There's been some interesting research in wolf-dog comparisons done by the Family Dog Project at the University of Budapest which is well worth reading. According to their findings the most striking difference between dogs and wolves is that dogs look/gaze at the human face, whereas wolves don't.

Hi Barbara I wonder if they were using captive wolves in the project.

In the programme I mentioned some of the wolves appeared to come up really close and looked at the human's face but then they had never seen a human before so were curious .
They also licked the boot he was wearing and ran off with a camping stool .

Cesar is a bold dude. And despite what some people say, he can read dog language somewhat well. He knows what dogs are safe enough to mess with. He has been bitten but never badly. He knows which dogs not to mess with. Some dogs, you bend down to their bowls when they are food aggressive, and you'll be bitten square in the face badly.

His methods on training the dogs needs work, but he can be interesting to watch. I use his "tssst" noise, it works great to snag a dogs attention. I don't use much else though. I will challenge a food aggressive dog. I will admit to violently kicking a bowl from under a snarling dogs face and shouting "Dont you dare" in my biggest and scariest voice, scaring the dog to high hell, but this was long ago and I'd not handle it like that now, but it worked a charm and that dog never growled at me again. But I'd never have pulled a Cesar and gotten down at ground level, he'd have likely bitten me.

Sorry to disgree Myra, but I don't think the TV entertainer CM hasn't a clue about a dogs body language and I wouldn't trust him to train my boot

Hi Meg ... Take a look at thefamilydogproject.elte.hu website and look under wolf-dog comparisons where you'll find all the published papers (on PDF). They used hand reared puppies and wolf cubs born to captive wolves from an animal park. The cubs were raised and treated by their carers in the carers home in the same way as the puppies were by their owners.

Thanks Barbara I will take a look when I find a moment

David Mech has done research on free-ranging wolves and has also found them to be much more akin to a family unit rather than a strict hierarchical system. I would think truly wild wolves exhibit similar behaviour.

To research wild wolves in any depth would be a nightmare because of the extent of their range. Even then there would be differences between packs dependent on the stability of their range and how much threat from competitors there were.

Wolves are fascinating, but they are not dogs so any comparison is akin to comparing our behaviour to our ancestors, the apes

I don't believe this is so. I rarely watch his programmes, but I've seen him bitten on at least two occasions on his show when the dogs were giving off clear signals that that is what was going to happen. He bullies very nervous dogs who are clearly saying that they are very uncomfortable and forces aggression where it can be easily avoided. That is not a good dog trainer by any stretch of the imagination

One of his phrases is"I didn't see that coming"everytime he gets bitten<~~~~~~ says volumes about his alleged ability to read dogs body language !!!

Gave me a giggle. I understand many people think that, and for good reason. But I have watched him a lot, and again, he'd have FAR more bites if he couldn't read dogs at least a little. Some of his personal videos at the dog sanctuary show a different side of him. The bites and the drama are part of the T.V. show, and though I do not encourage people to kick dogs and get in snarling dogs faces, he's not as clueless as some people claim he is. I can go off in Stilwell, who I dislike as much as Cesar but for different reasons, but I'll save that for another day.