Nonlinear Dogs
 |  |
Myth 10: Dogs live in a dominance hierarchy, with the Alpha
dog at the top as the absolute leader.
One of the things we hear most about the canids is that dominance is extremely important in
organizing their groups. The story goes that their interactions are all about gaining and maintaining
status. The dog with the higher rank dominates the dog with the lower rank, who submits. Canids are
always trying to climb up the ladder, because they know higher ranks bring bigger advantages in life.
This whole story is, yet again, based on tales about how wolves organize their packs. This is the one
myth about dogs that virtually everyone seems to know – not only beginning dog owners, but even
people who have never had a dog and wouldn’t want one. I rarely meet people who don’t believe in
this myth.
Therefore, it will probably surprise you to hear that we now know (thanks to Dr. L. David Mech) that
even wolves do not live in a dominance hierarchy. To live in a dominance hierarchy, and to base your
behavior towards others on who has which rank, you have to be able to do quite a bit of abstract
thinking. You’d have to have a map of the social structure in your head, in which you are comparing
various ranks with each other and assigning these ranks to yourself and others. Neither the wolf nor
the dog has the large frontal lobes in the brain that would enable them to think in such abstract
terms. A dominance hierarchy also requires a stable group that is organized in a rigid structure.
Domestic dogs do not live in stable groups. They live semi-solitary lives, which are enriched by
fleeting friendships. As we will see in Myth 11, the groups dogs do form are not at all rigidly
organized. The structure of dog groups is, rather, highly flexible, which is the whole reason they are
so good at absorbing infinite numbers of strangers. And the final strange thing about this myth is that
no one – not one single scientist – has ever yet been able to find a dominance hierarchy within a
group of dogs, no matter how hard they looked or what kind of statistics they applied. The whole idea
is utter nonsense.
So what is going on? How could science make such a blunder, and how did this myth end up being so
firmly rooted in our minds?
If we want to understand this, we have to go back a little further in history and look at ourselves. It is
common knowledge among historians that humans have always projected the structure of their own
societies onto the animal kingdom. The ancient Egyptians, for example, lived in a society governed
by a royal family, whose members were demigods. Divinity, and links to divinity, were very important
in organizing Egyptian society. Many Egyptian gods were portrayed as animals, and this was
projected back onto the animals in the mundane world, assigning various divine characteristics to
various animals. In the Middle Ages, when our societies were organized into nobility versus
impoverished, vulgar peons, people also divided the animal kingdom into noble versus common
animals. The noble animals were believed to have the same qualities as human nobility. They were
beautiful, graceful, clean, courageous, wise, chaste, loyal, chivalrous, and so on. The common
animals were like human commoners. They were seen as ugly, clumsy, cowardly, cunning,
promiscuous, sneaky, and so on. The lower animals were ruled by, and they respected, the noble
animals. The human nobility had exclusive rights to the owning and hunting of noble animals, while
the peons had to limit themselves to peon animals. This distinction between noble and common
animals still exists among hunters to this day, where the hunting of noble animals still enjoys more
status than, say, rat-catching.
Although we now like to think of ourselves as more rational and less superstitious, the fact is that our
projections onto animals did not stop when the modern age arrived. With the rise of industrialism, we
reorganized our own societies to operate on the basis of competition rather than birth. We still find it
interesting to have a title of nobility, but you aren’t really Someone unless you are capable of
competing on the basis of personal prowess and skills for a place on our social ladder. Social status
is not based on magic or on accidental parentage, but on our personal ability to dominate in open
competition with other human beings. A trust fund does help, of course, but this is only because it
gives us a head start and an edge in our competitive enterprises. We are willing to look up to
someone like Donald Trump, who began with 30 million and made more of it by competing ruthlessly
with his peers – but there is no creature more despised than the trust fund child who devotes his life
to spending Daddy’s money and hoping we will be in awe of him merely for having it. In our society,
someone must lose in order for someone else to win, and we adore the winner. We believe that he is
naturally superior to the loser in some way.
How very accidental that, just as we were rearranging our societies according to this model, someone
just so happened to discover that the animal kingdom works according to the principle of competition,
too! How very accidental that this insight came at the end of the 19th century, just in time to reassure
us that the rather unpleasant world we were creating was the only possible outcome of natural laws!
See, see, even animals are constantly engaged in ruthless competition, in which only the strong and
dominant survive. We are now beginning to understand that this was a projection (see Myth 14), but
we do still live in a competitive market society, and this makes it difficult for most of us to let go of the
old ideas.
But besides the question of whether competition as such is a natural law, there is another problem.
Though our market society is, indeed, obsessed with winners and losers, it is not organized in a strict
and rigid dominance hierarchy. In fact, the more our societies are based on open competition, the
less of a dominance hierarchy we have. We have human rights and civil rights and freedom of
speech, and we don’t simply have to do what rich people tell us to do. If Donald Trump shows up at
your door, you can tell him to go jump in a lake, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
So where did this idea of a strict dominance hierarchy among animals come from? In fact, this
particular idea is a much more narrow projection than the general projection of competitive
organization. The dominance hierarchy is an anthropomorphism (the projection of human qualities
into a thing or an animal) that has its roots in a very specific time and place in our history. It is also
one of the most tragic things for animals that “science” has ever produced, because the idea of a
dominance hierarchy is commonly used to justify all kinds of strange and cruel practices towards
dogs. It is the justification for seeing rebellion in everything a dog does, and for cruelly crushing that
rebellion. It’s okay to beat him, kick him, shock him, strangle him, because all of this will teach him his
rank. Then once he knows his rank, he will automatically obey and do everything we want him to do.
The cruelty this idea has generated will no longer surprise you once you have absorbed the following:
the idea of a strict dominance hierarchy among dogs was introduced into science by a Nazi (yes, you
read that right, a Nazi).
Not only was it a Nazi, it was also a Nazi no one dared to contradict, not even after the Second World
War was way behind us: Konrad Lorenz, Nobel Prize winner (1973) and powerful in the scientific world
until his death in 1989. Born in Austria, Lorenz was an enthusiastic member of the Austrian Nazi Party
during the Second World War. After the war, he adamantly refused to openly repudiate his Nazi
ideas. Confronted with this, our brave scientists chose to then just ignore Lorenz’s past. (See Myth
99 for explanation of this cover-up.)
Now it just so happens that The Cult of the Wolf played a very important part in Nazi ideology. The
wolf was held up as an example, to show that the Nazi’s were merely trying to reorganize society
according to noble natural laws. Projecting, and without bothering to read any science or to gain any
real knowledge, the Nazis depicted the wolf as a noble, wild, hardened and ruthless animal, who
possessed all kinds of wonderful Nazi characteristics. The wolf lived, just like the Nazi, in a closed and
elite group. He was, just like the Nazi, absolutely loyal to this group, unquestioningly sacrificing his life
for the sake of the group if the need arose. The group’s structure was just as hierarchical and rigid
as the structure of the Nazi Party. Each wolf had a rank he strictly adhered to. Most important
perhaps, the wolves were led by a sort of Führer: the Alpha Leader. The Alpha Leader was a strong,
always male, wolf, whom all the other wolves worshipped and obeyed at all times, and who was fiercely
desired by all the female wolves (yes, even the Nazis had sexual fantasies). And now come all the
other things we are told about dogs. The Alpha Wolf receives deference in all things. He is always
the first to eat and the first to go through a door. He is always up front in any kind of procession, and
he always gets to sit or lie higher than the other wolves. The other wolves hurry out of his way when
he is comin’ through. They are constantly giving off submissive signals in his presence. The Alpha
Wolf can bite anyone he likes without getting bitten back. He is so utterly sure of his authority that he
can, when in the mood, behave mercifully towards his inferiors – for which these inferiors are then
infinitely grateful and worship him all the more. The similarity to Adolph Hitler can hardly escape us.
Now, it is a general taboo among scientists to personally attack the author of a theory, but this taboo
does not (and cannot) apply when the author ignores all evidence to project his purely personal
prejudices onto the thing he is studying. Such behavior leaves us no choice but to address the
personal background that led to such prejudices. Lorenz was specialized in studying birds. His ideas
about dogs were shaped informally, by watching his own dogs in his living room. There were no
published studies of domestic dogs at the time, thus nothing to contradict Lorenz as he daydreamed
back to the Nazi Cult of the Wolf from his youth. He watched dogs who had been raised only by
himself and who never left the estate he lived on. He in fact had no idea about how dogs other than
his own behaved, or how his own would have behaved if they had been properly socialized. But that
didn’t matter. Lorenz limited himself to popular publications about dogs – an arena in which everyone
is free to present their own opinions as fact. It was an arena that permitted Lorenz to ignore
Schenkel, who was at the time the great authority on wolves, and who strongly protested the idea of a
dominance hierarchy among them. It was an arena in which Lorenz has been caught in more than
one blatant lie, but also an arena where lying has no consequences. Here, Lorenz had total freedom
to continue (consciously or unconsciously, it doesn’t really matter) spreading the Nazi view of nature –
and he used this freedom persistently until most of us came to believe this nasty tale. The idea about
dogs living in a dominance hierarchy very like the Nazi Party, and that dogs spend the whole day
thinking about power, is nothing more than Konrad Lorenz’s fictional legacy to us.
This may be a shocking and rather uncomfortable thing for all of us to acknowledge, but this fiction
about dogs has caused so much suffering that it is high time to call it for what it is and to dump it. The
quicker we do this, the less shame on us.
Read more:
Carson, G, Men, Beasts and Gods: A History of Cruelty and Kindness to Animals, Charles Scribner,
NY, 1972.
Cohen, E, Law, folklore and animal lore, Past and Present 110: 6-37, 1986.
Dahles, H, Game killing and killing games: An anthropologist looking at hunting in modern society,
Society & Animals, Vol.1, No. 2, 1993.
