Cooperative but Dependent-Functional Breed Selection in Dogs Influences Human-Directed Gazing in a Difficult Object-Manipulation Task.

ABSTRACT: It is still largely unknown to what extent domestication, ancestry, or recent functional selection are responsible for the behavioral differences in whether dogs look back to a human when presented with a difficult task. Here, we tested whether this ubiquitous human-related response of companion dogs would appear differently in subjects that were selected for either cooperative or independent work tasks. We tested N = 71 dogs from 18 cooperative and 18 independent breeds. Subjects learned in a five-trial warming-up phase that they could easily obtain the reward from a container. In trial six, the reward became impossible to take out from the locked container. When the task was easy, both breed groups behaved similarly, and their readiness to approach the container did not differ bet

SUBMITTER: Pongracz P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11350734 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature