11/06/2026
“Dogs are not pack animals”
It’s a phrase that gets chucked about these days, but it’s not entirely accurate.
What modern science has challenged is the old idea that dogs live in rigid wolf-style hierarchies ruled by an “alpha” dog who constantly dominates the rest of the group. That theory was based on early studies of captive wolves and has since been largely abandoned.
What hasn’t been abandoned is the fact that dogs are highly social animals.
Anyone who has lived with multiple dogs like my self will have noticed that they develop clear social relationships. Some dogs lead, some follow, some defer around resources, some take charge during play and most establish predictable patterns that help avoid conflict. These relationships are often stable and recognisable to the people living with them.
The geeky part 🤓 - A 2014 study by Pongrácz ( an Ethologist from Hungary) found that owners could reliably identify dominance relationships between dogs living in the same household and these assessments matched clear behavioural patterns. In other words, the social structures owners see are not simply human imagination or illusion.
The important distinction is that domestic dogs are not wolves. Wolves typically live in close family groups that rely on cooperation to hunt and survive. Dogs, particularly free-ranging dogs statistically tend to form more flexible social groups because they are less dependent on one another for food.
So when people observe “pack behaviour” in a multi-dog household, they are usually seeing something very real: a social group with established relationships, rules and expectations.
The evidence implies and our dogs show that they do form social hierarchies and group structures. What science disputes is the simplistic idea of a strict, “alpha pack” where one dog dominates every aspect of life.
Dogs are social animals. They form relationships. They establish order. They learn how to live together.
That’s not a myth. It’s exactly what we’d expect from the canis familiaris (domestic 🐶).
Reference:
Pongrácz, P. et al. (2014). Do owner reports reflect the dominance status of dogs living in the same household? PLOS ONE, 9(11):e111216.
