No, dogs are not wolves. Yes, strict adherence to dominance theory is outdated and not entirely accurate. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Dominance theory was based on the observation of wolf behavior. Advances in behavioral studies and new research has proven that dominance theory and observations done on CAPTIVE wolf populations do not reflect much of the true behavior of wild wolf populations. Wild wolf populations are usually based on small family groups of parents and offspring. Their behavior is quite often TOTALLY different from captive wolf populations and packs, which are often unrelated adults or young adults forced to live together. My assumption is and new studies are showing that this forcing together of unrelated adult wolves leads to very different behavior profiles developing that is found in wild wolves. Ritualized aggression and dominance behaviors develop in an effort to manage such a disparate group of individuals.
No, dogs aren't necessarily out to dominate us. Dogs are opportunistic and do what works. Observations of feral dogs and feral dog packs show they are unlike wolves and wild wolf packs. But that doesn't mean we have to throw the baby out with the bath water, behaviorally speaking. Dogs have evolved to live with us, but that doesn't completely squelch the instinctive canine behaviors. We routinely are "forcing" dogs to live in artificial packs with us and with other unrelated adult dogs. So why do we assume that there is NO relevance to the behavior seen in the artificially created wolf packs seen in captivity, just because their behavior is different than wild wolves? Are we not creating an artificial pack with our domestic dogs in many situations?
I'm not a believer in strict dominance theory. I don't believe every dog is out to dominate us, that that is their ultimate goal. But I do belive in the concepts of pack theory because I've seen it over and over. Competition for resources, living together in close proximity, etc all bring out pack behavior. So while I fully accept dogs are NOT wolves and captive wold behavior is very different from wild wolf behavior, I can see SOME similarities in captive wolf pack behavior and domestic dog "pack" behavior. I believe it is very important to consider this when working with and training dogs, especially in multi-dog homes and situations (like dog parks, doggie daycare, etc).
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