|
Oh sure, but you should really read E. M. Thomas's The Hidden Life of Dogs partly published in the New Yorker. Her study of Mischa is a fundamental piece of behavioral research. A solitary Husky in her home, Mischa would slip out and range abroad. Elisabeth started mapping his travels (she was a working anthropologist -- she wrote a book about !Kung in South Africa). She mapped out that he had a range over 180 square miles of Greater Boston. She concluded his purpose was to establish dominance over as many dogs as he could. He returned faithfully to her home every morning. By "solitary", I meant not living with a pack. Later, when Mischa had a mate, he still roamed and took her with him, although he and Maria had fallen deeply in love (Elisabeth say they were married). When Elisabeth finally got a pack, she studied the way a group of males treat a female in heat. Dominance order establishes the order that males are allowed to mate with a female, and in the wolf (or husky led) pack, of course, the alpha female never mates with any except the the alpha male. She later shows an example (not a proof) of how the alpha bitch in a pack maintains her solitary right to breed, and the submission of an omega bitch to her aggression. The book is not the final, scientific word on these matters (for she is irresistibly drawn to anthropomorphizing), but it is a useful addition to any zoologist's, behaviorists', or dogbreeders' library (I wouldn't recommend it to one who sentimentalizes dogs). I recommend it with this one reservation -- especially to one as well informed as you are. |
