training programs have advocated that people pretend to be an alpha wolf or the dog’s mother when raising puppies or educating dogs. Although ludicrous, pop psychology has always been like catnip for a surprisingly large number of dog owners (and some trainers)”

Mr. Dunbar does an excellent job of explaining why single action temperament testing is “a few steps below asinine” and that assigning a label to a dog based off his one reaction to one event is a fallacy. The article also provides an excellent overview of the importance of early socialization and the effects of no socialization.

The article lists a few excellent resources:

• Dogstardaily.com – Practical puppy husbandry and dog training
• Free Behavior Blueprint’s from Sirius Training

This is the second issue in which Off-Lead has challenged the widely accepted “pack theory”, a few weeks ago we blogged about their fall issue article titled Pack of Lies. Although no “TV Trainers” were named directly, a few times in the article I couldn’t help but think he was directing his statements to a couple famous TV Trainers

Pack of Lies ?

A Recent article in Off Lead Magazine challenges the long term held belief that dogs are pack orientated.

Political upheaval in Romania caused an unbalanced population of free-ranging or homeless dogs, this tragic situation however served to provide animal behaviorist with numerous observation opportunities that are usually reserved for observing wolves or dingos.

These Romanian dogs seem to only pair up on occasion closer to what animal behaviorist and author Dunbar refers to as “loose, transitory associations”.

Free ranging “un-domesticated” dogs do still roam in a few areas of the globe, further observation and analysis of their social behavior is of course needed to determine if the Romanian Dogs are indicative of true canine social behavior or a fluke.