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    EVOLUTION OF CANINE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR, 2ND EDITION
    EVOLUTION OF CANINE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR, 2ND EDITION
    EVOLUTION OF CANINE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR, 2ND EDITION
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    EVOLUTION OF CANINE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR, 2ND EDITION

    By Roger Abrantes

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    About this ebook

    Detailed study of evolution of canine social behavior. Leads the reader step-by-step through the various aspects involved in development of single social behavior patterns. Also a comparative study, this book dismisses many common beliefs and assumptions, and leaves the reader with simple, sound explanations. For all students of animal behavior. Revised, updated, and expanded!

    What reviewers are saying...

    THE LATHAM LETTER
    “The idea of dominance-aggression is biased. It is possible to be aggressive and dominant, but the term suggests the dog attacks because it is dominant. No dog attacks another because of dominance. Dominance aims at controlling the other by means of ritualized behavior, without harming or injuring it…” This is a book for all students of animal behavior who wish to uncover the whys and hows of canine social behavior. Roger Abrantes, Ph.D. (Evolutionary Biology and Ethology) DHC DF MAPBC, born in Portugal in 1951, has lived most of his life in Denmark. He is the author of 17 books in English, German, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Italian, and Czech as well as numerous articles on behavior. He is probably one of the most versatile ethologists in the world. His book Dog Language—An Encyclopedia of Canine Behavior is a perennial best-seller. Dr. Abrantes is especially known for his views on social behavior and its applications to the understanding of pet behavior, and for his working methods where he uses psychology rather than the power to teach an animal new patterns patiently and efficiently, step-by-step. His present work involves research into the evolution of human behavior.

    CANINE REVIEW This is the second edition of an already first rate book, the updates are noted and timely. This book outlines the basics of dog behavior and expression based on scientific study, not Disney-fiction of the cute little animals. One learns reading this, that all behavior has a function, not a purpose and that these two terms cover very different aspects. Understanding this will help understand the behaviour of the family dog. Dr. Abrantes walks the walk as well. No arm chair theoretician, he has titled hunting dogs, in the field, as well as trained at the professional level all canine units in Denmark, including police, drug and customs dogs, as well as dogs from all three Military Disciplines. Three paws up on this one.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDogwise Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2004
    ISBN9781617810466
    EVOLUTION OF CANINE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR, 2ND EDITION

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    • 1/5
      I couldn't get very far into this book before I had to close it due to the amount of misinformation. The author claims that foxes have only two social behaviors--fear and aggression.As someone who has raised and worked with foxes, I can tell you that this could not be further from the truth. If the author had done even a lick of research, or spent an afternoon watching foxes in a zoo, he would have known better. Clearly he didn't bother to do the legwork on the animals he was writing about.I can't give a positive review to a book so poorly researched.

    Book preview

    EVOLUTION OF CANINE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR, 2ND EDITION - Roger Abrantes

    formula.

    1. The strategy of life

    There is only one objective: to live long, and preferably long enough to pass half of one’s genes to the next generation. This is the ultimate and universal goal for all living beings on this planet. There are almost as many strategies for achieving this objective, as there are living forms. We have uncovered many of them, yet biologists occasionally discover new species. There is only one correct strategy in life: to prolong life and to postpone its extinction, death.

    Life is the activity of all organisms, from primitive forms such as bluegreen algae, to complex ones like mammals. This activity falls into two major categories: metabolism and reproduction.

    Metabolism is the physical and chemical processes by which the organism uses energy from its environment for self-preservation. The energy source can be heat or light from the sun, for example, or the chemical energy of ingested food. A living organism converts energy.

    Molecules called nucleic acids control reproduction. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules can make copies of themselves. They are what one organism gives another. Reproduction involves making copies of the cell and results in copies of the organism itself, except in the case of viruses, which have a completely different strategy.

    Life probably originated very early in the history of the earth when a sort of replicator somehow occurred. External sources of energy powered this primordial replicator that could make copies of itself. The first replicators eventually evolved into cells. Natural selection favored the replicating molecules that could find energy most promptly, and evolution took care of the rest: prokaryotes, nucleated cells, eukaryotes, multicellular organisms, plants, and animals. Evolutionary success depends on the ability of an organism to preserve its genes.

    It is impossible to give a precise and general definition of life. I shall, nonetheless, attempt this feat, since in this study I will not use an idea without a prior definition.

