A recent study has looked to see if the tolerance seen in human-dog interactions also characterize interactions between dogs.

The study was conducted by Friederike Range and Zsófia Virányi from the Messerli Research Institute, who checked to see if dogs were more tolerant and less aggressive to their conspecifics than wolves.

For this study, the researchers conducted various behavioral tests on eight mongrel dogs and nine wolves, which were hand-raised at the Wolf Science Center in Ernstbrunn, Lower Austria.

In order to test tolerance towards pack members among dogs and wolves, pairs of one high-ranked and one low-ranked member were fed a large bone or raw meat. On analysis, it was found that low-ranked wolves defended their food against high-ranked pack members and showed aggressive behavior at a rate similar to high-ranked wolves. Among dogs, however, low-ranked members accepted the dominance of higher-ranked members. Nevertheless, neither of the animals showed significant aggressive behavior, and more often showed threat signs.

Range said, “Wolves seem to be more tolerant towards conspecifics than dogs that seem to be more sensitive to the dominance hierarchy. This was shown by the fact that also low-ranked wolves can challenge their higher-ranked partners and the dominant animals tolerate it, while in dogs aggression was a privilege of the higher-ranked partners.”

Virányi said, “When humans domesticated wolves, they probably chose the submissive animals that were ready to adjust.”

Range concluded, “Wolves are already very tolerant to their conspecifics. This was shown by the fact that high-ranked wolves accepted the threat behaviours by their lower-ranked conspecifics in the feeding experiment. This tolerance enables wolf-wolf cooperation which in turn could have provided a good basis for the evolution of human-dog cooperation.”