Darnton, R, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, Vintage, NY,
1985.
Deichmann, U, Biologists under Hitler, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 1996.
Hills, AM, The motivational bases of attitudes toward animals, Animals & Society, Volume 1, Number 2,
1993.
Katz, D, The functional approach to the study of attitudes, Public Opinion Quarterly 24: 163-204,
1960.
Mech, LD, Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs. Canadian Journal of Zoology
77:1196-1203. Jamestown, ND: Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center Home Page.
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/alstat/intro.htm (Version 16MAY2000).
Sax, B, What is a "Jewish dog?" Konrad Lorenz and the cult of wildness, Society & Animals, Volume 5,
Number 1, 1997. http://www.psyeta.org/sa/sa5.1/sax.html
Worster, D, Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, Cambridge University Press, NY, 1995.
Myth 11: Retake: Dogs live in a dominance hierarchy.
We have now seen that this is a rather evil human projection. Now we come to the question of what
dogs do do, if they don’t engage in dominance all the day long. If dogs don’t live in stable, closed
groups (which they don’t), and if they are constantly having to meet strangers (as they are), and if the
groups are constantly evaporating, changing and re-forming, then how do these groups arrive at any
kind of stable or even workable organization?
The answer is, in a nutshell, that dogs live in what we call an “autopoietic, complex, self-organizing
system, which will tend to move away from chaos and towards any one of many available stable states
within its state space.” Now this sounds complicated and technical and hard to grasp, because it is
full of jargon. But as with most things, it is not so complicated at all if only you remove the jargon.
Which we will now do.
A system is a collection of parts, but it is not any old collection of loose parts. A stamp collection is
not a system. To form a system, the parts have to be somehow connected to each other. Because
they are connected, they constitute a whole that is distinguishable from the surroundings. But tying a
bunch of tin cans together still doesn’t make them into a system. A system has parts that move in
relation to each other, in order to perform some function or reach some goal. A coffee machine is an
example of a system, whose parts move in a coordinated way and in relation to each other, to perform
the function of producing a cup of coffee. A car is a system. The parts are set in motion and work
together when the function of the car has to be fulfilled – getting some load from point A to point B.
However, neither of these machines is complex or self-organizing. They are not complex because
there is only a single arrangement of parts to choose from. If a spark plug falls out or you put water in
the gas tank instead of the radiator, then the whole thing stops working. It’s no use trying out putting
the coffee filter under the pot for a change. There is also only one equilibrium to choose from: a
certain mixture of gas and oxygen (or coffee and water), the right octane (or voltage), the timing of the
sparks exactly right, various gaps just exactly so wide and belts just so tight. These systems are not
self-organizing. They are put together in a factory by some power outside themselves, according to a
design that someone else thought up. If their balance gets lost, these systems are not able to restore
the lost equilibrium themselves. Some outside power has to take them apart and put them back
together again, restoring them exactly to the state they were in when they came from the factory.
A self-organizing system is one that is capable of creating some kind of order inside the system
without outside help. The parts move on their own, and they can be arranged in various ways. They
move around with respect to each other until the system arrives at some kind of equilibrium. When
the parts move, they don’t move randomly. They follow certain rules. These rules are internal to the
parts themselves, something in their own nature that limits their movements and behavior. One
example of a self-organizing system (hereafter: SOS) is a bunch of atoms in a bell jar. The atoms are
connected to each other by the fact that they share a physical space in which they continuously
collide with each other and exchange energy. Their system is distinguishable from the outside world –
they aren’t colliding with any atoms out there just now. The goal of this system is to spread the
available energy around evenly. The atoms will move around obeying the laws of thermodynamics,
until this even division is reached. At this point, the system has arrived at a stable state. There are
many arrangements of atoms that will work. It doesn’t matter if a particular one is over here or over
there. If you heat the bell jar, the atoms will begin to move again until the energy is again evenly
spread around. They do this without external help, moving around according to their own internal
rules, colliding and rearranging themselves until a new equilibrium (i.e., a stable state) is reached.
A second example of an SOS, one that starts to look a little more like dogs, is a room full of people at
a party. The collection of parts (i.e., people) in the room constitutes a small social system, for as long
as the party lasts. It is bounded by the walls of the room, and distinguishable from the outside world
full of non-invited people. Inside the room, each person is a part in the system. These living parts of
the system move around, following certain internal rules, until everyone in the system is in a
comfortable position. This works a little differently than a bell jar full of atoms that have no feelings.
In an SOS that consists of living beings, one of the factors that affects the search for balance is each
living creature’s feeling of well-being. This makes our party a complex system: equilibrium is being
sought on more than one level at once. Each system part (each party-goer) attempts to find an inner
balance of feeling good, while at the same time not disturbing the balance at the level of the party as
a whole.
The goal of this social system (our party) is to provide maximum enjoyment for a maximum number of
guests at the same time. The system is not in equilibrium until everyone has a drink, a good place to
sit, and a conversation partner they like. At this point, the inner balance of all guests is stable, while
the social system itself is in balance as far as the goal it is meant to achieve. All the parts will remain
where they are as long as this balance is maintained.
This lasts only so long, until someone’s drink is empty, or until conversation partners get bored with
each other. At this point, there is a dip in the individual well-being of a number of system parts, which
also means a dip in the larger system’s fulfillment of its own goal. Some system parts may start to
move around, looking to repair the dip – refilling a drink or shifting conversation partners. But it
doesn’t have to be a dip that causes change. It can also happen that some new and interesting guest
arrives. Some of the party-goers will see a chance here to increase their internal state of well-being
yet more, compared to how it is with the person they are talking to. They may shift positions so they
can talk to this new, interesting person. Here, it's not a dip triggering change. Instead, it’s the chance
of yet more fun that gets some parts moving. They can gain this increased enjoyment without causing
the whole system to crash, and in fact, their own improved fun level will move the larger system even
closer to its goal of maximum fun for maximum guests. Some of the parts in our SOS will, thus, start
moving around, taking up new positions in relation to each other, until their dips are restored to the
previous level, or until their fun is even more maximized – upon which the system has found a new
equilibrium on all levels. There are many various arrangements of party-goers that will serve the
function of maximal fun – there is more than one equilibrium to choose from, both on the level of the
individual and on the level of the whole.
The movement of parts is not, however, arbitrary. It is governed by internal part variables (since
people enjoy different things), by external factors (like which chairs and drinks there are to choose
from), and by certain rules. All of our participants follow certain rules as they seek new balances.
These rules are, in this case, the rules of politeness at parties. For example, the evening must
progress without embarrassing scenes or heated arguments. You don’t throw someone off his chair
by brute force, there are certain subjects you do not bring up, and you do not conspicuously join the
conversation group that includes the man who just found out yesterday that you are having an affair
with his wife. These are rules that limit the behavior and movements of the system parts as they
continually seek equilibrium on the individual and the social levels.
The rules are internal to the parts, imparted to them and made into part of who they are during their
upbringing (i.e., during their production). The party-goers follow these rules voluntarily. If everyone
behaved in an egotistical manner, seeking only to maximize their own internal well-being position (e.g.,
when the lover did give in to the temptation to show off to the husband, or if someone was just tipped
off her chair onto the floor), the whole system (the party) might deteriorate into a non-fun free for all.
No one wants this to happen. People who break these rules risk getting thrown out in order to
maintain system stability, because after all, the whole point of the system is to maximize fun for as
many guests as possible, and not just for one selfish boor. So we know that too much selfishness will
make things unpleasant not only for everyone else, but also for ourselves. We ourselves gain by
participating in keeping the system stable (i.e., civil) and are willing to make smaller sacrifices in order
to get this gain.
As we maximize our positions according to our own internal states, juggling variables only we can
know about (tired legs, thirst, boredom), while yet allowing the rules to limit our behavior, the system
as a whole organizes and reorganizes itself without interference from any central, organizing
authority. In fact, we absolutely want the system to self-organize by our making our own choices and
following our own internal rules as we move around in the party’s social landscape. We want the party
to reshuffle itself again and again into a comfortable equilibrium for all system parts, by those parts
being free to move and rearrange themselves as inner states (thirst, boredom) and outer
circumstances (a new guest) change. It is extremely irritating to us if our hostess insists that we talk at
length to her unmarried son or daughter, or if she tries to make us sit in a certain spot, drink her
favorite drink, or eat more than we really want to.
Now to get back to dogs. Every time multiple dogs – and that means even just two – share a physical
space, they immediately constitute an SOS, which will immediately start to move away from chaos by
seeking an equilibrium. The dogs’ SOS is very similar to our party. It too is a complex system, that
looks for delicate equilibriums on more than one level simultaneously, taking many invisible variables
into account, and with many different equilibriums to choose from as it self-organizes. When a dog
sees a stranger, his inner equilibrium might go off balance – his adrenaline level might rise, his feeling
of safety might suffer a dip, or his curiosity might be aroused because he expects an increase in his
well-being. These are internal variables that depend on his experiences in the past with strangers.
Either way, he wants to restore some kind of internal balance. At the same time, he will want to know
that the larger, social balance – the peace in the group – is still safe. The domestic canine SOS has
the same goal as our party: maximal well-being and safety for all the parts (in this case dogs) who are
sharing the physical space at that particular moment. Just like our party, each part will execute a
search to maximize its own inner well-being and stabilize its own part state, while at the same time
maximizing (or at least preserving) the stability, peace and fun of the larger social landscape the dogs
occupy together. And, just like our party, they do this without reference to any central, organizing
authority.
