Abstract
A decade of research on domestic dogs' responsiveness to human actions has led some to believe that all members of the species Canis familiaris possess a human-like social cognition not shared by their nondomesticated relatives. However, comparative studies on diverse populations of domestic dog are lacking, making species-wide generalizations premature. In this study we present the performance of one under-represented population, stray dogs living in shelters, on a human-guided object-choice task. Unlike pet dogs, shelter dogs universally failed to follow a momentary distal point to a target location in initial tests, although they were able to follow a simpler form of human point on the same task. Furthermore, the majority of subjects learned to follow a momentary distal point to a target when given additional training trials (experiment 2). Dogs' sensitivity to human gestures may not be entirely explained by phylogenetic variables; rather, the interactions between genetic, developmental and experiential variables must be considered.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 717-725 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Animal Behaviour |
Volume | 79 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2010 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Canis familiaris
- Two Stage hypothesis
- domestic dog
- human pointing gesture
- learning
- object-choice task
- shelter dog
- social cognition
- stray dog
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Animal Science and Zoology