The Call of the Wild and White Fang

"Well, both are timeless classics that are easy to read over and over. I read both when I was a kid, one after the other. Those were my first books about wild animals and nature, and I probably started loving the beauty of the wolf at this time. London’s prose is passionate and evocative; it transports the reader to the brutal, beautiful wilds of Yukon and the lives and minds of the wolves, dogs, and men. We should give London some literary licence. For their time, these books don’t seem to be too bad. Back then— White Fang was published in 1906—the knowledge of wolf behaviour was limited. People still had a widespread fear of wolves during London’s time. The savage wolf pack stalking the two woodsmen in White Fang was just a hook to terrify and lure in readers. It’s high adventure, and should be taken as such. Wolves exhibit a flexible social system, from living in families (a monogamous breeding pair and their offspring) to more complex social groups with unrelated members. In family packs, there is an age-graded dominance order in which offspring submit to parents and puppies submit to older siblings. Members of the dominant breeding pair usually lead pack movements, and often only the dominant pair breeds. “Domestic dogs rarely form packs with hierarchical structures” In contrast, domestic dogs rarely form packs with hierarchical structures. Free-ranging wild dogs are usually semi-solitary animals or live in social groups of mainly unrelated members that do not have a hierarchical social structure affecting group activities. A dog that goes feral or wild, like Buck, will rarely or never join an existing wolf pack. Such a dog may eventually mate with a wolf that has left its original pack and is looking for a mate. But most wolf packs will consider a dog an intruder, and will kill him."