So when dogs meet each other, they immediately start looking for the return of both the internal and
external equilibriums that have been disturbed by the sight of each other. But if they don’t know each
other, there may be some danger involved. After all, a dog always carries his weapons with him, and
you don’t always know if the other guy is going to follow the social rules, or whether he is going to
understand your signals and react normally to them. So the first thing dogs have to do is check out
whether the other dog is going to use his weapons, and whether he understands and uses the
common language. (More about these signals at Myth 12.) After some exchange of signals, it
becomes sufficiently clear that there is a common language, and that neither dog is going to get
violent right away. Both dogs can now at least predict the other’s behavior in the domains of
language and aggression. This is the crucial minimum of predictability that has to be established
before the interaction can progress safely to the next stage.
It can be that this next stage is simply moving off to follow their humans. The next time these dogs
meet, they will still know about each other, and the meeting will be less tense. It can also be that the
dogs stick around to play with each other. In this case, the next stage of exploration starts: learning
about each other’s personal preferences and boundaries. As the dogs play on a field, they discover
various things about each other. The first dog is very anxious the keep the stick his owner just threw,
and wants the second dog to stay several feet away from it. The second dog likes contact games
rather than a ball or a stick. They can’t talk to each other, so the dogs have to find this out by trial
and error. The first dog growls when the second one so much as looks at the stick. The second dog
can conclude, “okay, that’s important to him and he wants me to keep some distance.” The first dog
sees the second one stop or move away, and then he knows, “okay, he understood my signal, and he
values peace in our relation enough to let me keep my stick.” The second dog makes all kinds of
“come chase me” gestures, which show the first dog that this is the kind of game he wants. Secure
enough now about his stick, the first dog might leave it for a moment to indeed play a round of chase
along the border of the field. If the second dog bumps the first one during this game, he might get a
snarl. This tells him that the first dog is not comfortable with such close contact. He might drop his
tail, fold his ears back, move away a little – he’s saying, “okay, I got your message, and I didn’t mean
any ill.” Or he bumped into a third dog during the chase, and these signals are saying, “oops, didn’t
see you, sorry.” These dogs are not being dominant and submissive. They are simply exchanging
information about their respective inner states, so that they will become or remain predictable to each
other. Predictability about each other’s likes, dislikes and personal boundaries allows them to find or
maintain equilibrium in their relations with each other. When all the dogs in the physical space have
found some equilibrium, then the larger, social system has also arrived at one of its possible
balances. The dogs play cheerfully, sharing space, taking each other’s preferences and boundaries
into account, dashing past each other at exactly the right distance each dog needs, no problem.
These relations generally have to be established one on one. Because dogs learn about each other
by exchanging signals, they have to look at each other to learn. It is looking at the other that causes
your feelings specifically about him to arise and change your inner state, which you then signal. It is
by looking specifically at you that the other dog sees the signs of your internal state. So a dog can
only concentrate on one relationship at a time. This is one of the reasons a dog will freeze up and
stand totally still when he is being smelled by a whole group of other dogs. By freezing up, he is
giving a non-violence signal, but is saying nothing more. He keeps his mouth shut for the moment, as
it were, because you can only have complicated conversations one on one. If he is very socially
secure, the dog might just flip onto his back for the whole curious crowd (“I just know everyone will be
charmed by the sight of my belly here”). This is a safe signal to send out to a collective, one that
can't offend anyone or lead to difficult conversations. If he does this, the whole group gets the
important message, some predictability about the new dog in one go (“he knows our language and
has no violent intentions”). The preservation of the general safety in this dog’s presence is
immediately clear to all.
What we usually see happen is that the more self-assured dogs sniff the frozen newcomer for a sec,
then just walk away. Often, one dog will stay near the newcomer. This is because he still doesn’t feel
sure enough about the newcomer to share the space with him. His inner state is still out of balance
(e.g., he’s had bad experiences in the past, and his adrenaline level is still a little high due to this new
dog showing up). He is still looking to restore his inner equilibrium, and wants more information. To
get more specific information, the dogs will have to look straight at each other, and this is just not
possible in a group. But now the others are gone, and our insecure dog stands there growling. I call
this growl a threat gesture because the growl means the dog is perceiving a threat to his safety or
well-being. With this threat gesture, he is basically telling the new dog that he feels unsure of himself,
and asking for reassurance so his inner state can settle down. If the new dog gives a calming signal,
for example turning his ears outward and lowering his tail just a dot, he is saying, carefully, “you don’t
need to worry, I’m no threat to your safety or well-being.” The first dog’s adrenaline might drop a little,
and so does his tail, while he stops growling (“okay, I feel a little less worried now”). When the second
dog sees that the newcomer feels less tense and thus less likely to lash out defensively, the second
dog can safely take the non-threat signals a little further. He folds his ears all the way back, drops his
tail completely, and starts to move a little. The first dog feels yet more reassured, and gives signals to
express this. The second dog sees the decrease in tension and feels safe breaking eye contact to
smell the other dog’s lips or backside, or even to make a little play jump. This signaling of decreasing
tension goes back and forth, until both dogs have restored their inner equilibrium. To put it
differently, the dogs each begin to trust each other, which enables them to relax and share a physical
space. Don’t worry – “trust” is not an anthropomorphism here. Even among humans, trust is nothing
more than the feeling that the other is sufficiently predictable that your internal state is not disturbed
by fear of danger in his presence.
After this, in play, or in walking further together, the dogs explore each other’s personal boundaries.
Just like our party-goers, each dog has an internal state of well-being that he wants to preserve. This
well-being can be affected by many variables, depending on the dog’s history. A dog’s behavior and
choices in seeking maintenance of well-being have nothing to do with some personality trait that is
written in stone (e.g., “dominant” or “submissive”), but are the result of the dog’s experience in the
past. The choices are also influenced by his internal state from moment to moment (tired or not,
hungry or not, full of adrenaline or not). Some dogs have learned that a tennis ball is the most
wonderful play opportunity they will ever get, so they are fierce about keeping the tennis ball. Other
dogs don’t see any meaning in the tennis ball and will give it up willingly to another dog. A dog’s
personal zone is larger or smaller, depending on his experience in the past with intimate contact. The
dog on a diet is obsessed with the bread someone strewed around for the birds. The castrated dog
doesn’t much care about the female in heat who just showed up. And so there are many different well-
being positions in life, which are all highly personal, and which each dog will try to preserve. The
outside observer can’t always see these variables, but this is no reason to pretend they aren’t there.
That we can’t see them doesn’t matter, as long as we know, watching the dogs, that they are trying to
preserve a certain internal balance, exchanging one thing against another according to their own
insights (not ours!) about what serves them best at that moment.
As they are balancing their internal equilibrium, one of the things dogs keep an eye on is the
equilibrium in the larger, social system they share with the others. If this system becomes unstable, it
is, just like our party, unpleasant – and perhaps dangerous – for all present. When two dogs have an
argument, it’s unpleasant for both of them – adrenaline levels shoot up, they have to expend a bunch
of energy, and it always feels kind of scary because you never know absolutely for sure what the
other guy will do. So social stability is one of the variables that affect dogs’ inner well-being, and they
are very good at keeping an eye on it.
This is why dogs are so sensitive to social space. Again, they learn as they go. Two dogs are racing
around the field, playing tag. One of them runs very closely past a third dog, who is lying there
chewing on his tennis ball. This third dog jumps up and does some protest barking and air snapping,
then returns to her ball. The running dog looks to us like he didn’t even notice this, but in fact he
picks up on this social-space information on the move and without batting an eye. If we keep
watching, we see that the next time he passes, he does this at a greater distance from the chewing
dog. Even in wild play, dogs pick up on what’s going on in the larger picture and change their
behavior to accommodate and keep the system stable by not perturbing the other too much.
This is also why dogs are willing, to a varying extent (depending on their personal histories), willing to
make trades or give things up to each other in order to restore a threatened or lost social balance.
Two dogs who have just met both run after a ball someone throws. As they approach the ball, one of
them starts to growl. The other dog can’t know what kind of history is behind this, but he knows the
growl is a sign the other feels worried about the outcome and that the relationship could now become
unstable – a conflict might arise. So he slows down and lets the first dog get the ball. After all, he has
plenty of tennis balls at home, and to him the ball is really just an excuse to play the running game.
The growling dog notices this. The next time they go for the ball together, he doesn’t growl, but he
gets the ball again just the same. Later, the second dog’s owner is giving him a treat. This dog is on
a diet and is always hungry, so this time he growls when the first dog approaches. “You can have the
ball, but you sure can’t have my food.” The first dog moves off a little and watches from a greater
distance. The hungry dog notices this. The next time treats are handed out, he may still keep an eye
on the other dog, but he might not feel he has to growl. He's seen that the other is willing to keep a
little more distance around food. (It just so happens that in this other dog's home, tennis balls are
scarce, but food isn’t.) The two are each learning what is and isn’t important to each other’s internal
well-being equilibrium. They take this into account in their interactions, and thus keep the social
system stable.
This is not a dominance hierarchy, but a system of mutual trade-offs. One dog is willing to trade a
little playing space for peace on the field. Another dog will give up a ball, another food, receiving the
resource “peace” in return. This is a complex SOS, which seeks equilibrium on multiple levels at
once. The dogs are not trying to “dominate” each other, but are seeking compromises, to bring all
levels of the system into acceptable equilibriums at the same time. Dogs do not try to selfishly
maximize their own well-being anymore than our party-goers did (see also Myths 14, 15 and 16 on
competition). And you can’t tell what’s really going on just by watching the visible physical resources.
In the first place, as we have already seen, social stability is one of the factors that affect dogs’ inner
well-being. Arguments (social instability) decrease everyone’s well-being by making all feel less safe.
In the second place, and this is something scientists seem to have forgotten, dogs greatly enjoy each
other’s company. The very presence of the other adds to a dog’s personal well-being. So when a
dog “sacrifices” something (e.g., the tennis ball), this isn’t really a sacrifice. The dog is making a
choice, an exchange, between two things he values. In such a case, we can only conclude that the
dog apparently values the avoidance of a conflict, or preservation of the good relations with the other
dog, more than he values the thing he gave up.
