Much research has been dedicated to untangling the effects of domestication on dogs.
It is no longer viable to assume that most of the traits that we value in dogs are a result of domestication because apparently they have been inherited from wolves and wolves still exhibit the same traits.
For example, the many interesting publications by the Wolf Science Centre (Austria) attest to the following traits that are shared among wolves and dogs and that have not arisen through domestication but that have likely been shaped and encouraged through domestication, already present in the genetic and behavioural make-up of the dog’s ancestor.
Moreover, many of these traits in wolves are manifested not only within the species (toward other wolves that are pack members) but also toward humans.
Wolves can form equally strong bonds with familiar humans (Burkhard, M.E. et al., 2023), wolves and dogs can cooperate with humans in order to accomplish rewarded tasks (Range, F. et al., 2019a, Range, F. et al., 2019b) etc.
I have read less about dogs but there are certainly differences in that dogs appear to rely more on humans (e.g., expecting the humans to give directions or to offer assistance) and they adjust their behaviour to human presence (being more active with humans around).
These studies have been often designed to show that the cooperative, prosocial and emotional bonding traits in dogs are also observed in wolves; and that they have been inherited and shaped, not created ‘from nothing’ by humans.
Cooperation, prosociality and bonding are all traits which are of high value and, indeed, survival value in wild wolf populations where breeding, hunting and territorial defense occur cooperatively.
Meanwhile, the same traits apparently have been redirected toward the human ‘master’ and companion in dogs (I am using both terms because, historically, not always dogs were regarded as companions and pets but as working animals).
What confounds me is the lack of cooperation in free-ranging dogs that also tend to form social groups which defend territories but that do not breed cooperatively and that do not forage cooperatively.
The lack of cooperative foraging can be related to the difference in resources used by dogs and wolves, i.e., the reliance of anthropogenic food sources (e.g., garbage) in free-ranging dogs.
Even different wolf species can alter their social behaviour when subsisting on prey that is not that of large ungulates.
For example, Ethiopian wolves form packs and breed as well as defend their territories cooperatively but they hunt solitarily and their prey base is constituted of rodents.
Wolves in Asia that rely on garbage dumps, tend to form very small groups, sometimes even only pairing up or foraging alone.
Meanwhile, wolves that follow migratory prey herds to the winter ranges and that thereby leave their summer territories, appear to be more tolerant of other packs and do not necessarily exhibit territorial behaviour although some degree of intragroup avoidance is maintained.
I am mentioning this because I still find it odd that dogs – a subspecies that has evolved from a highly cooperative ancestry and that has been selected for cooperative traits and prosocial behaviour (toward humans) – would not form tighter social groups when free-ranging.
Dogs also exhibit more despotic food access behaviour (i.e., the food units become usurped by dominating individuals and the non-dominating dogs may be entirely excluded from access while in wolves there may be social feeding hierarchy but mostly subordinates gain access at some point through appealing or waiting).
Dogs do not actively reconciliate with one another (as wolves do and as wolves even teach their young to do within their social group) even though dogs have been bred to reconciliate with respect to humans (Cafazzo, S. et al., 2018).
Dogs rather tend to avoid each other post-conflict possibly in hopes that the conflict will simply go away and due to low levels of interest in maintaining group cohesion at all costs and at all times.
It would seem that dogs are entirely capable of being prosocial as dictated by their genetics and by their ‘historical upbringing’ (domestication).
However, dogs do not appear capable or motivated of extending these actions toward other dogs in larger social groups.
Social behaviour is determined not merely by conscious decisions.
It is also determined by physiological mechanisms, e.g., hormone production.
Oxytocins are such hormones that are produced upon social interactions with individuals and with groups that one considers ‘their own’.
They invoke pleasant feelings and thereby motivate to cooperate, to oblige, to forgive and to otherwise enhance the group cohesion and bonding.
If oxytocins were produced in dogs upon interactions with other dogs that belong to their social group, it would alter the dogs’ behaviour likely leading to greater levels of cooperation and appeasement than demonstrated in the research.
