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Originally Posted by Amhailte  Do you mean that you don't believe that instincts can be modified by training, or that you don't believe that instincts can be modified by breeding?
So I think it's undeniable that instincts can evolve and change through breeding. A different question is - are the 15,000 years that have passed since the domestication of the dog been long enough for his instincts to change at all? |
Good question. Im not really qualified to even make a guess here. My logic says that 15,000 years is less than a blink in the evolutionary pattern. But recent studies have show evolution to take place in leaps and bounds (Newscientist) rather than steady progression. So who knows.
I dont believe instincts can be overridden by either training or breeding, modified maybe over a long period of time, but never domesticated. Im more saying that, you cant make a wooden fence from clay. You've started with wolves, you're not going to end up with canaries. There is only so much you can deviate from the ancestral instincts, no more.
I dont feel we have domesticated the pack instinct out of dogs. Pack instinct is a pattern nature has come up with over hundreds of millions of years to solve a specific solution - collective survival of a group of socially interactive individuals. We may be able to breed this out, but the thing is that dogs are still IN a socially interactive environment, so realistically none of us in this life time nor in the next 15,000 years are going to see this instinct become redundant.
We do rescue work in the homeless areas, where dogs roam around as packs. From what I've see with my own eyes in the time I've spend with them, the dynamics are identical to my knowledge of a wolf pack. (Which turns out may be in need of an update). :)