Origins of the dominance theory

I'm doing an objective paper on the dominance theory for my animals and people module at uni... The only problem is that I'd like to look at the original studies but I can't find them anywhere. I've heard them mentioned on here before, something about a guy who was actually a nazi or something? and research on captive wolves in the 60s? So I figured I'd asky anyhow. If anybody has any links or knows where I'd be able to find out more I'd truly appreciate it

David Mech - wolf guy who went back on theories
William Koehler - German biologist who did lots of experiments, never heard of him being a Nazi mind!

James O'Heare's witten some good books on Dominance and the dominance theory.

Go to the library. They have plenty of older books on dog training and likely will have a bibliography of their sources.

Looking in The Art of Raising a Puppy I see Allen, the Wolves of Minong, Fox, The soul of the Wolf, Lopez, Of wolves and Men, and Mech, he Wolf, the Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species. There are also books based on dog behavior too. Be prepared to find things that may not be like much of the current buzz.

There are other names, like Frank Beach who did all the early studies but I really think you should research yourself! You have google no?!

Oh I've researched myself, but in the wrong places evidently!! Could only find things on the opposite side of the argument. Thankyou both.

The person who did the first studies, on captive wolves, was as far as I know, Schenkel. If you are really good at research you may find some of his stuff online - I found some old type written papers, but they aren't really necessary to read IMO. It was what was extrapolated from them that has shaped the future of the whole dominance theory.
David Mech is a fab person to research as he is one of those who has educated himself and realised from his research that wolves have families and that sometimes the pups eat first, etc etc... he has written a good article here:

http://www.4pawsu.com/alphawolf.pdf

a very good article from a reputable source (close to the roots) and Mech explains how his popular book even helped the myth to continue! Which he wishes it had not.

"I crafted my book The Wolf: Ecology
and Behavior of an Endangered Species
in the late 1960s.
This book was a synthesis of available
wolf information at the time, so I
included much reference to Schenkel’s
study. The book was timely because no
other synthesis about the wolf had been
written since 1944, so The Wolf sold
well. It was originally published in
1970 and republished in paperback in
1981 and is still in print. Over 120,000
copies are now in circulation. Most
other general wolf books have relied
considerably on The Wolf for information,
thus spreading the misinformation
about alpha wolves far and wide."

also this site will direct you to more info gathering about dominance, some good articles, etc.

http://www.4pawsu.com/dogpsychology.htm

and you may want to check out the paper by Bradshaw et al 2009 re Dominance:useful construct or bad habit?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science.../sdarticle.pdf

You can access the above via Sciencedirect if you are at college/uni I expect.

There has been a paper out that supports dominance in some ways, and this is I believe a Barcelona study or something - but this study is flawed from the beginning due to the method etc, so if you come across it, dont be impressed just because it appears to have a large number of dogs in the study! some of those who critique the studies on line are not as erm - knowledgeable as they think they are

Hth a but
Wys
x

If you are truly doing an objective study, like I said, look at the sources cited in some of the older books. I find it difficult to believe it all goes back to one flawed study. I just haven't had time to dig into it.

im not too sure David Mech is known to have "gone back on theories"?

all the research i have done on Mech states he is the one that debunked Schenkel's captive wolf studies with some new studies on native free wolves.

Schenkels original 1947 captive wolf study has been translated from the German by David Mech on his site:

http://www.davemech.org/schenkel/index.html

The Monks of New Skate came up with the term Alpha for dogs in the 1970's.

Konrad Most (another German) promoted the disciplinarian dominant route of dog training in his 1910 book "Training Dogs"

Sorry I'll rephrase that!

"David Mech - who went back on the dominance theories of Schenkel"