If they are not produced, dogs apparently do not identify with these dog groups in the same way they identify with their human-dog groups (because interactions with humans produce oxytocins in dogs).
It would not seem plausible that dogs have been selected to bond with humans only.
For example, livestock guardian dogs are often raised to bond with the livestock herds rather than with humans and they would risk their own lives to defend these animals of other species.
Also, it does not appear that dogs have some type of limitations over with how many different species or groups they can bond.
The aforementioned guardian dogs may bond both with livestock and humans (e.g., in transhumanist systems (especially, nomadic ones) where the shepherd and their family essentially live alongside the herd but at the same time have separate daily organization and the livestock guardian dogs appear entirely capable of forming strong associations both with the livestock and the humans).
Of course, in these situations, there are rewards involved (and survival value).
Bonding with humans and likewise bonding with livestock result in food acquisition and perhaps some other benefits that the dog perceives as comforts.
In free-ranging dog groups, other dogs pose competition (both with respect to food and breeding) rather than cooperative means to access resources.
However, it does not have to be so and cooperation within smaller groups can result in benefits also in free-ranging dog populations (as is the case with cooperative territory/resource defense).
If dogs attempted to cooperate more extensively or intensely, they might find it beneficial, e.g., in excluding competition by other species.
Cooperative breeding might be impeded by lack of kinship in free-ranging dog groups.
There might be a greater number of potential partners (inbreeding is not a risk factor) and cooperative pup care would not ensure the gene transfer of the subordinate caretaker because the subordinate is a not a sibling to the young.
However, in many wild species, caretaking of the young can yield important life experience and skills that might contribute to the individual’s future reproductive success.
Also, by demonstrating ‘parenting skills’, the individual might present their value to the prospective partners.
I find it strange that dogs would not be more inclined to ‘work together’ with other dogs.
And my theory is that humans have selected against cooperation in dogs with other dogs.
While in modern day we would, of course, prefer our pet dog getting along with our other pet dog or with the dogs in the park or in the neighbourhood etc., this preference might not have been as strong from the perspective of the history of domestication.
Early on, dogs may have followed their nomadic humans and they might have had reduced opportunities to form more permanent social connections with other dogs.
Still, there might have been several dogs that belonged to the same human group.
As the humans assumed a more sedentary lifestyle (agriculture), dogs probably often lived in group situations.
Humans kept dogs in settlements and it is unlikely that the dogs were always tethered and forbidden from wandering around and meeting other dogs.
One household could have had several dogs, as well.
Bonding, however, is a matter of alliance that can yield power and it implies a certain freedom over breeding decisions.
It may not have been profitable for humans to allow the dogs to form social groups (unlike promoting bonding with the livestock that dogs defended) because dogs would have exerted their loyalties to other dogs and they might have learned to provision for themselves or to defend one another against the commands by humans.
Provisioning for dogs was a powerful domestication tool, and dogs that would, e.g., hunt in groups might not consider humans as great an authority because they do not depend on human resources to the same degree (although they could have preferred human resources if those were of better quality and involved lesser perils during acquisition).
Similarly, if dogs formed groups, there could have been conflicts between the leading dog and the leading human.
In systems where dogs are fed by humans and housed separately and then grouped to perform certain tasks within a hierarchy of dominance among them (e.g., sled dogs), the human probably has to be more authoritative than the leading dog.
But if dogs had been encouraged to form groups also outside of these ‘performance’ situations with opportunities to self-provision, to take breeding decisions, to interact freely, they could have acquired physical and psychological properties that would lessen the authority of the human.
Through play, they would have grown physically non-commandable because animals are generally stronger than humans are and allowing for dogs to develop their natural physical potential might have resulted in dogs that are physically too capable to be constrained.
Typically, dogs are allowed to become physically very fit within the context of their task set by human (hunting dogs, guardian dogs) and they might not be aware of their own strength outside of this human-determined setting.