    In a crude sense, we can say that an organism is alive if its metabolism and reproduction are operative. Death implies, in complex living forms, the cessation of heartbeat, respiration, movement, reflexes and brain activity. Everything threatening one or more of these functions is threatening to life.

    Life is the unique characteristic of an organism when its

    metabolism and reproduction are operative.

    There is never a single rewarding strategy for organisms living in any given environment. The wild canines of the Serengeti offer a good example. The hunting dogs, Lycaon pictus, follow the herds of wildebeests, Connochaetes gnou, to feed the pack and their youngsters. The jackals, Canis aureus, on the other hand, stay in the same territory. They survive the drought by consuming anything edible they can find. It is a desperate hunt for energy and yet they succeed. During this period the jackal hunts alone to sustain itself and its small family.

    DNA Strands

    Nucleic acids are complex molecules produced by living cells and are essential to all living organisms. These acids govern the body’s development and specific characteristics by providing hereditary information and triggering the production of proteins within the body.

    Computer drawing by Daniel Abrantes.

    The wild canines of the Serengeti found two different, but equally successful strategies in the same environment. One selected the strategy of staying together in large packs, persecuting prey, and hunting it down. This strategy dramatically affected the spectrum of behavior shown by the species, resulting in a larger range of communication patterns than in the jackal. Jackals live in well-defined groups with few conflicts, because there are only two adults—one of each sex—plus occasionally one yearling and two or three pups. They do not need more than a limited repertoire of signals.

    Nothing in life is for free nor free of consequences. No one has ever formulated these principles as such in a scientific context, and yet they express a basic truth. Life is an exchange of one sort of energy for another. Hunting dog and jackal interact with their environment, and their behavior, social or not, is invariably the best available strategy in the given circumstances.

    Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes - Red foxes tend to live near farmland, which provides them with good hunting ground and plenty of rodents.

    There is, however, a third strategy. Widespread in the meadows and grasslands of Europe we find this continent’s most common canine hunter, the fox, Vulpes vulpes. Also known as the red fox, it adopted the strategy of solitariness. Alone after dusk, the vixen hunts for herself and for her young hidden somewhere nearby. Foxes do not have complex communication patterns—they simply do not need them. To communicate presupposes a receiver, and the fox wanders alone in woods and copses. The behavior of the fox reflects its strategy of life, as does the behavior of the hunting dog and the jackal.

    Many wild canines once lived in North America. The wolf, Canis lupus, and the coyote, Canis latrans, survived—partly because of human attempts to save the survivors of the once abundant fauna in this part of the Earth. A cousin of these canines, the red wolf, Canis rufus, was not so fortunate and is now close to extinction. Canis rufus did not prosper because it never adopted the right strategy. Whether the wolf would still exist without human intervention is another question. It may have survived in the inauspicious northern parts of the American continent—unless the whole species had become a victim of an epidemic catastrophe.

    Jackal, Canis aureus - Jackals form remarkably long-lasting pair bonds. Males enforce this monogamy by chasing off any suitor whose presence threatens the survival of their progeny. A jackal pair raises a litter together. A pup from a previous litter may remain with the family as a helper and protector.

    Strategies for living are many and varied. The ‘preservation of favored races in the struggle for life’² happens according to numerous plans. In the canine family alone, we find three distinct strategies:

    1 - Solitary predators

    2 – Family-pack hunters

    3 – Large-pack hunters

    Communication patterns increase from 1 to 3. Being social has a price. For some it pays off, for others it does not. Foxes resolve encounters with conspecifics using displays ruled by aggression or fear: attack, defense, and flight.

    Gray Wolf, Canis lupus lupus - The gray wolf, also called the timber wolf, is distributed across northern North America and Eurasia. It is found in a variety of habitats including mountains, plains, deserts, forests and tundra. The wolf is a social canid and lives in packs of 4-16 individuals.

    Jackals are slightly different and difficult to classify. The same mechanisms we observe in foxes rule most encounters, but now and then their behavior assumes radically different measures—as for instance when a yearling female in the pack begins courting a stranger male. The adult jackals, her parents, clearly show reticency at best, and not uncommonly outright aggressive behavior; and yet the yearling neither attacks them nor flees. The jackal shows a compromise behavior that we have become accustomed to call submissive.

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