You got me confused there. If Mech is observing wild wolves and they are in the wild then how can the environment be artificial?

If Shaun Ellis lived with wild wolves then how can having a human as a pack member make a pack natural?

I would class left over bones as food.

But strategies for breeding are different. Wolves have evolved to live in the groups that they do, primarily for being able to hunt down large prey but the downside of living as a group in places where food may be hard to come is that there may not be enough food to go round. So wolves only breed once a year (compared to the 2 seasons a year a bitch dog would have). And there is generally only one breeding pair in the group as the cycles of other adult females are suppressed ~ but this may change when food is plentiful, when another female may come into season & be mated by a wolf from, maybe, a neighbouring group.

I'm not sure what you mean with regard to "owners" as wolves don't have them. But if you mean people, then dogs are very different from wolves in the way they interact with people.

For playthings, with wolves I expect that these are each other (siblings & other juveniles?), plus anything else they may find lying around their habitat that can provide predatory practice, encourage exploratory behaviour & help them learn about each other, plus the muscle co-ordination for hunting & bringing down prey & learning about hunting strategies.

With domestic dogs, they are far more neotenised so are likely to carry on playing with toys well into adulthood. But I would think that the original motivation in puppyhood is also for similar reasons to wolves except they often don't use what they've learned about toys to extrapolate into hunting for food.

Another survival strategy that dogs have that wolves don't is the ability to read & take notice & keep close to humans. I read about & saw a programme a while back about dogs reading different facial expressions on humans & concentrating on the left hand side of the face where humans are more likely to betray emotions. Wolves don't have that ability as they don't need it as a survival strategy.

I expect there are others but these are the ones that sprung to my mind.

I WAS interested, thats why I asked.

You aren't describing the behaviours though---you are telling me what happens but not explaining how the dogs reactions and body language differs from that of the wolf. HOW does a wolf guard a resource and how does that differ from a dog guarding a resource? HOW does a wolf show submission---and how does that differ from a dog showing submissive behaviour. If a dog can show submissive behaviour how come it can't show dominant behaviour???

The programme was interesting with the pups following a pointing finger etc.

rune

Oh sorry I misunderstood what you were getting at ~ I thought you meant survival strategies as in how do they "survive" & how have they evolved to survive ~ not as in the actual physical actions they do to carry out these strategies.

I think that some of the physical body language that they do when interacting with each other can be very similar. Rolling over to expose the belly, snarling, growling, playbows, use of front legs to box/playfight ~ those sort of physical actions may have very similar meanings.

If you prefer to describe these physical actions as being dominant or submissive, then that is your right. IMO I think that is far too simplistic to describe many of these sorts of physical actions. For example, guarding an important resource ~ it may be "dominance" in that particular situation ~ but I don't think that necessarily means that that dog is a dominant or submissive dog, any more than a wolf that did the same physical actions is a dominant or submissive wolf.

I think you are right sometimes---but a dog that wees submissively is generally accepted to be a submissive dog---would you agree with that?

That doesn't generally happen unless the dog is submissive in the majority of situations with other dogs and/or humans. Dogs that greet their humans with a grin are saying what?

If you do agree then there has to be the opposite as well. So there are dogs that are dominant in all situations.

To say that they are not dominant because they don't want something enough doesn't mean that they couldn't have that something if they did want it.

rune

If the actions are the same then they can be compared.

rune

Or if its scared.

I know. The point I was making that wolves, wolf crosses and dogs all can kill for pleasure, not just for food.

OK, that rules out the theory that she was taken off her mum too soon. Does she bite and lick at the mouths of other dogs when she is pestering them?