So the behavior we have been taught to call “dominant” is in fact merely an exchange of information,
upon which the dogs then make choices. It is a search for a mutually satisfying balance between two
dogs. It is not up to us to determine that one dog has “won” and the other has “lost.” In doing so, we
fail to take their own variables into account (which are the only ones that matter!). In fact, the dog
that gives a thing up thinks he is making a satisfying, and in his own eyes winning choice, given his
own valuation of all the available options and taking all the multiple equilibriums into account that he
wants to preserve. Assigning more value to a thing that is taken by force is a truly typical human
projection! This projection has led scientists to miss another reality. If we watch un-blinded by labels
and projections, then we see that dogs most often get hold of an object by the handy use of charm,
calming signals and distraction tactics. There’s not a dog in the world who then values the object less
because he got it this way. And it is another human projection to call these tactics “submissive”, when
in fact they are simply an expression of greater social skill. It is, generally, the socially unskilled dog
or the distressed dog, who reverts to force to take a thing, and it reveals much about us (and nothing
about dogs) that we would consider such a dog “superior” or assign leadership qualities to him.
With our picture in place of dogs exploring each other’s boundaries and making compromises to
reach inner and outer equilibriums simultaneously, we can now describe the rules the dogs follow as
they do this. During my fourteen-year study of dogs, I was able to discover these rules and test them
exhaustively. These are dogs’ own rules, not ones thought up by a human – although humans greatly
improve their relationships with dogs if we obey these rules (which we don’t always do). In any case,
every socialized dog carries these rules inside himself, just as our well brought up party-goers have
internalized the ones they learned growing up. Dog rules are, however, different from human rules,
and there are not so many of them. Here they are:
· Rule Number One reads: We will not use aggression in social interactions, but will limit ourselves
to signals and avoid damaging each other. This is really the main rule dogs depend upon. It is
extremely traumatic for a dog when another dog does not honor this rule and attacks for real. (And
don’t try to tell us that humans have this rule too, or we will know you never watch the evening news.)
· Rule Number Two reads: We will respect each other’s personal zone and not enter it without
permission. This rule is important, but it is less important that Rule Number One. It isn’t so much
traumatic as somewhat threatening when a dog disobeys this rule. When this happens, you may see
some snarling and snapping, or maybe even a short, ritual “fight” (which isn’t really a fight – see
Myths 12, 13, 32 and 33). This is a rule we do share with dogs, though we disobey it more often.
(The dog who disobeys this rule is just as pathological as the human who engages in sexual
harassment on the work floor.)
· Rule Number Three reads: We will be considerate of each other’s personal preferences once
we have learned to know them. How far this consideration goes is, as we have seen, dependent on
each dog’s internal state at a particular moment, balanced against the wish to maintain both
relationships and social peace. (See Myths 14, 15 and 16 if you think your dog doesn't obey this
rule.)
With these three simple and elegant rules, internally carried by each part of the domestic canine
social system, the dog system is able to achieve one of the many possible equilibriums with amazing
flexibility and speed. Each dog ends up with the things he values most at that moment while social
peace is preserved, and the dog who consistently does not obey the rules gets thrown out of the
system (which chasing away can be a collective enterprise). We cannot determine some kind of
hierarchy among the dogs in this balance (unless we are willing to project), because we cannot know
how the dogs are valuing the things they add and subtract from their position in the whole. All we can
do is observe that each dog has reached a position he is happy with. This position is not reached by
brute force, but by voluntarily seeking compromises. It doesn’t interest a dog in the least whether
some other dog has “more”. In fact, dogs don’t even have the brain structures that would enable
them to think the concept “more” or “less”, conceiving of and comparing sizes or quantities. This kind
of math is quite beyond them. All a dog knows is that he has his own personal “enough” (more on this
later, in Myth 14). Therefore, this dog SOS works excellently. A dog group can absorb practically
unlimited numbers of dogs quickly and flexibly, as long as everyone follows the three simple rules.
At the beginning, I said that dogs live in a complex, autopoietic, self-organizing system. Now we
understand “complex” and “self-organizing”. But what does “autopoietic” mean? “Autopoietic” means,
quite simply, that the system is capable of producing and repairing its own parts. You don’t have to
take an autopoietic system to the garage, or buy new parts for it. It is self-perpetuating and self-
maintaining. “Autopoeisis” occurs when a system consists of living creatures. A dog bears pups
without external help, and dogs all around the world raise pups – if humans don’t interfere – into
functioning system parts who know and voluntarily follow the rules. As we have seen in Myth 6, the
ability to take part in the social system is learned, not inherited. Dogs do this part production quite
well all by themselves.
A dog must interact with other dogs while he’s a pup so as to learn the rules, otherwise he may end
up having trouble participating in social interactions. An adult dog who didn’t play enough with others
in his youth may need finishing (as a part) if he is to function in a social system. Another dog may
have a traumatic and damaging experience, and end up needing “repair” to be able to function again
in the dog social system. We may need help repairing our dogs, but dogs are quite capable of
repairing such a part themselves without outside help. They will help the traumatized dog get over his
fear, providing him with reassuring social experiences. It’s actually quite touching to watch how
socially skilled dogs react to fear in another dog – we could learn a lot from them. The socially clumsy
(or incomplete) dog gets snapped at and snarled at, until he tempers his clumsy behavior and starts
to act more politely. The other dogs aren’t “dominating” him, but are providing this incomplete part
with some learning experiences he missed out on, and he is learning as he goes. As long as the
hooligan refrains from using aggression (i.e., delivering one or more uninhibited bites, thus inflicting
damage on other system parts), he will be able to learn from other dogs how to take part in the
system.
Thus, there are two production processes, which make sure the system is producing and repairing its
own parts. One of them is the biological process of bearing and raising offspring. The second
production process is learning. Learning is crucial both to the production of socially functioning
offspring and to the repair of parts that don’t function optimally for some reason.
So learning is an important production process in the dog SOS. Learning takes care of the
production of functioning system parts, and repair of damaged or incomplete parts. Their ability to
learn enables dogs to take the deviant signals into account that they encounter, for example, from a
dog whose tail the humans have cut off or bred to be permanently curled up on his back. Their
learning ability, their readiness to seek compromise, and their three simple rules enable dogs to
absorb members of other species into their social system. A dog can learn how to interpret the
signals, and thus predict the behavior, of a parrot, a cat, a human, if only we allow him to go through
the right learning experiences. He is then able to use these signals across the species-boundaries, to
seek equilibrium and construct an SOS with all kinds of non-dog species. It’s actually miraculous – or
maybe not, given the context the dog evolved in.
Dogs live in a flexible and complex self-organizing system, which is capable of seeking and finding
equilibriums on multiple levels at once (all the dogs in equilibrium while the social system also finds a
balance). The system produces and repairs its own parts. There are three simple rules that
determine the system’s movements by the individual parts independently and voluntarily following
those rules, without some central authority guiding things. The system functions to find the maximum
available safety and well-being of all the present participants. There is no hierarchy. There is only a
whole range of possible balances, both for each individual participant and for the system as a whole.
Each equilibrium is arrived at as the dogs seek compromises, weighing various choices, and seeking
a balance between their own well-being and the stability of the social landscape (which is also an
element in their well-being). A dog who can’t compromise can’t take part. His behavior destabilizes
the social system, making it unsafe or uncomfortable for other participants. Dogs aren’t preoccupied
with power, but rather with building mutual predictability and trust, so the system can balance in one of
the many acceptable equilibriums it has to choose from. These “acceptable equilibriums” are
situations in which each dog present has a well-being position he is satisfied with. Giving up a ball or
a bone to preserve the relationship and the social peace does not mean the dog has “lost.” It means
that he has made a trade-off, shifting from the well-being position that included the ball to a position
that included something else he decided was more important.
The ability to follow Rule Number One, no aggression (i.e., no attempting to inflict real damage on
others), is essential, however. Aggression makes a dog unable to function as a part of any dog social
system. He will always be attempting to sabotage the entire system. His presence makes the social
system unsafe for all the other participants. He can’t be repaired, because this is too dangerous – he
will be trying to destroy other system parts rather than to learn from them. The dog does not exist
who is willing to risk his internal equilibrium to such an extent that he may cease to exist as a living
system himself! (See re: exceptions to this in Myths 38-40.) Dogs who do engage in aggression, or
who will risk their existence as a living system in order to fight, are not products of nature. They are a
result of human tampering with dogs. Repair is impossible, and the owner has the responsibility to
keep the dog away from other dogs.
The domestic dog’s social system is, thus, much more complex – but also much more elegant and
intelligent – than a mere “dominance hierarchy.” This “dominance hierarchy” model is clumsy and
anthropomorphic, and does not do justice to dogs.
Beckerman, LP, "The non-linear dynamics of war", Science applications International Corporation,
ASSET Group, http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/beckerman/non_linear.htm, 1999.
Maturana, HR, The organization of the living: A theory of the living organization, International Journal
of Man-Machine Studies, Vol 7, 1975, pp 313-332.
Maturana, HR and Varela V, Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living, in Boston Studies
in the Philosophy of Science, Cohen, RS and Wartofsky, MW (eds.), Vol. 42, Dordrecht: D. Reidel
Publishing Co., 1980.
Rugaas, T, Calming Signals, Legacy By Mail, Inc., Carlsborg, WA, 1997.
Semyonova, A, The social organization of the domestic dog; a longitudinal study of domestic canine
behavior and the ontogeny of domestic canine social systems, Carriage House Publishing, The
Hague, The Netherlands, 2003.
dog at the top as the absolute leader.
