When it comes to dogs fighting, there is apparently no love lost between canines.
A team of researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna wanted to see if dogs, like wolves, would kiss and make up after a disagreement.
To test this theory, they compared four packs of captive wolves with four packs of captive dogs (who were rescued from a Hungarian shelter).
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The researches observed that wolves did have more physical altercations on an hourly basis. Yet, 50 percent of the time, the wolves would make up in about 10 minutes. Much of this reconciliation can be attributed to the wolf-pack mentality.
“Highly cooperative social species are expected to engage in frequent reconciliation following conflicts in order to maintain pack cohesiveness and preserve future cooperation,” the team wrote in the Royal Society Open Science journal.
Dogs on the other hand, had less altercations, but when they did, they were more physical and aggressive. Also, They less than 20 percent of the time the dogs would quickly reconcile. The team noted, “social species with low reliance on cooperation, reconciliation is expected to be less frequent.”
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The researchers believe dog reconciliation “may be influenced by social and environmental conditions more than in wolves” and plan to continue studying how canines deal with conflict.
The findings were published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.
