Growing Kinder

12/13/2025

12/03/2025

...consider what we are communicating.

12/03/2025

Captive creatures doing the best they can...

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Wild Wolves vs. Captive Wolves: Why Their Social Order Isn’t the Same.

If you’ve ever watched videos of wolves in captivity and thought, “Wow, they’re aggressive with each other,” you’re not wrong, you’re just not seeing wolves in the environment they evolved for.

Wild wolves and captive wolves live under completely different social rules and their hierarchies reflect those differences.

In the wild, a wolf pack is simple: it’s a family. A breeding pair (mom and dad), their pups from multiple years, and occasionally one very submissive outsider.
That’s it.
No ladder-climbing. No dominance tournaments. No unrelated animals forced into the same space.

Because of this, wild packs function on cooperation, predictability, and lifelong familiarity.
Disagreements happen of course, but they’re brief. No grudges, no drawn-out fights. Serious injuries are too risky when the whole family has to survive winter together.

Captivity… rewrites the script.

Captive “packs” are often formed from wolves who aren’t related, didn’t grow up together, didn’t choose each other, and can’t leave when tension builds.

Even in a large enclosure, it’s still a closed system. No dispersal. No roaming. No option to walk away.

This creates a social structure that is nothing like a natural pack. Hierarchy becomes sharper. Tension lasts longer. Fights can escalate because there’s limited space for wolves to diffuse, avoid, or self-separate.

People watch this and say,
“Wolves are brutal, they’re always fighting for dominance.”

But they’re not watching “dominance”. They’re watching confinement.

In the wild, dominance displays are quiet conversations: a tail position, a sideways look, a quick snarl.
These are messages meant to prevent injury, not cause it.

In captivity, those subtle tools aren’t always enough. Wolves can’t rely on movement, distance, or natural dispersal to resolve conflict, so their behavior gets louder and more intense. Like humans stuck in an elevator.

To understand wolves, look at the system they evolved in: a stable family unit with fluid roles, clear boundaries and constant cooperation.

Captive wolves show us what wolves can become under pressure.
Wild wolves show us what wolves truly are.
Photo: Rah & Tacate

12/01/2025

How we understand them matters. What misconceptions have you had about your dog? What changed when you understood them better?

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11/27/2025

What's got your purring today?

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What are you purring about today?

11/18/2025

11/18/2025

“I cannot do all the
good the world needs.
But the world needs all
the good that I can do.”
~Jana Stanfield



Artist: Natalia Shaloshvili, Ukraine/UK
Source: Naive Art Extraordinaire
(Naive Art simply means "self taught.")

11/17/2025

Poetry Comics Month, Day 15

11/08/2025

One of the most common ways to use classical conditioning in dog training is paired with desensitization. In desensitization, we make sure that the thing the dog considers scary is only ever shown to them at a level where the dog is not scared at all, in fact they are quite happy. The counter-conditioning part involves giving wonderful treats whenever the scary thing (or components of it) are there.

Learn more on my blog: https://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/2024/11/three-important-uses-for-classical.html

Or you can get all the details in my book Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog https://amzn.to/3Xkk5nC