African Wild Dogs and Democracy

For African Wild Dogs in the Okovango Delta, living with the pack has its ups and downs. Sure, you get help with the hunting, and there's safety in numbers, but there's also a lot of compromise. When the pack leaves, you leave, even if you were in the middle of a nap. All social-living animals from ants to zebras (and humans!) have to figure out how to make decisions as a group, and the dogs have a particularly interesting strategy. They vote. By sneezing. Of course, humans have much more sophisticated ways of collaborating in group decision-making, but sometimes we're not very succesful at doing what's genuinely best for everyone. Even the most sophisticated systems of modern democracy have a hard time discovering, and enacting, the actual Will of the People. Becky Ripley and Emily Knight wonder if the dogs might do it better.