One of the things we hear most about the canids is that dominance is extremely important in
organizing their groups. The story goes that their interactions are all about gaining and maintaining
status. The dog with the higher rank dominates the dog with the lower rank, who submits. Canids are
always trying to climb up the ladder, because they know higher ranks bring bigger advantages in life.
This whole story is, yet again, based on tales about how wolves organize their packs. This is the one
myth about dogs that virtually everyone seems to know – not only beginning dog owners, but even
people who have never had a dog and wouldn’t want one. I rarely meet people who don’t believe in
this myth.
Therefore, it will probably surprise you to hear that we now know (thanks to Dr. L. David Mech) that
even wolves do not live in a dominance hierarchy. To live in a dominance hierarchy, and to base your
behavior towards others on who has which rank, you have to be able to do quite a bit of abstract
thinking. You’d have to have a map of the social structure in your head, in which you are comparing
various ranks with each other and assigning these ranks to yourself and others. Neither the wolf nor
the dog has the large frontal lobes in the brain that would enable them to think in such abstract
terms. A dominance hierarchy also requires a stable group that is organized in a rigid structure.
Domestic dogs do not live in stable groups. They live semi-solitary lives, which are enriched by
fleeting friendships. As we will see in Myth 11, the groups dogs do form are not at all rigidly
organized. The structure of dog groups is, rather, highly flexible, which is the whole reason they are
so good at absorbing infinite numbers of strangers. And the final strange thing about this myth is that
no one – not one single scientist – has ever yet been able to find a dominance hierarchy within a
group of dogs, no matter how hard they looked or what kind of statistics they applied. The whole idea
is utter nonsense.
So what is going on? How could science make such a blunder, and how did this myth end up being so
firmly rooted in our minds?
If we want to understand this, we have to go back a little further in history and look at ourselves. It is
common knowledge among historians that humans have always projected the structure of their own
societies onto the animal kingdom. The ancient Egyptians, for example, lived in a society governed
by a royal family, whose members were demigods. Divinity, and links to divinity, were very important
in organizing Egyptian society. Many Egyptian gods were portrayed as animals, and this was
projected back onto the animals in the mundane world, assigning various divine characteristics to
various animals. In the Middle Ages, when our societies were organized into nobility versus
impoverished, vulgar peons, people also divided the animal kingdom into noble versus common
animals. The noble animals were believed to have the same qualities as human nobility. They were
beautiful, graceful, clean, courageous, wise, chaste, loyal, chivalrous, and so on. The common
animals were like human commoners. They were seen as ugly, clumsy, cowardly, cunning,
promiscuous, sneaky, and so on. The lower animals were ruled by, and they respected, the noble
animals. The human nobility had exclusive rights to the owning and hunting of noble animals, while
the peons had to limit themselves to peon animals. This distinction between noble and common
animals still exists among hunters to this day, where the hunting of noble animals still enjoys more
status than, say, rat-catching.
Although we now like to think of ourselves as more rational and less superstitious, the fact is that our
projections onto animals did not stop when the modern age arrived. With the rise of industrialism, we
reorganized our own societies to operate on the basis of competition rather than birth. We still find it
interesting to have a title of nobility, but you aren’t really Someone unless you are capable of
competing on the basis of personal prowess and skills for a place on our social ladder. Social status
is not based on magic or on accidental parentage, but on our personal ability to dominate in open
competition with other human beings. A trust fund does help, of course, but this is only because it
gives us a head start and an edge in our competitive enterprises. We are willing to look up to
someone like Donald Trump, who began with 30 million and made more of it by competing ruthlessly
with his peers – but there is no creature more despised than the trust fund child who devotes his life
to spending Daddy’s money and hoping we will be in awe of him merely for having it. In our society,
someone must lose in order for someone else to win, and we adore the winner. We believe that he is
naturally superior to the loser in some way.
How very accidental that, just as we were rearranging our societies according to this model, someone
just so happened to discover that the animal kingdom works according to the principle of competition,
too! How very accidental that this insight came at the end of the 19th century, just in time to reassure
us that the rather unpleasant world we were creating was the only possible outcome of natural laws!
See, see, even animals are constantly engaged in ruthless competition, in which only the strong and
dominant survive. We are now beginning to understand that this was a projection (see Myth 14), but
we do still live in a competitive market society, and this makes it difficult for most of us to let go of the
old ideas.
But besides the question of whether competition as such is a natural law, there is another problem.
Though our market society is, indeed, obsessed with winners and losers, it is not organized in a strict
and rigid dominance hierarchy. In fact, the more our societies are based on open competition, the
less of a dominance hierarchy we have. We have human rights and civil rights and freedom of
speech, and we don’t simply have to do what rich people tell us to do. If Donald Trump shows up at
your door, you can tell him to go jump in a lake, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
So where did this idea of a strict dominance hierarchy among animals come from? In fact, this
particular idea is a much more narrow projection than the general projection of competitive
organization. The dominance hierarchy is an anthropomorphism (the projection of human qualities
into a thing or an animal) that has its roots in a very specific time and place in our history. It is also
one of the most tragic things for animals that “science” has ever produced, because the idea of a
dominance hierarchy is commonly used to justify all kinds of strange and cruel practices towards
dogs. It is the justification for seeing rebellion in everything a dog does, and for cruelly crushing that
rebellion. It’s okay to beat him, kick him, shock him, strangle him, because all of this will teach him his
rank. Then once he knows his rank, he will automatically obey and do everything we want him to do.
The cruelty this idea has generated will no longer surprise you once you have absorbed the following:
the idea of a strict dominance hierarchy among dogs was introduced into science by a Nazi (yes, you
read that right, a Nazi).
Not only was it a Nazi, it was also a Nazi no one dared to contradict, not even after the Second World
War was way behind us: Konrad Lorenz, Nobel Prize winner (1973) and powerful in the scientific world
until his death in 1989. Born in Austria, Lorenz was an enthusiastic member of the Austrian Nazi Party
during the Second World War. After the war, he adamantly refused to openly repudiate his Nazi
ideas. Confronted with this, our brave scientists chose to then just ignore Lorenz’s past. (See Myth
99 for explanation of this cover-up.)
Now it just so happens that The Cult of the Wolf played a very important part in Nazi ideology. The
wolf was held up as an example, to show that the Nazi’s were merely trying to reorganize society
according to noble natural laws. Projecting, and without bothering to read any science or to gain any
real knowledge, the Nazis depicted the wolf as a noble, wild, hardened and ruthless animal, who
possessed all kinds of wonderful Nazi characteristics. The wolf lived, just like the Nazi, in a closed and
elite group. He was, just like the Nazi, absolutely loyal to this group, unquestioningly sacrificing his life
for the sake of the group if the need arose. The group’s structure was just as hierarchical and rigid
as the structure of the Nazi Party. Each wolf had a rank he strictly adhered to. Most important
perhaps, the wolves were led by a sort of Führer: the Alpha Leader. The Alpha Leader was a strong,
always male, wolf, whom all the other wolves worshipped and obeyed at all times, and who was fiercely
desired by all the female wolves (yes, even the Nazis had sexual fantasies). And now come all the
other things we are told about dogs. The Alpha Wolf receives deference in all things. He is always
the first to eat and the first to go through a door. He is always up front in any kind of procession, and
he always gets to sit or lie higher than the other wolves. The other wolves hurry out of his way when
he is comin’ through. They are constantly giving off submissive signals in his presence. The Alpha
Wolf can bite anyone he likes without getting bitten back. He is so utterly sure of his authority that he
can, when in the mood, behave mercifully towards his inferiors – for which these inferiors are then
infinitely grateful and worship him all the more. The similarity to Adolph Hitler can hardly escape us.
Now, it is a general taboo among scientists to personally attack the author of a theory, but this taboo
does not (and cannot) apply when the author ignores all evidence to project his purely personal
prejudices onto the thing he is studying. Such behavior leaves us no choice but to address the
personal background that led to such prejudices. Lorenz was specialized in studying birds. His ideas
about dogs were shaped informally, by watching his own dogs in his living room. There were no
published studies of domestic dogs at the time, thus nothing to contradict Lorenz as he daydreamed
back to the Nazi Cult of the Wolf from his youth. He watched dogs who had been raised only by
himself and who never left the estate he lived on. He in fact had no idea about how dogs other than
his own behaved, or how his own would have behaved if they had been properly socialized. But that
didn’t matter. Lorenz limited himself to popular publications about dogs – an arena in which everyone
is free to present their own opinions as fact. It was an arena that permitted Lorenz to ignore
Schenkel, who was at the time the great authority on wolves, and who strongly protested the idea of a
dominance hierarchy among them. It was an arena in which Lorenz has been caught in more than
one blatant lie, but also an arena where lying has no consequences. Here, Lorenz had total freedom
to continue (consciously or unconsciously, it doesn’t really matter) spreading the Nazi view of nature –
and he used this freedom persistently until most of us came to believe this nasty tale. The idea about
dogs living in a dominance hierarchy very like the Nazi Party, and that dogs spend the whole day
thinking about power, is nothing more than Konrad Lorenz’s fictional legacy to us.
This may be a shocking and rather uncomfortable thing for all of us to acknowledge, but this fiction
about dogs has caused so much suffering that it is high time to call it for what it is and to dump it. The
quicker we do this, the less shame on us.
Read more:
Carson, G, Men, Beasts and Gods: A History of Cruelty and Kindness to Animals, Charles Scribner,
NY, 1972.
Cohen, E, Law, folklore and animal lore, Past and Present 110: 6-37, 1986.
Dahles, H, Game killing and killing games: An anthropologist looking at hunting in modern society,
Society & Animals, Vol.1, No. 2, 1993.
Darnton, R, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, Vintage, NY,
1985.
Deichmann, U, Biologists under Hitler, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 1996.
Hills, AM, The motivational bases of attitudes toward animals, Animals & Society, Volume 1, Number 2,
1993.
