Sibling Rivalry -When House Dogs Don't Get Along
There are many, many factors that come into play in regards to domestic dog 'relationship' problems in a person's home. My approach is to first look at what true Sibling Rivalry is in nature and how different/similar triggers are with our pets.
In the book The Evolution of Sibling Rivalry by Douglas W. Mock and Geoffrey A. Parker, they cover many aspects to family structure. Family structure studies too place 3-5 decades ago with the conceptual roots taking hold in the 1960's/1970's when it became more widely recognized that most of natural selection functions at the level of individuals and genes. They reveal in the preface that there are various branches of science studying the same subject but aren't communicating with each other. Each branch of science will come to it's own conclusions and constructs with rare connections between them. Sciences do not work in concert with each other - so a lot of mis-understanding and mis-information can be had.
How many of you have every really given thought to what true Sibling Rivalry is? Mother Nature is raw and tough. Darwin put out the "survival of the fittest" theory leading organisms to compete for critical resources. The entire purpose is to pass on one's DNA to the next generation. This is the classical perspective of being selfish but in the last 30 years or so, there's been a new spin on theoretical biology - that of altruism. Hamilton's Rule - the more relatedness you share with kin the more you are willing to sacrifice yourself. Hamilton's Rule has been used to study altruism, aggression, and selfishness in social interaction. Dr. Marc Bekoff put out a paper on "Cooperation and Fair Play" that covers how a group interacts. He mentions Dr. Mech discovering that the number of wolves who would live together depended on the number of wolves with whom individuals could closely bond with balanced against the number of individuals from whom an individual could tolerate competition.
Sibling rivalry in many species start in uterine. The embryos compete for nutrients and space. What does it take to pass on DNA? Space and resources.
There are non-lethal sibling competition and lethal sibling competition. In some species, there's a correlation between increased sibling fighting when they are weaned from mother's milk to solid food. Dispersal of siblings usually occur prior to full maturity to lessen the threat on the resources. If they don't disperse, then it usually extends the potential period for sibling rivalry far into adulthood. In mammals, sibling rivalry begins as embryos and goes on into adulthood. Some species have many offspring to off-set brood reduction. Birds are especially vicious when it comes to lethal siblicide. Some mammals are born with weapons - teeth to fight off their siblings from a teat. This also lends itself to siblicide. Artic foxes and Red fox pups are known to practice siblicide using bites and kill-shakes. Coyotes are similar to foxes. They engage in serious fighting around 3-6 weeks of age. Spotted hyenas exhibit the species typical 'bite-shake' killing behavior within 40 minutes of birth.
There's sibling rivalry in birds, mammals, ectothermic vertebrates, invertebrates and even plants. So what is happening with our pets? First off, domestic dog behaviors are artificially controlled by humans in all aspects. From mate selection, mating, forced weaning, too early placement (removal from litter) prior to 10 weeks of age, when and where they eat, provided safety in shelter, some cultures cull a specific sex - or just do mass killings, and so on. I think most understand that domestic dog fighting occurs over a resource be it dinner, bone, valued toy. But there are other missed triggers. We also assume a domestic dogs social grouping is a duplicate to that of a wolf family. That is simply not the case. This assumption leads to a lot of trouble when living with multiple dogs. Wolves are not dogs and dogs are not wolves just as we aren't chimpanzees and chimpanzees aren't human. Social structure plays apart into cooperation and don't forget, WE choose which animals to live with - not the animals choosing which would cause less problems. Here are some links: wolf/dog comparisons Video- From Wolf to Dog
Through the process of domestication we've made our dogs more 'puppy-like'. They are to be very flexible in letting unfamiliar/strangers to socialize with them and they are by far more solitary then wolves but again - we force them into unnatural living conditions. There was a study done by D.W. MacDonald and G.M. Carr that looked at the variations in dog societies - between resource dispersion and social flux. What they found was that different groups of feral dogs behaved differently based on the environment they were in. Sylvatic dogs formed packs similar to a tight wolf family so that they could kill conspecifics. So grouping in a pack gave them strength. They did not show cooperation in raising or caring for their young or adoption of young as it's common in other wild canids. In contrast, the village dogs behaved more like the social system of red foxes. Some were very solitaire and didn't come together in a social group unless necessary. Dogs are a lot more fluid and most of them are accepting of others then their canid counterparts. Yet - they would do very well living as a single dog in a family home. Here are some links to look at:
What's Wrong With Using Dominance Theory?
Non-Linear Dogs
So what other factors might come into play when house dogs start fighting? Age, sex, high arousal, low tolerance threshold, illnesses, low frustration threshold, poor social skills, and early learning.
Other aspects that will be touched on in the webinar are environmental space effects on behavior, relationship poisoning, resource guarding and how to manage living with multiple dogs that are in conflict and an overview of some behavior change program techniques.
Here's another blog that covers how to live in harmony with multiple dogs: How Many Dogs?
Hope you can join me on Wed Nov 9th. Limited to 15 spots.
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