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Why Does My Dog Do That?
| What Your Puppy Knows 1. Your puppy knows the proper way to greet other pack members, especially higher ranking members. He does this by licking their faces, jumping toward their faces, rolling on his back if he is submissive, urinating if he is a very submissive puppy. A. Translated. When I see my human pack members I will jump up franticly, trying to reach their face. If they become angry with me, I will jump harder and higher. I am trying to placate their aggression toward me. If this doesn’t work, I will flop on my back, at their feet, and if they appear very dominant I will urinate to show them I understand who is boss. 2. Your puppy knows that it is proper to greet all members of the pack before going back to whatever it was he was doing. B. Translated. You’ve come home. You’ve brought new pack members,I very correctly will be jumping toward every face and demonstrating what a good member of my pack I am. If the adults react in an angry manner, I may urinate to show them I am a good puppy. 3. Your puppy knows not to soil his eating, drinking, and sleeping areas. C. Translated. It is ok to urinate any place in the house as long as it is not in my spot. 4. Your puppy must learn (from the pack), the proper way to play. Litter mates and mother teaches him to inhabit his bite and to mouth gently. He must learn how to approach a strange dog, usually from the side and to present his rump to be investigated as he examines the other canine’s posterior, this is followed by circling, the invitation to play, or an attack directed at any dog which may not display the correct behavior. D. Translated. I will bite at other pack member’s hands faces, feet. I will bite as hard as I can. I am testing my strength and my limits. I will make a determined effort to demonstrate my social skills by sniffing at the privates of all strangers entering my territory, dog or human. I will run around the stranger, barking and play bowing, trying to initiate play. If the stranger does not respond to my overtures, I may exhibit aggressive behavior. 4. Your dog knows he must never look into the eyes of a higher ranking pack member. E. Translated. I will not meet the eyes of other pack members if I deem them superior. It is bad manners. 5. Your dog knows he is a member of a pack. That is where he finds security. Being rejected by the pack can mean death. F. Translated. If you leave me alone, I will whine, bark, and try to reach you even if this means destroying the surroundings. If this behavior draws the attention of other pack members, then I will repeat the behavior every time the pack members disappear, even if they are angry when they return. 6. Your dog knows, as the low ranking member of pack, he must compete with the Other low ranking members for his food, so he learns to eat fast, to lay with his body covering the food to protect from other puppies, to growl so he can eat first and to go to the bathroom within 15 minutes of eating. G. Translated. I have to gobble my food or someone else may get it. Laying in my food bowl is a good way to keep my food safe, even if I do become a smelly, messy little fellow. Rushing in to grab a bite is perfectly acceptable if you can get away with it, so why would my pack members expect me not to eat a perfectly good roast they left lying around. I will growl at lower ranking dogs (children) to show the food is mine and I am the higher-ranking dog. The living room carpet makes a nice place to potty right after a big meal because I don’t sleep there. |
| The Japan Times November 23, 2002 Los Angeles Times DNA analysis shows domestication, selective breeding shaping behavior from 12,000 years ago Canine genes shaped by human interplay: study NEW YORK — In the genetic journey from wolf to lap dog, dogs developed a unique genius for sensing human intentions, as the interplay of handler and hound shaped the biology of canine behavior in ways that scientists only now are beginning to understand, new research shows. Dogs are tailored to fit the human mind, like a glove to the hand. From birth, dogs are fluent in the human text of hand gestures and facial expressions. They can understand humans better than chimpanzees — humanity's closest relative — or the gray wolves from which dogs are descended, according to the first direct comparison of the species. Harvard University anthropologist Brian Hare, who conducted the comparison, is publishing his experiments Friday in the journal Science. This unusual canine social skill does not come from training or experience; nor is it the legacy of a pack species with its own rich vocabulary of body language, Hare said. It arises from genes shaped by human contact, inherited by every contemporary canine, his experiments suggest. "We have created the dog in our own image," said developmental geneticist Jasper Rine at the University of California at Berkeley. Through a series of research papers in Science, three independent teams of scientists, including Hare, explored the evolution of dogs — from feral scavengers into man's best friend — to better understand one of humanity's earliest innovations: the domestication of animals. By analyzing canine DNA from around the world, the researchers determined that the domestication of dogs was an inspiration that swept the ancient world more quickly and more recently than previously believed. Every one of nearly 400 breeds today descended originally from just five female wolves in East Asia, scientists said. As perhaps the first wild animal to fall under human sway, dogs offer an unusually clear window into how genes and selective breeding can shape behavior. People have manipulated virtually every aspect of canine design and demeanor, culling for those traits that humans deem most useful in these cold- nosed companions. Dogs trace their ancestry to primordial wolves that thrived about a million years ago, said Xaoming Wang, an expert on vertebrate paleontology at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. In all, there are 35 canine species alive today, only one of which — the domestic dog — is the object of human affection. The earliest fossil evidence of this special relationship was unearthed from a grave in Israel, dating from about 12,000 years ago. In its left hand, the human skeleton cradled a pup. |
| Recommended Reading The Dog's Mind Understanding Your Dog's Behavior Bruce Fogle, D.V.M., M.R.C.V.S. ( The Wolf Almanac Robert H. Busch (12.89) What Your Dog Knows-Instinct Vs. Environment D.V.Ball (contact author for Copy) |
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Behavior Questions!
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