Leadership Lesson #1 Dominance and Hierarchy

The idea of communicating through stories has been on my mind for several years. I looked for inspiration in available fairy tales, books by Przemek Staroń (he/him) and social media profiles. However, I couldn't find my style for a long time, until Tobi appeared in our lives - a dog from a shelter who had virtually no chance of being adopted.

This is how the fanpage on FB 'Stawiamy ?wiat na ?apy' (Putting the World to Work or Putting the World to Paws) - leadership lessons, or what we can learn from animals was created.

Studying Animal Rights, which has been an eye-opening experience for me, I've decided that it might be worth sharing some of the lessons with you.

This episode will be about dominance, which we dogs don't know but are often accused of. The domination theory was invented by humans in order to explain their dominant urges towards us dogs. And also to each other?.

Unfortunately, this myth persists all the time. Humans believe that they form a heard with their dogs and that they have to establish a hierarchy, because if they don't show the dog their place, the dog will step on their head, dominate them and maybe even bite. We dogs do not dominate each other either. In the process of evolution, we have learned how to use various agonistic behaviours, which helps us to avoid conflict. Unfortunately, these are often unrecognised or misinterpreted by humans as dominance behaviours.

?Let us turn for a moment to our ancestors, although it is worth remembering that a dog is not a wolf. The terms ‘waddle’ or ‘heard’ do not convey the actual social structure of wolves, which is based on kinship. A more accurate term is ‘family group’ or simply ‘family’. Similarly, the terms ‘alpha male’ or ‘alpha female’ are incorrect - in the wild it is simply the parents who direct the life of the group. The myth of a dominance hierarchy among wolves originated from Rudolf Schenkel's 1930s research on unrelated wolves confined in captivity. In 1970, Dr L. David Mech popularised Schenkel's theses in his monograph Wolf. They gained popularity and were widely used not only by biologists and naturalists, but also by psychologists, sociologists and others using the lives of wolves as a basis for studies of canine and even human behaviour. However, subsequent research on free-ranging wolves, including on Ellesmere Island, has shown that the natural structure of the wolf group is based on family relationships rather than a struggle for dominance. Mech has been debunking this myth for more than 20 years, emphasising the role of wolf parents as the natural leaders of the group.

?Remember, the term ‘alpha male’ and the theory of dominance is very damaging to us dogs and destroys our inter-species relationship. Leadership is based on communication, not dominance, and trust is the foundation upon which the social bond with any sensitive and social creature is built. It is the foundation that maintains our capacity for understanding and cooperation, which we prioritise over confrontation. Trust is not built through fear.

?The more we discover about the social behaviour of animals, the more we see that species living in groups evolve to avoid conflict rather than escalate it. It is pro-social behaviour such as cooperation, honesty, reciprocity, empathy, trust, comfort and altruism that drives evolution, not dominance (Pierce and Bekoff, 2012). The world has always been full of threats, so species that cooperate to protect themselves and obtain food are more likely to survive. Play plays a key role in fostering cooperation and reciprocity - it is during play that animals learn social rules, how to control biting, how to respond appropriately to others and how to inhibit unwanted behaviour, which motivates them to continue interacting (Jensen, 2007).

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