時差N小時:牧羊犬和狼

If you ever see a sheepdog at work, you might beamazed at how well suited its actions are to the veryhuman concern of keeping a flock of sheep together.What's more amazing, much of a sheepdog'sbehavior doesn't have to be trained, but is alreadypresent as a complex set of sheep herding instincts.

如果你曾經(jīng)見過一只工作中的牧羊犬，你可能會被它們矯健的身手震撼。它們像人類一樣把一群羊趕到一起，進行看管。更令人震驚的是，大部分牧羊犬的這種行為不是訓練出來的，而是出于一種放牧的本能。

A scientist who studies ethology, or animal behavior, might ask how prehistoric shepherds firstcoaxed such useful behavior from their domesticated wolves, the ancestors of today'ssheepdogs.

一位專門研究動物行為學的科學家可能要問，史前的牧羊人是如何訓練他們?nèi)︷B(yǎng)的狼——現(xiàn)在牧羊犬的祖先——首次去做這種管用的行為呢?

As a matter of fact, a sheepdog's herding instinct isn't so different from the natural huntinginstincts that all wolves share. For example, when a pack of wolves hunts a herd of caribou,they begin by circling their prey, crouching low if the caribou become too alarmed.

事實上，牧羊犬放牧的本性與狼捕獵的本性沒有兩樣。比如，當一群狼在捕獵一群馴鹿的時候，開始時他們會圍住獵物，如果馴鹿變得極其警覺，他們便屈膝保持低位。

Occasionally, if a caribou bolts, a wolf will jump up and nip at its neck, steering it back towardthe herd. These hunting instincts help gather the prey together, making it easier to bringthem down when the pack leader jumps in for the kill.

有時如果馴鹿逃跑，一只狼會跳上去咬住它的脖子，把它扭回鹿群中。這些捕獵的本能幫助狼群把獵物集中起來。當狼群領(lǐng)袖跳起來撲殺獵物時，捕獵就變簡單了。

Early shepherds took advantage of these wolf instincts when training their domesticated dogs.The dogs viewed the shepherd as their pack leader, and they controlled the flock of sheep thesame way their wolf cousins would control a herd of caribou in the wild always steering theflock toward the shepherd.

早期的牧羊人在訓練牧羊犬時，就吸取了狼的這些本能。狗把牧羊人當做領(lǐng)袖，用狼在野外控制馴鹿群同樣的方法控制羊群，并把羊群趕向牧羊人。

Indeed, it's difficult to persuade modern sheepdogs to steer their flock in any other direction.The wild instinct of directing prey toward the pack leader is still too strong. Centuries ofselective breeding have refined these instincts to a considerable degree, but thefoundation of a sheepdog's behavior comes from the wild.

其實，讓現(xiàn)代的牧羊犬向任何一個方向去趕羊群都很困難。然而狼群把獵物趕到領(lǐng)袖那里的本能還是很強烈。幾個世紀的物種選擇已經(jīng)很大程度上提升了這些本能，而牧羊犬行為的基礎(chǔ)卻源自荒野捕食。