[StarSlayer]

So I was jogging this evening and a question popped in my head.  Perhaps someone on our illustrious board is Jeff Corwin and has some ideas

Wolf Packs like other pack animals have a hierarchy, the biggest, strongest, most fertile wolfs assume the mantle of Alpha leadership and get to mate.  The rest fill out social brackets of ever decreasing status from Bravo all the way down to Omega.  This command structure is heavily enforced dictating the order of feeding and occasional dominance to keep every member in its place.  So what would happen if you introduced a neutered wolf to a pack?  Now its quite possible it would simply assume the lowest position on the pack.  That said one of the linchpins of the pack hierarchy is the competition to mate.  A neutered wolf would not fit into the competition.  Therefore would it be possible that said wolf would be placed into some previously unknown position in the command structure, something outside the traditional Alpha, Bravo, Omega system?  I've seen a few documentaries involving Hyenas and Wolves were a human naturalist is able to become acclimated to the pack, and is accepted in a role outside of the hierarchy even in situations were said hierarchy is strictly enforced such as feeding.  I wonder if a neutered wolf would fit into the pack in a similar way.

Now maybe this question doesn't sound as interesting as it did to me at mile nine but humor me if you will.

[Liberator]

This is intriguing.  But not something that can really be debated...

[Blue Lion]

I was unaware this was a debate forum 

[Dilmah G]

I was unaware this was a debate forum 

Did you forget sarcasm tags or....

[Blue Lion]

No, can't we just talk about it?

[Dilmah G]

No, can't we just talk about it?

Well....since everything here turns into a debate about some issue we might as well heed your advice while it lasts. It sounds pretty interesting, but wouldn't they kill the neutered wolf because he didn't fit in? Or as wolves don't kill each other as it seems, maybe he would have to fend for himself, would be a very interesting experiment IMO.

[Liberator]

As I said, interesting, but to what end?

[Dilmah G]

It's something I want to see actually

[Blue Lion]

To learn how packs interact?

To better understand the world is to better understand ourselves.

[Snail]

Would they even notice the dude was neutered...?

[Janos]

Would they even notice the dude was neutered...?

Dogs do

It can result in some pretty weird situations sometimes because a neutered ***** is not a ***** nor a male it's... something

[Snail]

How do they notice? Hormonal secretions?

[Janos]

How do they notice? Hormonal secretions?

They smell it but I just can't be bothered to search for just what they smell

go nuts in scholar.google.com
They'll tell you.

[karajorma]

Well, what happens in dogs when you neuter them?

Although it's not a perfect model it's going to be fairly close. Same species after all when you get down to it.

[Flipside]

They would show no tendency towards mating with the female wolves anyway, so they'd pass beneath the Alpha males' radar, other than that, it would have no real impact that I'm aware of, neutered dogs are still capable of hunting and catching food, which is all the pack cares about for 'standard' members, it would most likely be accepted without problem.

[Black Wolf]

It depends on how much their instincts and behaviour change as a result of being neutered, and how much this affected the other dogs. I suspect they'd simply be continually bumped to the bottom of the hierarchy, because neutering kills a lot of aggression, but without some sort of experimental evidence, that's pretty much the best I can offer.

[MP-Ryan]

Although it's not a perfect model it's going to be fairly close. Same species after all when you get down to it.

Wolves and dogs are members of the same genus, but not the same species.  Domesticated dogs share DNA that can be traced to both wolves and foxes.  Dogs and grey wolves are commonly recognized as the same species (C. lupis) but different subspecies (lupis familiaris versus lupis lupis), largely due to the conventions on which species is defined.  But genetically and behaviorally, the two are very different as a result of domestication (which changes gene expression and consequently behavioral patterns).

Dogs aren't a good model for wildlife behaviour, unfortunately.

[Liberator]

Off topic, but an interesting thing I think of from time to time.

Dogs are one of the most successful examples of genetic engineering in human history.

[Black Wolf]

Yes an no. They're successful, yeah, but we've not really altered their genetic expression hugely significantly. Enough to affect their behaviour and make Chihuauas, yeah, but nothing fundamental has changed. Stuff like wheat has changed more thanks to hybridization and the like, and, if you include inadvertant engineering, things like bacterial resistance or rabbits resistance to myxie and now Calicivirus are probably bigger changes.

[Janos]

Although it's not a perfect model it's going to be fairly close. Same species after all when you get down to it.

Wolves and dogs are members of the same genus, but not the same species.  Domesticated dogs share DNA that can be traced to both wolves and foxes.  Dogs and grey wolves are commonly recognized as the same species (C. lupis) but different subspecies (lupis familiaris versus lupis lupis), largely due to the conventions on which species is defined.  But genetically and behaviorally, the two are very different as a result of domestication (which changes gene expression and consequently behavioral patterns).

Dogs aren't a good model for wildlife behaviour, unfortunately.

A. It's Canis lupus
B. The two frequently hybridize
C. The hybrids are fertile and no other morphological isolation has been noted, neither pre- nor postzygotic
D. There are mixed packs of wolves and wolfdogs roaming around

And the conventions on which species are defined - which definition are we following here because it sure as hell isn't BSC

edit: Actually the current scientific consensus seems to be that dog is a wolf. Quick search of JSTOR, Blackwell and SD yields similar results: dog is a wolf. For the reactions to neuterization a dog can yield important data - of course not the same thing as a wild pack of wolves, but sadly sometimes economical concerns do play a role in science :/