Warlike wolves7/26/2023 ![]() ![]() And a dominant pack member might perform a role reversal, rolling over on her back (a sign of submission that she would never offer during real aggression) to let her lower-status play partner take a turn at “winning”. For instance, a coyote might not bite her play partner as hard as she can, handicapping herself to keep things fair. Animals consider their play partners’ abilities and engage in self-handicapping and role reversing to create and maintain equal footing. Trust in one another’s honest communication is vital for a smoothly functioning social group. Even when an individual follows a play bow with seemingly aggressive actions such as baring teeth, growling or biting, his companions demonstrate submission or avoidance only around 15 percent of the time, which suggests they trust the bow’s message that whatever follows is meant in fun. ![]() ![]() ![]() Bows are used almost exclusively during play and are highly stereotyped-that is, they always look the same-so the message “Come play with me” or “I still want to play” is clear. Canids use a bow to solicit play, crouching on their forelimbs while standing on their hind legs (above). Animals announce that they want to play and not fight or mate. Years of painstaking video analyses by one of us (Bekoff) and his students show, however, that individuals carefully negotiate play, following four general rules to prevent play from escalating into fighting.Ĭommunicate clearly. When canids and other animals play, they use actions such as vigorous biting, mounting and body slamming that could be easily misinterpreted by the participants. Because this social organization closely resembles that of early humans (as anthropologists and other experts believe it existed), studying canid play may offer a glimpse of the moral code that allowed our ancestral societies to grow and flourish. Play also builds trusting relationships among pack members, which enables divisions of labor, dominance hierarchies and cooperation in hunting, raising young, and defending food and territory. Canids (animals in the dog family) follow a strict code of conduct when they play, which teaches pups the rules of social engagement that allow their societies to succeed. These behaviors, including altruism, tolerance, forgiveness, reciprocity and fairness, are readily evident in the egalitarian way wolves and coyotes play with one another. Morality, as we define it in our book Wild Justice, is a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate social interactions. But our work has suggested that wild canine societies may be even better analogues for early hominid groups-and when we study dogs, wolves and coyotes, we discover behaviors that hint at the roots of human morality. Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates regularly make the news when researchers, logically looking to our closest relatives for traits similar to our own, uncover evidence of their instinct for fairness. But few people have stopped to ask why dogs have such a keen sense of right and wrong. EVERY DOG OWNER knows a pooch can learn the house rules-and when she breaks one, her subsequent groveling is usually ingratiating enough to ensure quick forgiveness. ![]()
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