Even Boy Puppies
Have Manners, Let Girl Puppies Win
Now this is
just too cute! We always say that you can learn much from
dogs and animals and this latest study shows that yet
again that dogs, just puppies even, have much to teach
us. Ok, so maybe it sounds sexist, letting girls win or
come first in this day and age of PC, but I am a bit of a
believer in old fashioned manners and
etiquette.
In this study out of the Department of Psychology at the
University of Michigan, which studied 'play data' from puppies
between 3 and 40 weeks old from four dog breeds: a shepherd
mix, Labrador retriever, Doberman pincher and malamute. They
examined how the puppies played with members of their own sex
as well as with the opposite sex.
What they found was that young male dogs playing with female
pups will often let the females win, even if the males have a
physical advantage.
Male dogs sometimes place themselves in potentially
disadvantageous positions that could make them more
vulnerable to attack, and researchers suspect the
opportunity to play may be more important to them than
winning.
The gentlemanly dog behavior is even accompanied with a
bow.
"We found that self-handicapping tends to occur in
conjunction with play bows," lead author Camille Ward said.
"A play bow is a signal that dogs use when they want to
communicate playful intentions to a potential play
partner."
Females were more likely than males to initiate play
with their own sex, but that may be to stave off more
vicious behavior later.
"Because adult female-female aggression, when it occurs,
can generally be more intense than female-male aggression,
we suggest that females may use play with other females as
one way to practice threat and appeasement signals that may
serve to ritualize aggression and limit overt aggression
later on," said Ward, whose findings are published in this
month's Animal Behavior.
While males were less likely to initiate play with other
males, they seemed eager to play with females, and would go
to all sorts of lengths to keep the play going.
The male puppies, for example, would sometimes lick the
muzzles of their opponents, giving the female a chance to
bite them in a vulnerable position. They would also even
completely drop to the ground from a moving, standing or
sitting position, looking like a boxer down for the
count.
They might lose the game in the short run, but they
could win at love in the future.
"We know that in feral dog populations, female mate
choice plays a role in male mating success," said Ward.
"Perhaps males use self-handicapping with females in order
to learn more about them and to form close relationships
with them -- relationships that might later help males to
secure future mating opportunities." (
Discovery)
Maybe this is something else that dogs can teach us, in our
crazy world where everything is supposed to be even and equal
and all most people want to do is just get ahead of everyone
else. There's nothing wrong with people being equal but there's
also nothing wrong with some old fashioned manners. so learn
from the puppies, give a bit now and you may come in way ahead
in the longrun! :D
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