Requested by @bmmi20​According to the pokédex, Mightyena in the wild are often found in packs

Requested by @bmmi20​

According to the pokédex, Mightyena in the wild are often found in packs, traveling and hunting in groups around the Hoenn region. To learn more about this pokémon behavior, let’s turn to the analog in our world, a pack of wolves!

In the wild, wolf packs are almost always families, consisting of one pair of parents and their children. Wolves typically have 4-6 pups a year, and the children stay with the pack for up to 3 years until they leave to make packs of their own. Thus, the typical wolf pack has between 6 - 20 wolves at any given time.

The idea that wolf packs have a dominant “alpha male”, which all the other wolves fear and respect, is outdated and has been debunked. Historically, wolf behavior was studied using captive groups of wolves, like those found in zoos for example. These animals were not family groups like real packs, but rather unrelated rescues, or wild-caught creatures that are housed together. The fact that they are not related, and the fact that captive animals tend to be more aggressive in general (especially if they are not receiving adequate care), meant that the scientists studying the wolves observed a lot of hostile behavior, and the “alpha” hierarchy emerged where the strongest, most aggressive wolf was dominant. 

In the wild, wolves simply don’t do that. Wolves within a pack rarely fight with each other at all. The point of a pack is to have safety and strength in numbers, and to care for and defend the younger, weaker pups as they grow up. If wolves were constantly fighting for dominance, that would defeat the entire purpose of a pack. As mentioned before, wolf packs in the wild are family groups. The closest thing to an “alpha male” is the parent wolves, who do lead the pack, care for their pups, decide when and where to hunt and eat, and occasionally discipline their pups. This picture of a strong family unit is far from the aggressive hierarchal structure people used to associate with wolves.

Mightyena live and travel in packs, usually made of two parents and up to 3 years of Poochyena pups. Mightyena do not respect and obey trainers that they perceive as stronger than them, but rather form the strongest bonds with trainers that care for and protect the Mightyena, like the parents in the pack do for their cubs.