second half of the book presents the information that the authors were able to gather with the assistance of two public health teams supported by the Greek Ministry of Health in relation to medical examinations, hygienic knowledge and practice, and interpretation of illness. This book is written in a simple, straightforward style which is equally readable by ethnologists, physicians, public health workers, and laymen. Major defects of the report are that the three villages studied were in no sense representatives of average Greek villages, since they were mostly populated either by Greek refugees from other countries or by nomadic populations who had been settled in villages. Also, the authors' conclusions about \"infanticide as a means of birth control\" and the belief that \"unbaptized babies are creatures somewhat apart from the human family\" are entirely incorrect. Infanticide and abortion are illegal in Greece as in all other European countries. Also, the authors have some misconceptions about Greek social structure. Among these are their view that physicians are relatively low in the social scale, that folk healing is as widespread as they indicate, and that the traditional spiritual role of the priest in a Greek village conflicts with that of the physician. Despite these criticisms the book is valuable, interesting, and important as a statement of certain public health problems seen in some areas of Greece.

Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog

Whereas studies in comparative cognition normally invoke ecology and social organization to account for differences in social behaviour and cognition across species, dog–wolf differences have so far been explained mostly as a result of direct human selection for desirable traits ( e.g. , tameness, attention to humans, sociability). Yet, as will be reviewed in this paper, dogs and wolves also differ considerably in both their feeding niche and social organization (which together we refer to as ‘social ecology’). We suggest that observed wolf–dog differences especially in their interaction with the environment ( e.g. , neophobia, persistence, risk taking) and conspecifics ( e.g. , tolerance, cooperation, communication) need to be considered also in regard to their social ecology. We propose that social ecology alongside human selection should be recognized as a potentially important factor affecting dogs’ behaviour, and suggest a number of potential avenues for future research, which can more directly test the relative importance of these selection forces.

Integrating social ecology in explanations of wolf–dog behavioral differences

/pdf/remaking-more-than-human-society-thought-experiments-on-236mltbwmz.pdf

Remaking more-than-human society: Thought experiments on street dogs as “nature”

Effects of surgical and chemical sterilization on the behavior of free-roaming male dogs in Puerto Natales, Chile.

Lay SummaryContrary to the view that social dominance is a wolf feature that was lost by dogs during domestication, we found that Italian free-ranging dogs live in packs with a stable membership and with a clear hierarchical social structure. Moreover, as in wolves and other cooperative animals in which group members rely on the guidance of experienced companions, high social status in dogs was mainly held by elders, and agonistic interactions were highly ritualized.

/pdf/age-graded-dominance-hierarchies-and-social-tolerance-in-4137a52inl.pdf

Age-graded dominance hierarchies and social tolerance in packs of free-ranging dogs

Canids display a wide diversity of social systems, from solitary to pairs to packs, and hence they have been extensively used as model systems to understand social dynamics in natural systems. Among canids, the dog can show various levels of social organization due to the influence of humans on their lives. Though the dog is known as man's best friend and has been studied extensively as a pet, studies on the natural history, ecology and behaviour of dogs in a natural habitat are rare. Here we report results of an extensive population-level study conducted through one-time censuses in urban India to understand the ecoethology of free-ranging dogs. We built a model to test if the observed groups could have been formed through random associations while foraging. Our modeling results suggest that the dogs, like all efficient scavengers, tend to forage singly but also form random uncorrelated groups. A closer inspection of the group compositions however reveals that the foraging associations are non-random events. The tendency of adults to associate with the opposite sex in the mating season and of juveniles to stay close to adults in the non-mating season drives the population towards aggregation, in spite of the apparently random nature of the group size distribution. Hence we conclude that to be or not to be social is a matter of choice for the free-ranging dogs, and not a matter of chance.

To be or not to be social: Foraging associations of free-ranging dogs in an urban ecosystem

Canids display a wide diversity of social systems, from solitary to pairs to packs, and hence, they have been extensively used as model systems to understand social dynamics in natural habitats. Among canids, the dog can show various levels of social organization due to the influence of humans on their lives. Though the dog is known as man’s best friend and has been studied extensively as a pet, studies on the natural history, ecology and behavior of dogs in a natural habitat are rare. Here, we report results of an extensive population-level study conducted through one-time censuses in urban India to understand the foraging associations of free-ranging dogs. We built a model to test if the observed groups could have been formed through random associations while foraging. Our modeling results suggest that the dogs, like all efficient scavengers, tend to forage singly but also form random uncorrelated groups. A closer inspection of the group compositions, however, reveals that the foraging associations are non-random events. The tendency of adults to associate with the opposite sex in the mating season and of juveniles to stay close to adults in the non-mating season drives the population towards specific aggregation. Hence we conclude that to be or not to be social is a matter of choice for the free-ranging dogs, and not a matter of chance.

To be or not to be social: foraging associations of free-ranging dogs in an urban ecosystem

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To be or not to be social: Foraging associations of free-ranging dogs in an urban ecosystem

To be or not to be social: foraging associations of free-ranging dogs in an urban ecosystem