Customer Reviews

Behaviour of Wolves, Dogs and Related Canids

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This isn't a primer. It's a proper scientific text on canid behaviour. If you're at all serious about the subject, I recommend it: it's lucid, detailed and rather fun. I give details of its contents below.

If your interest is less formal, don't be put off by the term 'scientific'. Michael Fox writes well and sometimes rather beautifully. He leavens the solid facts with anecdotes of his experiences with canids - the story of a captive's wolf attack on him is particularly gripping. (He doesn't blame the wolf.) Yes, there is a certain amount of highly technical information, but the author has put most of it into one chapter. In the rest of the book, he manages the difficult trick of making it accessible and useful to both experts and laymen.

My copy is the 1984 edition. It's got a nice feel to it and I like the typeface. The photograph reproduction leaves something to be desired: a few of the pictures are too dark to serve their purpose.

Table of contents:
1. Evolution and classification of Canids
2. Comparative aspects of behaviour in Canids
3. The behaviour and functions of submission
4. A pack of wolves
5. Social organisation, sexual and filial bonds
6. Ecology: social economics and predation
7. Development of social relationships: wolf socialization
8. Wolves as parents
9. Interspecies relationships in Canids
10. The comparative ethology of the domesticated dog

References, a supplementary bibliography and a comprehensive index are supplied.