Dog owners are accustomed to coming home to their adorable, tail-wagging companions.
But does this behavior stem from the domestication process, or do wolves, the wild ancestors and relatives of modern dogs, also exhibit this trait?
The short answer is yes; wolves also have the behavior of wagging their tails. Sarah Marshall-Pescini, a senior researcher at the Domestication Laboratory of the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at the University of Veterinary Medicine (Vienna, Austria), states that most of the time, you will see them wagging their tails as a form of greeting.
This behavior is effectively displayed by subordinate individuals towards dominant ones, especially during reunions.
Tail wagging and other greeting behaviors appear when they reunite with the pack.
Wolves are not always in their pack and can separate into smaller hunting units or even roam alone. Tail wagging and other greeting behaviors emerge when they reunite with the pack, making it similar to what dogs do with humans and other dogs.
A wolf pack typically consists of a breeding pair, a male and female, leading their offspring and other non-breeding adults. Wagging their tails when greeting is one of the many ways wolves communicate their status within the pack.
A wolf holds its tail low and wags it quickly to show submission. These behaviors indicating dominance and submission are easy ways to signal which wolf has priority access to resources, such as food.
The alpha male and female are the highest-ranking members of the pack, and the rest of the hierarchy is determined by age, with older wolves having higher ranks.
Marshall-Pescini explains that their family hierarchy is similar to human family hierarchies in some respects. “I think if you ask any younger siblings, they will often acknowledge that their older brother or sister definitely has more say in the family. And it is the parents who have to negotiate sharing resources,” emphasizes researcher Marshall-Pescini.
Wolves’ tail wagging is often associated with lip-licking behavior, where a subordinate wolf attempts to lick the lips of a higher-ranking wolf. These behaviors begin when wolves are still young.
In wolf society, the adults and older siblings leave the smallest pups behind to hunt. Later, the pups greet the older wolves when they return.
According to the International Wolf Center in Minnesota, from three weeks of age, wolf pups are no longer heavily dependent on their mother’s milk and begin to eat meat that is “pre-chewed” by adult pack members. Lip licking inadvertently triggers regurgitation in adult wolves, so this greeting behavior helps pups get a meal from the mouths of adult wolves.
Additionally, wolves will switch from eating regurgitated meat to regular meat when they are about six weeks old, but they continue to exhibit greeting behaviors like lip licking and tail wagging to show rank.
Unlike wolves, domestic dogs wag their tails to greet humans and often try to lick our faces unless we train them to stop this behavior.
Marshall-Pescini states: “Dogs have learned that face licking may not be appreciated and can eliminate it. But they certainly still have all kinds of greeting behaviors, including tail wagging.”
