Thisis quite surprising. The tamed dog postpones socialization andexploring its environment until all three senses have kicked in. Nowdoes this also happen with other tamed animals? Can this effect beinduced?
Itcertainly explains the ease in which pups adapt to human life ways. So equipped, it could adapt to any alien life way.
Theinteresting question is just how the process of domestication affectsother animal in this part of behavior development.
Certainlywild animals can become comfortable around humans but are still wildfor all that. Wildness may well be a strong fear reflex unconnectedwith the present. Thus actually safety with wild animals may meandiscovering a way to control that particular reflex. Now we knowsomething.
Atleast it is a starting point and a promising one. Without thatreflex, the lion will and can lie down with the lamb.
UMass Amherst StudyMay Explain Why Wolves are Forever Wild, But Dogs Can Be Tamed
by Staff Writers
Amherst MA (SPX)Jan 21, 2013
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/UMass_Amherst_Study_May_Explain_Why_Wolves_are_Forever_Wild_But_Dogs_Can_Be_Tamed_999.html
Dogs and wolves aregenetically so similar, it's been difficult for biologists tounderstand why wolves remain fiercely wild, while dogs can gladlybecome "man's best friend." Now, doctoral research byevolutionary biologist Kathryn Lord at the University ofMassachusetts Amherst suggests the different behaviors are related tothe animals' earliest sensory experiences and the critical period ofsocialization. Details appear in the current issue of Ethology.
Until now, little wasknown about sensory development in wolf pups, and assumptions wereusually extrapolated from what is known for dogs, Lord explains. Thiswould be reasonable, except scientists already know there aresignificant differences in early development between wolf and dogpups, chief among them timing of the ability to walk, she adds.
To address thisknowledge gap, she studied responses of seven wolf pups and 43 dogsto both familiar and new smells, sounds and visual stimuli, testedthem weekly, and found they did develop their senses at the sametime.
But her study alsorevealed new information about how the two subspecies of Canis lupusexperience their environment during a four-week developmental windowcalled the critical period of socialization, and the new facts maysignificantly change understanding of wolf and dog development.
When thesocialization window is open, wolf and dog pups begin walking andexploring without fear and will retain familiarity throughout theirlives with those things they contact. Domestic dogs can beintroduced to humans, horses and even cats at this stage and becomfortable with them forever. But as the period progresses, fearincreases and after the window closes, new sights, sounds andsmells will elicit a fear response.
Through observations,Lord confirmed that both wolf pups and dogs develop the sense ofsmell at age two weeks, hearing at four weeks and vision by age sixweeks on average.
However, these twosubspecies enter the critical period of socialization at differentages. Dogs begin the period at four weeks, while wolves begin attwo weeks. Therefore, how each subspecies experiences the worldduring that all-important month is extremely different, and likelyleads to different developmental paths, she says.
Lord reports for thefirst time that wolf pups are still blind and deaf when they begin towalk and explore their environment at age two weeks. "No oneknew this about wolves, that when they begin exploring they'reblind and deaf and rely primarily on smell at this stage, so thisis very exciting," she notes. She adds, "Whenwolf pups first start to hear, they are frightened of the new soundsinitially, and when they first start to see they are also initiallyafraid of new visual stimuli. As each sense engages, wolf pupsexperience a new round of sensory shocks that dog puppies do not."
Meanwhile, dog pupsonly begin to explore and walk after all three senses, smell, hearingand sight, are functioning. Overall, "It's quite startlinghow different dogs and wolves are from each other at that early age,given how close they are genetically.[ this is really unexpected and needs to be checked with other speciesalso - arclein]
A litter of dogpuppies at two weeks are just basically little puddles, unable to getup or walk around. But wolf pups are exploring actively, walkingstrongly with good coordination and starting to be able to climb uplittle steps and hills."
These significant,development-related differences in dog and wolf pups' experiences putthem on distinctly different trajectories in relation to the abilityto form interspecies social attachments, notably with humans, Lordsays. This new information has implications for managing wild andcaptive wolf populations, she says.
Her experimentsanalyzed the behavior of three groups of young animals: 11 wolvesfrom three litters and 43 dogs total. Of the dogs, 33 border colliesand German shepherds were raised by their mothers and a control groupof 10 German shepherd pups were hand-raised, meaning a human wasintroduced soon after birth.
At the gene level, sheadds, "the difference may not be in the gene itself, but inwhen the gene is turned on. The data help to explain why, if you wantto socialize a dog with a human or a horse, all you need is 90minutes to introduce them between the ages of four and eight weeks.
After that, a dog willnot be afraid of humans or whatever else you introduced. Of course,to build a real relationship takes more time. But with a wolf pup,achieving even close to the same fear reduction requires 24-hourcontact starting before age three weeks, and even then you won't getthe same attachment or lack of fear."
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