Sociology

One of the most fascinating and misunderstood areas of ethology has been canine social behaviour and body language. We have already talked about how the evolutionary pressures have created a cooperative being and described the monogamous nature of the wolf and fox relationships. We’ve explored how genetics, mating behaviour and hormones impact social behaviour. We have described sibling recognition and physiologically how the dog uses olfaction to receive signals and glands to send messages to other dogs. This section brings together evidence from the other sections and pieces it together whilst critically analysing to gain and understanding of what the data really tells us about our dogs relationships and how they communicate.

With overviews of attachment and dominance theory as well as a discussion about what the social lives of feral dogs can and can’t tell us about domestic dogs, after this course you will never be able to watch two dogs communicate in the same way again. With a complete breakdown of body language with more than a few bombshells - is it time to reassess how we assess and how we work with the social lives of our domestic dogs?

With a fascinating guest interview and a real life case study of a large group of dogs living together, this course will change the way you see dogs forever.

• A comparative overview of how various subspecies of canid socialise and what that teaches us about dogs
• An analysis of various social theories including dominance theories, structural hierarchies, domestic dogs as misfit families as well as functional character hypothesis
• The science behind the human-dog bond
• Imprinting vs attachment
• A complete critical guide to the evidence for the meaning of difference body language in dogs
• Social scenting
• Interview and case study