If you've ever yelled at a dog, you've seen it: A pooch bowed low with big eyes, perhaps surrounded by torn-up couch cushions, ruined food or urine stains.
It's the stuff "dog shaming" memes are made of.
Such canine cowering, though, actually evolved as a complex survival tactic among their wolf relatives. Animal behaviorists call it an "apology bow."
Nathan H. Lents, a molecular biologist with the City University of New York, wrote in Psychology Today that young wolves show apology bows as they begin social integration. Wolves engage in the same rough-and-tumble play as dogs do, he said, which becomes a laboratory for learning the pack's social rules.
If a playful wolf bites too hard, the animal will be spurned by the pack for bad behavior, Lent explained. In order to return to the social unit, he said, the wolf must approach with an apology bow. The same goes for dogs.
"Dogs have inherited this behavior and they will use it after any kind of infraction that results in being punished," Lents wrote. "As social animals, they crave harmonious integration in the group and neglect or isolation is painful for them."
Such canine cowering, though, actually evolved as a complex survival tactic among their wolf relatives. Animal behaviorists call it an "apology bow."
Nathan H. Lents, a molecular biologist with the City University of New York, wrote in Psychology Today that young wolves show apology bows as they begin social integration. Wolves engage in the same rough-and-tumble play as dogs do, he said, which becomes a laboratory for learning the pack's social rules.
If a playful wolf bites too hard, the animal will be spurned by the pack for bad behavior, Lent explained. In order to return to the social unit, he said, the wolf must approach with an apology bow. The same goes for dogs.
"Dogs have inherited this behavior and they will use it after any kind of infraction that results in being punished," Lents wrote. "As social animals, they crave harmonious integration in the group and neglect or isolation is painful for them."
0 Comment "It's an inherited behavior"
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