Redditor Shares Interesting Fact About Dogs In The Wild: Unlike Wolfs, They Are Not Pack Animals

We learn something new every day

Damjan

• Published in Interesting
• November 21, 2022

Dogs are man’s best friends, and that’s a fact. We’ve bonded so tight that it somehow feels natural like it’s been like that since the dawn of time. And it is something close.

The demographic histories of both people and dogs are starting to become clearer because of advancements in the isolation and sequencing of ancient DNA. The genetic traces of prehistoric canine bones have been connected with known human dispersals during the past 10,000 years in places like the distant Pacific and the Arctic.

However, it is believed that this bond dates back far further and that people and dogs may have traveled together as early as the late Pleistocene when the dog was domesticated from a wolf progenitor. Here, we demonstrate that there is a strong association between mobility and divergences of their respective lineages in humans and dogs from Siberia, Beringia, and North America.

The timing and geographic location of dog domestication are constrained by this data. Most importantly, it implies that wolves and people may have been isolated during the hard environment of the Last Glacial Maximum, when dogs may have first been domesticated in Siberia some 23,000 years ago.

When humans first arrived in the Americas some 15,000 years ago, dogs followed them and went with them as they quickly spread over the continent.

OP posted:

Closely related

Jean Donaldson the founder of The Academy For Dog Trainers says on their website:

“When I first got into dog training, the mantra was “dogs are pack animals.” It was never questioned: dogs were strong bonding animals and fit into human families so well, sometimes to the point of developing bona fide disorders like separation anxiety.

And a lot of behavior was deconstructed with social hierarchies in mind. Nobody examined what dogs do when they are not inserted into human families, i.e. are free-ranging. So a while ago I took a look at what is known about feral or semi-feral populations of dogs around the world. It turns out there are many such populations.”

"Parents and usually last years cubs. "

“There are cases of dogs buddying up with one or more dogs for days at a time, and dogs being drawn into proximity to each other by food sources, however, none of the above populations form packs the way wolves do.

Males, in fact, do not participate in the rearing of puppies, which is the foundation of a wolf pack. And, scavenging far outpaces hunting as primary food-acquisition activity, another difference from wolves, who hunt much more.”

"Yes, it’s a fictional novel, but Jack London knew his facts."

Sounds about right...

Teamwork

Going somewhere important

What would we do without dogs? We don’t ever want to find out.

They are our best friends, our loyal companions that would never leave our side. But it is sad that we actually know so little about them.

These recent findings show that perfectly. And this doesn’t apply only to dogs in the wild…

Damjan