And that's a human interpretation of typical alpha and beta behavior between two associated dogs...purely instinctual roles they have assumed. Certainly, when one acts out of sorts, that's an indicator that something is wrong or there's another external stimuli they're responding to. That's precisely where humans, as the responsible keepers and stewards of animals, assume the onus of knowing and understanding these drives so they can interpret them correctly in the context of their being dogs, rather than read human motivations onto them.
A typical example is when novice pet owners visit a breeder and one of the puppies departs the litter and walks to them. They'll choose that dog because, "He chose me!" In fact, they've probably merely chosen the most assertive, alpha-oriented puppy in the litter and nothing more.
Yes but those dogs choose to either do alpha or beta behavior. It’s not immutable and fixed. Alpha dogs can become beta dogs, beta dogs can become alpha dogs.
There are so many things animals do that are totally their choice that nothing is influencing them to do, it’s not just behavior they can’t help but do. If you’ve ever caught a glimpse of an animal on its own being happy and expressing it their own way, there’s no force causing them to have to behave that way. Same with affection returned to you. Sometimes it’s flopping down next to you. Sometimes it’s a little happy noise. Sometimes it’s grooming. They’re not forced to do that by anyone. ANd not all do things the same way, they have different habits and likes and dislikes. And you begin to see the uniqueness and individuality of them as you know them better.
And as far as the puppy example, I think you’ve just tanked your argument. For one thing I think you go way too far saying it’s just alpha behavior AND NOTHING MORE. You have no way of proving that, and I believe from my own experiences with animals the last 40 years that is totatlly wrong. That’s biochemical absolutism, no choice but to act that way thinking. Not true.
Let’s say the puppy can’t choose anyone. Certainly he can’t verbalize “I want to be your dog.” But the dog has made choices. He went up to you when he didn’t have to. The cases in shelters exist all the time where an animal doesn’t respond to anyone except a certain person. People who deal with lots of different animals of the same kind, are able to determine right away what’s unique and individual about animals that come in, how they react to different people. Of course some of that is from past experience but past experience doesn’t explain ALL of their uniqueness and individual likes and dislikes, habits, and behaviors. Same with us too, environment has an impact but that’s not the ONLY thing that can affect us.
I believe as far as domestic pets go, we generally choose them before they choose us. We love them before they are secure and trusting us enough to be affectionate back to us. That doesn’t mean they don’t have unique ‘animalities’. They all have their own spirit. The life (nephesh) of the body is in the blood. They too were all designed initially not to die. Each one has their own spirit, their own unique spirit. Contained in that unique spirit is their unique individuality. The fact we choose them first doesn’t mean that isn’t true that they don’t have their own unique individuality that allowed them to walk over to us, and make an impression on us. Did he actually choose us? I don’t think you can say 100 percent no. He might have. He might have just come by because of a scent, or what we were wearing, or we reminded him of someone who was nice. But he still made the choice to walk over when he didn’t have to. And all the other ones could have walked over if they wanted to, but didn’t.
Think about how it is with God and us. God chooses us before we choose Him. God loves us before we love Him. We know all of our human natures are sinful and as such, are opposed to Him and anything about Him, from our very beginnings. Our natural instincts are to run away from God, to reject God. Man cannot choose God without God helping Him. Regardless of our unique personalities, the one thing in common we all have is that by nature we’d all reject God and the things of God. You want to talk about behavior that’s hardwired into us, it’s our human sin nature.