@pixelcats and any other dog owners, dog lovers, dogs...

Have you ever read Alexandra Horowitz -- Inside Of A Dog? If you have, what did you think of it?

One aspect of the book that impressed me was the author's criticism of attempts to explain the behavior of the dog by reference to its supposed origins in the organization of wolf packs ; these explanations rely on theories of domination by the "alpha male".

Horowitz faults these theories on two grounds. In the first place, she notes how much the dog has diverged from the wolf both physically and behaviorally as a result of milliennia of domestication. She then points out that the "alpha male" stuff is not an accurate description of how wolves behave in the wild, based as it is on observations of wolves in captivity and a subsequent mistaken extrapolation of theories of their behavior to wolves in general.

I have to say that I associate all this talk of "alpha males" with the uglier kinds of right wing political thought. I suspect that what goes on is the projection of authoritarian political values onto wolves,followed by attempts to legitimize various kinds of domination in our human social world by appeals to "nature'" in general and wolves in particular.

I wonder if these "alpha male" wolf pack thinkers are cruel to the dogs they own as they attempt to establish their dominance.

#Dogs #Ethology #AlexandraHorowitz #Wolves #RightWing #InsideOfADog

https://www.dogwise.com/inside-of-a-dog-what-dogs-see-smell-and-know/