Thursday, July 15, 2010

A Wolf Ass-Whips Another Out of the Pack




This 9-minute video clip was filmed by Dean Cluff, in collaboration with wolf biologist Dave Mech. The caption on Youtube reads:

An adult male wolf we radio-collared in the arctic near Eureka, Nunavut, Canada in July 2009 displayed continued dominance aggression on a younger male wolf, believed to be one of his offspring from a previous year. We suspect the behavior of the collared wolf represents domination on the part of a parent toward a maturing offspring that will eventually lead to the dispersal of that offspring. Filmed by Dean Cluff, in collaboration with Dave Mech.

You will note that this is the same David Mech who wrote a paper that the Cesar Millan-bashers are only too happy to routinely misrepresent. In fact, Mech has always been clear that dominance does occur in wolf packs. In fact, dominance creates and shapes wolf packs, from beginning to end, as older dominant males drive out younger males at age one or two.

5 comments:

HTTrainer said...

Young males are also driven out of Mormon enclaves.

PBurns said...

Perfect! A very nice example.

True too for fox and lions and many others...

P

Anonymous said...

Time to hump the naysayers into submission?

Viatecio said...

Dom-ee-nance?

Of course not!

These two were just using their parent-offspring relationship as play training by using pressure and release to teach the concept of how to ass-whip OTHER wolves. See how they howl as one toward the end? Mother Nature us a bee-yoo-tee-ful thing, we must respect her! When the time comes for the younger male to leave, Daddy will probably just kindly ask and then give a click and treat when Sonny leaves. Good boy!

/I'll go vomit now
//Couldn't watch ALL 9 minutes, but it's certainly an interesting video demonstrating very real canine behavior

PBurns said...

The thing that is tiring is the degree to which folks will simply leave data and information off the plate to justify or rationalize a philosophy.

To be clear, wolves are not domestic dogs, and domestic dogs are not wolves, but they are very closely related and there may be something to learn from one or the other.

Thing that is absurd is the notion that dogs do not practice dominance among themselves. It happens all the time, and much more commonly than among wolves, as dogs hae to establish pecking orders more often as groups form and disassociate. If you have not seen dogs standing over each other, I have to wonder if you have ever had a dog off a leash, or whether you have ever taken the time to really watch dogs off the leash.

Dominance and pecking orders within packs is very real.

P.