Extensive interactions with conspecifics could additionally have led to cognitive development, once again, outside of human demanded tasks.
Dogs would have become curious and even mischievous (from human perspective) and with the increasing self-reliance, they might have questioned the solutions to the tasks (commands) put forth by humans (the order of things) or even the tasks themselves.
If breeding had been allowed more freely and dogs had not been discouraged from cooperative breeding, pup defense would have resulted in dog groups turning against the humans who likely sought to interfere and even to eliminate unwanted offspring on regular basis.
Pup defense would have overriden obedience and human authority and it could have been through isolation of the breeding females that the dogs subjected their offspring to human will (out of helplessness and the respective complacency).
These are examples of why it might have been non-beneficial for humans to allow bonding among dogs within the same human social unit, household or settlement.
I find it conceivable that dogs initially attempted to interbond because dogs were once wolves and the genetic drive to form close and cooperative associations with other wolves (later – dogs) would have been in force.
The striking difference between contemporary wolf and dog social structures and the apparently retained potential of dogs to bond with humans and other species (dogs have not lost their prosocial and cooperative inclinations) suggests (to me) that the loss of intraspecific social cooperation in dogs is not due to lack of motivation (because dogs could, theoretically, benefit from more cohesive groups and, indeed, many wild species tend to extend their social tolerance and cooperation under circumstances of food abundance and resource reliability that is observed by. e.g., garbage dumps) but rather a result of domestication where early on humans realized that there was danger in dog grouping which could lead to dogs defying human authority, not acting within the contexts of human-invented tasks and finding incentives offered by humans dissatisfactory either demanding better incentives or resuming independent lifestyle.
Such dog groups during historical times when human groups were small and non-cooperative among each other, could even have led to dogs usurping human resources (e.g., kills of ungulates) through numbers and physical strength.
If my theory is true and dogs were selected against cooperation with one another, we should regard our efforts to socialize dogs as a task which is not mere that of altering behavioural patterns or involving particular characters (individuals that are more cooperative or less cooperative) but rather as a task which aims to reset genetics.
It is possible, for example, that dogs who are not cooperative with other dogs (but who are otherwise prosocial toward humans or other species), should not be considered ‘unfriendly’.
It might be that the genetic make-up in the particular individual has resulted in a genetic lack of predisposition to identify with other dogs which I would term the ‘domestication psychosis’ where the poor animal is incapable of identifying and bonding with individuals of their own species (that in nature should be the easiest and foremost group to bond with).
I am deliberate in terming it a psychosis because, as stated above, conspecifics are the first bonding targets in most species and this could be regarded as a typical evolutionary pathway that the dogs have been forced to skip or to miss out on.
First we bond with conspecific individuals that we identify with (kin, mate).
Then we extend our group identify within the species (e.g., family, clan, nation, global humanity).
And mostly bonding with other species is secondary due to our lesser ability to perceive their perspectives and to share in many important routines and aspects of life.
For example, it is easier for us to perceive how other humans feel because we share the same expressions, gestures, vocalizations, desires, fears etc.
If dogs have been selected against such identification with other dogs, they might have suffered mental health effects that should be recognized (resulting also, i.e., in lack of oxytocin production in dog group social situations) and that should be accounted for during dog socialization (by realizing that we are possibly operating on the level of genes and millenia of behavioural conditioning).
Socializing our dogs might even yield benefits in the dog’s sense of self-worth and self-awareness because dogs may have displaced their identity.
In order to form a group and to bond, we have to recognize what we have in common.
For the dog not to bond with conspecifics as demanded by the evolution yet in the form of a wolf, they would have had to either deliberately push out some aspects of self (in order not to identify with another dog), or to have lost ability to self-identify (and, consequently, to identify with another dog), or to have projected their self-identity onto another (e.g., a human – perceiving humans as possessive of qualities that are, in truth, dog’s own).
The denial of breeding choices and pup defense is even more cruel but that I will currently leave undiscussed.
Notes by Ieva 