Katz, D, The functional approach to the study of attitudes, Public Opinion Quarterly 24: 163-204,
1960.
Mech, LD, Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs. Canadian Journal of Zoology
77:1196-1203. Jamestown, ND: Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center Home Page.
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/mammals/alstat/intro.htm (Version 16MAY2000).
Sax, B, What is a "Jewish dog?" Konrad Lorenz and the cult of wildness, Society & Animals, Volume 5,
Number 1, 1997. http://www.psyeta.org/sa/sa5.1/sax.html
Worster, D, Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, Cambridge University Press, NY, 1995.
Myth 11: Retake: Dogs live in a dominance hierarchy.
We have now seen that this is a rather evil human projection. Now we come to the question of what
dogs do do, if they don’t engage in dominance all the day long. If dogs don’t live in stable, closed
groups (which they don’t), and if they are constantly having to meet strangers (as they are), and if the
groups are constantly evaporating, changing and re-forming, then how do these groups arrive at any
kind of stable or even workable organization?
The answer is, in a nutshell, that dogs live in what we call an “autopoietic, complex, self-organizing
system, which will tend to move away from chaos and towards any one of many available stable states
within its state space.” Now this sounds complicated and technical and hard to grasp, because it is
full of jargon. But as with most things, it is not so complicated at all if only you remove the jargon.
Which we will now do.
A system is a collection of parts, but it is not any old collection of loose parts. A stamp collection is
not a system. To form a system, the parts have to be somehow connected to each other. Because
they are connected, they constitute a whole that is distinguishable from the surroundings. But tying a
bunch of tin cans together still doesn’t make them into a system. A system has parts that move in
relation to each other, in order to perform some function or reach some goal. A coffee machine is an
example of a system, whose parts move in a coordinated way and in relation to each other, to perform
the function of producing a cup of coffee. A car is a system. The parts are set in motion and work
together when the function of the car has to be fulfilled – getting some load from point A to point B.
However, neither of these machines is complex or self-organizing. They are not complex because
there is only a single arrangement of parts to choose from. If a spark plug falls out or you put water in
the gas tank instead of the radiator, then the whole thing stops working. It’s no use trying out putting
the coffee filter under the pot for a change. There is also only one equilibrium to choose from: a
certain mixture of gas and oxygen (or coffee and water), the right octane (or voltage), the timing of the
sparks exactly right, various gaps just exactly so wide and belts just so tight. These systems are not
self-organizing. They are put together in a factory by some power outside themselves, according to a
design that someone else thought up. If their balance gets lost, these systems are not able to restore
the lost equilibrium themselves. Some outside power has to take them apart and put them back
together again, restoring them exactly to the state they were in when they came from the factory.
A self-organizing system is one that is capable of creating some kind of order inside the system
without outside help. The parts move on their own, and they can be arranged in various ways. They
move around with respect to each other until the system arrives at some kind of equilibrium. When
the parts move, they don’t move randomly. They follow certain rules. These rules are internal to the
parts themselves, something in their own nature that limits their movements and behavior. One
example of a self-organizing system (hereafter: SOS) is a bunch of atoms in a bell jar. The atoms are
connected to each other by the fact that they share a physical space in which they continuously
collide with each other and exchange energy. Their system is distinguishable from the outside world –
they aren’t colliding with any atoms out there just now. The goal of this system is to spread the
available energy around evenly. The atoms will move around obeying the laws of thermodynamics,
until this even division is reached. At this point, the system has arrived at a stable state. There are
many arrangements of atoms that will work. It doesn’t matter if a particular one is over here or over
there. If you heat the bell jar, the atoms will begin to move again until the energy is again evenly
spread around. They do this without external help, moving around according to their own internal
rules, colliding and rearranging themselves until a new equilibrium (i.e., a stable state) is reached.
A second example of an SOS, one that starts to look a little more like dogs, is a room full of people at
a party. The collection of parts (i.e., people) in the room constitutes a small social system, for as long
as the party lasts. It is bounded by the walls of the room, and distinguishable from the outside world
full of non-invited people. Inside the room, each person is a part in the system. These living parts of
the system move around, following certain internal rules, until everyone in the system is in a
comfortable position. This works a little differently than a bell jar full of atoms that have no feelings.
In an SOS that consists of living beings, one of the factors that affects the search for balance is each
living creature’s feeling of well-being. This makes our party a complex system: equilibrium is being
sought on more than one level at once. Each system part (each party-goer) attempts to find an inner
balance of feeling good, while at the same time not disturbing the balance at the level of the party as
a whole.
The goal of this social system (our party) is to provide maximum enjoyment for a maximum number of
guests at the same time. The system is not in equilibrium until everyone has a drink, a good place to
sit, and a conversation partner they like. At this point, the inner balance of all guests is stable, while
the social system itself is in balance as far as the goal it is meant to achieve. All the parts will remain
where they are as long as this balance is maintained.
This lasts only so long, until someone’s drink is empty, or until conversation partners get bored with
each other. At this point, there is a dip in the individual well-being of a number of system parts, which
also means a dip in the larger system’s fulfillment of its own goal. Some system parts may start to
move around, looking to repair the dip – refilling a drink or shifting conversation partners. But it
doesn’t have to be a dip that causes change. It can also happen that some new and interesting guest
arrives. Some of the party-goers will see a chance here to increase their internal state of well-being
yet more, compared to how it is with the person they are talking to. They may shift positions so they
can talk to this new, interesting person. Here, it's not a dip triggering change. Instead, it’s the chance
of yet more fun that gets some parts moving. They can gain this increased enjoyment without causing
the whole system to crash, and in fact, their own improved fun level will move the larger system even
closer to its goal of maximum fun for maximum guests. Some of the parts in our SOS will, thus, start
moving around, taking up new positions in relation to each other, until their dips are restored to the
previous level, or until their fun is even more maximized – upon which the system has found a new
equilibrium on all levels. There are many various arrangements of party-goers that will serve the
function of maximal fun – there is more than one equilibrium to choose from, both on the level of the
individual and on the level of the whole.
The movement of parts is not, however, arbitrary. It is governed by internal part variables (since
people enjoy different things), by external factors (like which chairs and drinks there are to choose
from), and by certain rules. All of our participants follow certain rules as they seek new balances.
These rules are, in this case, the rules of politeness at parties. For example, the evening must
progress without embarrassing scenes or heated arguments. You don’t throw someone off his chair
by brute force, there are certain subjects you do not bring up, and you do not conspicuously join the
conversation group that includes the man who just found out yesterday that you are having an affair
with his wife. These are rules that limit the behavior and movements of the system parts as they
continually seek equilibrium on the individual and the social levels.
The rules are internal to the parts, imparted to them and made into part of who they are during their
upbringing (i.e., during their production). The party-goers follow these rules voluntarily. If everyone
behaved in an egotistical manner, seeking only to maximize their own internal well-being position (e.g.,
when the lover did give in to the temptation to show off to the husband, or if someone was just tipped
off her chair onto the floor), the whole system (the party) might deteriorate into a non-fun free for all.
No one wants this to happen. People who break these rules risk getting thrown out in order to
maintain system stability, because after all, the whole point of the system is to maximize fun for as
many guests as possible, and not just for one selfish boor. So we know that too much selfishness will
make things unpleasant not only for everyone else, but also for ourselves. We ourselves gain by
participating in keeping the system stable (i.e., civil) and are willing to make smaller sacrifices in order
to get this gain.
As we maximize our positions according to our own internal states, juggling variables only we can
know about (tired legs, thirst, boredom), while yet allowing the rules to limit our behavior, the system
as a whole organizes and reorganizes itself without interference from any central, organizing
authority. In fact, we absolutely want the system to self-organize by our making our own choices and
following our own internal rules as we move around in the party’s social landscape. We want the party
to reshuffle itself again and again into a comfortable equilibrium for all system parts, by those parts
being free to move and rearrange themselves as inner states (thirst, boredom) and outer
circumstances (a new guest) change. It is extremely irritating to us if our hostess insists that we talk at
length to her unmarried son or daughter, or if she tries to make us sit in a certain spot, drink her
favorite drink, or eat more than we really want to.
Now to get back to dogs. Every time multiple dogs – and that means even just two – share a physical
space, they immediately constitute an SOS, which will immediately start to move away from chaos by
seeking an equilibrium. The dogs’ SOS is very similar to our party. It too is a complex system, that
looks for delicate equilibriums on more than one level simultaneously, taking many invisible variables
into account, and with many different equilibriums to choose from as it self-organizes. When a dog
sees a stranger, his inner equilibrium might go off balance – his adrenaline level might rise, his feeling
of safety might suffer a dip, or his curiosity might be aroused because he expects an increase in his
well-being. These are internal variables that depend on his experiences in the past with strangers.
Either way, he wants to restore some kind of internal balance. At the same time, he will want to know
that the larger, social balance – the peace in the group – is still safe. The domestic canine SOS has
the same goal as our party: maximal well-being and safety for all the parts (in this case dogs) who are
sharing the physical space at that particular moment. Just like our party, each part will execute a
search to maximize its own inner well-being and stabilize its own part state, while at the same time
maximizing (or at least preserving) the stability, peace and fun of the larger social landscape the dogs
occupy together. And, just like our party, they do this without reference to any central, organizing
authority.
So when dogs meet each other, they immediately start looking for the return of both the internal and
external equilibriums that have been disturbed by the sight of each other. But if they don’t know each
other, there may be some danger involved. After all, a dog always carries his weapons with him, and
you don’t always know if the other guy is going to follow the social rules, or whether he is going to
understand your signals and react normally to them. So the first thing dogs have to do is check out
whether the other dog is going to use his weapons, and whether he understands and uses the
common language. (More about these signals at Myth 12.) After some exchange of signals, it
becomes sufficiently clear that there is a common language, and that neither dog is going to get
violent right away. Both dogs can now at least predict the other’s behavior in the domains of
language and aggression. This is the crucial minimum of predictability that has to be established
before the interaction can progress safely to the next stage.
It can be that this next stage is simply moving off to follow their humans. The next time these dogs
meet, they will still know about each other, and the meeting will be less tense. It can also be that the
dogs stick around to play with each other. In this case, the next stage of exploration starts: learning
about each other’s personal preferences and boundaries. As the dogs play on a field, they discover
various things about each other. The first dog is very anxious the keep the stick his owner just threw,
and wants the second dog to stay several feet away from it. The second dog likes contact games
rather than a ball or a stick. They can’t talk to each other, so the dogs have to find this out by trial
and error. The first dog growls when the second one so much as looks at the stick. The second dog
can conclude, “okay, that’s important to him and he wants me to keep some distance.” The first dog
sees the second one stop or move away, and then he knows, “okay, he understood my signal, and he
values peace in our relation enough to let me keep my stick.” The second dog makes all kinds of
“come chase me” gestures, which show the first dog that this is the kind of game he wants. Secure
enough now about his stick, the first dog might leave it for a moment to indeed play a round of chase
along the border of the field. If the second dog bumps the first one during this game, he might get a
snarl. This tells him that the first dog is not comfortable with such close contact. He might drop his
tail, fold his ears back, move away a little – he’s saying, “okay, I got your message, and I didn’t mean
any ill.” Or he bumped into a third dog during the chase, and these signals are saying, “oops, didn’t
see you, sorry.” These dogs are not being dominant and submissive. They are simply exchanging
information about their respective inner states, so that they will become or remain predictable to each
other. Predictability about each other’s likes, dislikes and personal boundaries allows them to find or
maintain equilibrium in their relations with each other. When all the dogs in the physical space have
found some equilibrium, then the larger, social system has also arrived at one of its possible
balances. The dogs play cheerfully, sharing space, taking each other’s preferences and boundaries
into account, dashing past each other at exactly the right distance each dog needs, no problem.
These relations generally have to be established one on one. Because dogs learn about each other
by exchanging signals, they have to look at each other to learn. It is looking at the other that causes
your feelings specifically about him to arise and change your inner state, which you then signal. It is
by looking specifically at you that the other dog sees the signs of your internal state. So a dog can
only concentrate on one relationship at a time. This is one of the reasons a dog will freeze up and
stand totally still when he is being smelled by a whole group of other dogs. By freezing up, he is
giving a non-violence signal, but is saying nothing more. He keeps his mouth shut for the moment, as
it were, because you can only have complicated conversations one on one. If he is very socially
secure, the dog might just flip onto his back for the whole curious crowd (“I just know everyone will be
charmed by the sight of my belly here”). This is a safe signal to send out to a collective, one that
can't offend anyone or lead to difficult conversations. If he does this, the whole group gets the
important message, some predictability about the new dog in one go (“he knows our language and
has no violent intentions”). The preservation of the general safety in this dog’s presence is
immediately clear to all.
What we usually see happen is that the more self-assured dogs sniff the frozen newcomer for a sec,
then just walk away. Often, one dog will stay near the newcomer. This is because he still doesn’t feel
sure enough about the newcomer to share the space with him. His inner state is still out of balance
(e.g., he’s had bad experiences in the past, and his adrenaline level is still a little high due to this new
dog showing up). He is still looking to restore his inner equilibrium, and wants more information. To
get more specific information, the dogs will have to look straight at each other, and this is just not
possible in a group. But now the others are gone, and our insecure dog stands there growling. I call
this growl a threat gesture because the growl means the dog is perceiving a threat to his safety or
well-being. With this threat gesture, he is basically telling the new dog that he feels unsure of himself,
and asking for reassurance so his inner state can settle down. If the new dog gives a calming signal,
for example turning his ears outward and lowering his tail just a dot, he is saying, carefully, “you don’t
need to worry, I’m no threat to your safety or well-being.” The first dog’s adrenaline might drop a little,
and so does his tail, while he stops growling (“okay, I feel a little less worried now”). When the second
dog sees that the newcomer feels less tense and thus less likely to lash out defensively, the second
dog can safely take the non-threat signals a little further. He folds his ears all the way back, drops his
tail completely, and starts to move a little. The first dog feels yet more reassured, and gives signals to
express this. The second dog sees the decrease in tension and feels safe breaking eye contact to
smell the other dog’s lips or backside, or even to make a little play jump. This signaling of decreasing
tension goes back and forth, until both dogs have restored their inner equilibrium. To put it
differently, the dogs each begin to trust each other, which enables them to relax and share a physical
space. Don’t worry – “trust” is not an anthropomorphism here. Even among humans, trust is nothing
more than the feeling that the other is sufficiently predictable that your internal state is not disturbed
by fear of danger in his presence.
After this, in play, or in walking further together, the dogs explore each other’s personal boundaries.
Just like our party-goers, each dog has an internal state of well-being that he wants to preserve. This
well-being can be affected by many variables, depending on the dog’s history. A dog’s behavior and
choices in seeking maintenance of well-being have nothing to do with some personality trait that is
written in stone (e.g., “dominant” or “submissive”), but are the result of the dog’s experience in the
past. The choices are also influenced by his internal state from moment to moment (tired or not,
hungry or not, full of adrenaline or not). Some dogs have learned that a tennis ball is the most
wonderful play opportunity they will ever get, so they are fierce about keeping the tennis ball. Other
dogs don’t see any meaning in the tennis ball and will give it up willingly to another dog. A dog’s
personal zone is larger or smaller, depending on his experience in the past with intimate contact. The
dog on a diet is obsessed with the bread someone strewed around for the birds. The castrated dog
doesn’t much care about the female in heat who just showed up. And so there are many different well-
being positions in life, which are all highly personal, and which each dog will try to preserve. The
outside observer can’t always see these variables, but this is no reason to pretend they aren’t there.
That we can’t see them doesn’t matter, as long as we know, watching the dogs, that they are trying to
preserve a certain internal balance, exchanging one thing against another according to their own
insights (not ours!) about what serves them best at that moment.
As they are balancing their internal equilibrium, one of the things dogs keep an eye on is the
equilibrium in the larger, social system they share with the others. If this system becomes unstable, it
is, just like our party, unpleasant – and perhaps dangerous – for all present. When two dogs have an
argument, it’s unpleasant for both of them – adrenaline levels shoot up, they have to expend a bunch
of energy, and it always feels kind of scary because you never know absolutely for sure what the
other guy will do. So social stability is one of the variables that affect dogs’ inner well-being, and they
are very good at keeping an eye on it.
This is why dogs are so sensitive to social space. Again, they learn as they go. Two dogs are racing
around the field, playing tag. One of them runs very closely past a third dog, who is lying there
chewing on his tennis ball. This third dog jumps up and does some protest barking and air snapping,
then returns to her ball. The running dog looks to us like he didn’t even notice this, but in fact he
picks up on this social-space information on the move and without batting an eye. If we keep
watching, we see that the next time he passes, he does this at a greater distance from the chewing
dog. Even in wild play, dogs pick up on what’s going on in the larger picture and change their
behavior to accommodate and keep the system stable by not perturbing the other too much.
This is also why dogs are willing, to a varying extent (depending on their personal histories), willing to
make trades or give things up to each other in order to restore a threatened or lost social balance.
Two dogs who have just met both run after a ball someone throws. As they approach the ball, one of
them starts to growl. The other dog can’t know what kind of history is behind this, but he knows the
growl is a sign the other feels worried about the outcome and that the relationship could now become
unstable – a conflict might arise. So he slows down and lets the first dog get the ball. After all, he has
plenty of tennis balls at home, and to him the ball is really just an excuse to play the running game.
The growling dog notices this. The next time they go for the ball together, he doesn’t growl, but he
gets the ball again just the same. Later, the second dog’s owner is giving him a treat. This dog is on
a diet and is always hungry, so this time he growls when the first dog approaches. “You can have the
ball, but you sure can’t have my food.” The first dog moves off a little and watches from a greater
distance. The hungry dog notices this. The next time treats are handed out, he may still keep an eye
on the other dog, but he might not feel he has to growl. He's seen that the other is willing to keep a
little more distance around food. (It just so happens that in this other dog's home, tennis balls are
scarce, but food isn’t.) The two are each learning what is and isn’t important to each other’s internal
well-being equilibrium. They take this into account in their interactions, and thus keep the social
system stable.
This is not a dominance hierarchy, but a system of mutual trade-offs. One dog is willing to trade a
little playing space for peace on the field. Another dog will give up a ball, another food, receiving the
resource “peace” in return. This is a complex SOS, which seeks equilibrium on multiple levels at
once. The dogs are not trying to “dominate” each other, but are seeking compromises, to bring all
levels of the system into acceptable equilibriums at the same time. Dogs do not try to selfishly
maximize their own well-being anymore than our party-goers did (see also Myths 14, 15 and 16 on
competition). And you can’t tell what’s really going on just by watching the visible physical resources.
In the first place, as we have already seen, social stability is one of the factors that affect dogs’ inner
well-being. Arguments (social instability) decrease everyone’s well-being by making all feel less safe.
In the second place, and this is something scientists seem to have forgotten, dogs greatly enjoy each
other’s company. The very presence of the other adds to a dog’s personal well-being. So when a
dog “sacrifices” something (e.g., the tennis ball), this isn’t really a sacrifice. The dog is making a
choice, an exchange, between two things he values. In such a case, we can only conclude that the
dog apparently values the avoidance of a conflict, or preservation of the good relations with the other
dog, more than he values the thing he gave up.
So the behavior we have been taught to call “dominant” is in fact merely an exchange of information,
upon which the dogs then make choices. It is a search for a mutually satisfying balance between two
dogs. It is not up to us to determine that one dog has “won” and the other has “lost.” In doing so, we
fail to take their own variables into account (which are the only ones that matter!). In fact, the dog
that gives a thing up thinks he is making a satisfying, and in his own eyes winning choice, given his
own valuation of all the available options and taking all the multiple equilibriums into account that he
wants to preserve. Assigning more value to a thing that is taken by force is a truly typical human
projection! This projection has led scientists to miss another reality. If we watch un-blinded by labels
and projections, then we see that dogs most often get hold of an object by the handy use of charm,
calming signals and distraction tactics. There’s not a dog in the world who then values the object less
because he got it this way. And it is another human projection to call these tactics “submissive”, when
in fact they are simply an expression of greater social skill. It is, generally, the socially unskilled dog
or the distressed dog, who reverts to force to take a thing, and it reveals much about us (and nothing
about dogs) that we would consider such a dog “superior” or assign leadership qualities to him.
With our picture in place of dogs exploring each other’s boundaries and making compromises to
reach inner and outer equilibriums simultaneously, we can now describe the rules the dogs follow as
they do this. During my fourteen-year study of dogs, I was able to discover these rules and test them
exhaustively. These are dogs’ own rules, not ones thought up by a human – although humans greatly
improve their relationships with dogs if we obey these rules (which we don’t always do). In any case,
every socialized dog carries these rules inside himself, just as our well brought up party-goers have
internalized the ones they learned growing up. Dog rules are, however, different from human rules,
and there are not so many of them. Here they are:
· Rule Number One reads: We will not use aggression in social interactions, but will limit ourselves
to signals and avoid damaging each other. This is really the main rule dogs depend upon. It is
extremely traumatic for a dog when another dog does not honor this rule and attacks for real. (And
don’t try to tell us that humans have this rule too, or we will know you never watch the evening news.)
· Rule Number Two reads: We will respect each other’s personal zone and not enter it without
permission. This rule is important, but it is less important that Rule Number One. It isn’t so much
traumatic as somewhat threatening when a dog disobeys this rule. When this happens, you may see
some snarling and snapping, or maybe even a short, ritual “fight” (which isn’t really a fight – see
Myths 12, 13, 32 and 33). This is a rule we do share with dogs, though we disobey it more often.
(The dog who disobeys this rule is just as pathological as the human who engages in sexual
harassment on the work floor.)
· Rule Number Three reads: We will be considerate of each other’s personal preferences once
we have learned to know them. How far this consideration goes is, as we have seen, dependent on
each dog’s internal state at a particular moment, balanced against the wish to maintain both
relationships and social peace. (See Myths 14, 15 and 16 if you think your dog doesn't obey this
rule.)
With these three simple and elegant rules, internally carried by each part of the domestic canine
social system, the dog system is able to achieve one of the many possible equilibriums with amazing
flexibility and speed. Each dog ends up with the things he values most at that moment while social
peace is preserved, and the dog who consistently does not obey the rules gets thrown out of the
system (which chasing away can be a collective enterprise). We cannot determine some kind of
hierarchy among the dogs in this balance (unless we are willing to project), because we cannot know
how the dogs are valuing the things they add and subtract from their position in the whole. All we can
do is observe that each dog has reached a position he is happy with. This position is not reached by
brute force, but by voluntarily seeking compromises. It doesn’t interest a dog in the least whether
some other dog has “more”. In fact, dogs don’t even have the brain structures that would enable
them to think the concept “more” or “less”, conceiving of and comparing sizes or quantities. This kind
of math is quite beyond them. All a dog knows is that he has his own personal “enough” (more on this
later, in Myth 14). Therefore, this dog SOS works excellently. A dog group can absorb practically
unlimited numbers of dogs quickly and flexibly, as long as everyone follows the three simple rules.
At the beginning, I said that dogs live in a complex, autopoietic, self-organizing system. Now we
understand “complex” and “self-organizing”. But what does “autopoietic” mean? “Autopoietic” means,
quite simply, that the system is capable of producing and repairing its own parts. You don’t have to
take an autopoietic system to the garage, or buy new parts for it. It is self-perpetuating and self-
maintaining. “Autopoeisis” occurs when a system consists of living creatures. A dog bears pups
without external help, and dogs all around the world raise pups – if humans don’t interfere – into
functioning system parts who know and voluntarily follow the rules. As we have seen in Myth 6, the
ability to take part in the social system is learned, not inherited. Dogs do this part production quite
well all by themselves.
A dog must interact with other dogs while he’s a pup so as to learn the rules, otherwise he may end
up having trouble participating in social interactions. An adult dog who didn’t play enough with others
in his youth may need finishing (as a part) if he is to function in a social system. Another dog may
have a traumatic and damaging experience, and end up needing “repair” to be able to function again
in the dog social system. We may need help repairing our dogs, but dogs are quite capable of
repairing such a part themselves without outside help. They will help the traumatized dog get over his
fear, providing him with reassuring social experiences. It’s actually quite touching to watch how
socially skilled dogs react to fear in another dog – we could learn a lot from them. The socially clumsy
(or incomplete) dog gets snapped at and snarled at, until he tempers his clumsy behavior and starts
to act more politely. The other dogs aren’t “dominating” him, but are providing this incomplete part
with some learning experiences he missed out on, and he is learning as he goes. As long as the
hooligan refrains from using aggression (i.e., delivering one or more uninhibited bites, thus inflicting
damage on other system parts), he will be able to learn from other dogs how to take part in the
system.
Thus, there are two production processes, which make sure the system is producing and repairing its
own parts. One of them is the biological process of bearing and raising offspring. The second
production process is learning. Learning is crucial both to the production of socially functioning
offspring and to the repair of parts that don’t function optimally for some reason.
So learning is an important production process in the dog SOS. Learning takes care of the
production of functioning system parts, and repair of damaged or incomplete parts. Their ability to
learn enables dogs to take the deviant signals into account that they encounter, for example, from a
dog whose tail the humans have cut off or bred to be permanently curled up on his back. Their
learning ability, their readiness to seek compromise, and their three simple rules enable dogs to
absorb members of other species into their social system. A dog can learn how to interpret the
signals, and thus predict the behavior, of a parrot, a cat, a human, if only we allow him to go through
the right learning experiences. He is then able to use these signals across the species-boundaries, to
seek equilibrium and construct an SOS with all kinds of non-dog species. It’s actually miraculous – or
maybe not, given the context the dog evolved in.
Dogs live in a flexible and complex self-organizing system, which is capable of seeking and finding
equilibriums on multiple levels at once (all the dogs in equilibrium while the social system also finds a
balance). The system produces and repairs its own parts. There are three simple rules that
determine the system’s movements by the individual parts independently and voluntarily following
those rules, without some central authority guiding things. The system functions to find the maximum
available safety and well-being of all the present participants. There is no hierarchy. There is only a
whole range of possible balances, both for each individual participant and for the system as a whole.
Each equilibrium is arrived at as the dogs seek compromises, weighing various choices, and seeking
a balance between their own well-being and the stability of the social landscape (which is also an
element in their well-being). A dog who can’t compromise can’t take part. His behavior destabilizes
the social system, making it unsafe or uncomfortable for other participants. Dogs aren’t preoccupied
with power, but rather with building mutual predictability and trust, so the system can balance in one of
the many acceptable equilibriums it has to choose from. These “acceptable equilibriums” are
situations in which each dog present has a well-being position he is satisfied with. Giving up a ball or
a bone to preserve the relationship and the social peace does not mean the dog has “lost.” It means
that he has made a trade-off, shifting from the well-being position that included the ball to a position
that included something else he decided was more important.
The ability to follow Rule Number One, no aggression (i.e., no attempting to inflict real damage on
others), is essential, however. Aggression makes a dog unable to function as a part of any dog social
system. He will always be attempting to sabotage the entire system. His presence makes the social
system unsafe for all the other participants. He can’t be repaired, because this is too dangerous – he
will be trying to destroy other system parts rather than to learn from them. The dog does not exist
who is willing to risk his internal equilibrium to such an extent that he may cease to exist as a living
system himself! (See re: exceptions to this in Myths 38-40.) Dogs who do engage in aggression, or
who will risk their existence as a living system in order to fight, are not products of nature. They are a
result of human tampering with dogs. Repair is impossible, and the owner has the responsibility to
keep the dog away from other dogs.
The domestic dog’s social system is, thus, much more complex – but also much more elegant and
intelligent – than a mere “dominance hierarchy.” This “dominance hierarchy” model is clumsy and
anthropomorphic, and does not do justice to dogs.
Beckerman, LP, "The non-linear dynamics of war", Science applications International Corporation,
ASSET Group, http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/beckerman/non_linear.htm, 1999.
Maturana, HR, The organization of the living: A theory of the living organization, International Journal
of Man-Machine Studies, Vol 7, 1975, pp 313-332.
Maturana, HR and Varela V, Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living, in Boston Studies
in the Philosophy of Science, Cohen, RS and Wartofsky, MW (eds.), Vol. 42, Dordrecht: D. Reidel
Publishing Co., 1980.
Rugaas, T, Calming Signals, Legacy By Mail, Inc., Carlsborg, WA, 1997.
Semyonova, A, The social organization of the domestic dog; a longitudinal study of domestic canine
behavior and the ontogeny of domestic canine social systems, Carriage House Publishing, The
Hague, The Netherlands, 2003.
Part 1: Myths About the Dog's Origin and Nature
From: The 100 Most Silly Things That Have Ever Been Said About Dogs
Copyright 2007 by Alexandra Semyonova -- All Rights Reserved
From: The 100 Most Silly Things That Have Ever Been Said About Dogs
Copyright 2007 by Alexandra Semyonova -- All Rights Reserved
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright 2007 by
Alexandra Semyonova
All rights reserved
Alexandra Semyonova
All rights reserved