DOG BEHAVIOUR

Raeynaldo B.S.
XF/23
 DOG BEHAVIOUR

Dog behavior is the internally coordinated responses (actions or inactions) of the

domestic dog (individuals or groups) to internal and/or external stimuli. As the oldest
domesticated animal species, with estimates ranging from 9,000–30,000 years BCE, the
behavior of dogs has inevitably have been shaped by millennia of contact with humans.
As a result of this physical and social evolution, dogs, more than any other species, have
acquired the ability to understand and communicate with humans and they are uniquely
attuned to our behaviors. Behavioral scientists have uncovered a surprising set of social-
cognitive abilities in the domestic dog. These abilities are not expressed by the dog's
closest canine relatives nor by other mammals such as great apes. Rather, these skills
parallel some of the social-cognitive skills of human children.

The origin of the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris or Canis familiaris) is not
clear. Whole genome sequencing indicates that the dog, the gray wolf and the extinct
Taymyr wolf diverged at around the same time 27,000-40,000 years ago. How dogs
became domesticated is not clear, however the two main hypothesis are self-
domestication or human domestication. There exists evidence of human-canine
coevolution.

Dog intelligence is the ability of the dog to perceive information and retain it as
knowledge for applying to solve problems. Dogs have been shown to learn by inference.
A study with Rico showed that he knew the labels of over 200 different items. He inferred
the names of novel items by exclusion learning and correctly retrieved those novel items
immediately and also 4 weeks after the initial exposure. Dogs have advanced memory
skills. A study documented the learning and memory capabilities of a border collie,
"Chaser", who had learned the names and could associate by verbal command over 1,000
words. Dogs are able to read and react appropriately to human body language such as
gesturing and pointing, and to understand human voice commands. After undergoing
training to solve a simple manipulation task, dogs that are faced with an insoluble version
of the same problem look at the human, while socialized wolves do not. Dogs
demonstrate a theory of mind by engaging in deception.

The dog's senses include vision, hearing, sense of smell, taste, touch and
sensitivity to the earth's magnetic field. Dog communication is about how dogs "speak" to
each other, how they understand messages that humans send to them, and how humans
can translate the ideas that dogs are trying to transmit. These communication behaviors
include eye gaze, facial expression, vocalization, body posture (including movements of
bodies and limbs) and gustatory communication (scents, pheromones and taste). Humans
communicate with dogs by using vocalization, hand signals and body posture.

Play between dogs usually involves several behaviours that are often seen in
aggressive encounters, for example, nipping, biting and growling. It is therefore important
for the dogs to place these behaviours in the context of play, rather than aggression. Dogs
signal their intent to play with a range of behaviours including a "play-bow", "face-paw"
"open-mouthed play face" and postures inviting the other dog to chase the initiator.
Similar signals are given throughout the play bout to maintain the context of the
potentially aggressive activities.

From a young age, dogs engage in play with one another. Dog play is made up
primarily of mock fights. It is believed that this behavior, which is most common in
puppies, is training for important behaviors later in life. Play between puppies is not
necessarily a 50:50 symmetry of dominant and submissive roles between the individuals;
dogs who engage in greater rates of dominant behaviours (e.g. chasing, forcing partners
down) at later ages also initiate play at higher rates. This could imply that winning during
play becomes more important as puppies mature.

The motivation for a dog to play with another dog is distinct from that of a dog
playing with a human. Dogs walked together with opportunities to play with one another,
play with their owners with the same frequency as dogs being walked alone. Dogs in
households with two or more dogs play more often with their owners than dogs in
households with a single dog, indicating the motivation to play with other dogs does not
substitute for the motivation to play with humans.

It is a common misconception that winning and losing games such as "tug-of-

war" and "rough-and-tumble" can influence a dog's dominance relationship with humans.
Rather, the way in which dogs play indicates their temperament and relationship with
their owner. Dogs that play rough-and-tumble are more amenable and show lower
separation anxiety than dogs which play other types of games, and dogs playing tug-of-
war and "fetch" are more confident. Dogs which start the majority of games are less
amenable and more likely to be aggressive.
 Playing with humans can affect the cortisol levels of dogs. In one study, the
cortisol responses of police dogs and border guard dogs was assessed after playing with
their handlers. The cortisol concentrations of the police dogs increased, whereas the
border guard dogs' hormone levels decreased. The researchers noted that during the play
sessions, police officers were disciplining their dogs, whereas the border guards were
truly playing with them, i.e. this included bonding and affectionate behaviours. They
commented that several studies have shown that behaviours associated with control,
authority or aggression increase cortisol, whereas play and affiliative behaviour decrease
cortisol levels.

In 2012, a study found that dogs oriented toward their owner or a stranger more
often when the person was pretending to cry than when they were talking or humming.
When the stranger pretended to cry, rather than approaching their usual source of
comfort, their owner, dogs sniffed, nuzzled and licked the stranger instead. The dogs’
pattern of response was behaviorally consistent with an expression of empathic concern.A
study found a third of dogs suffered from anxiety when separated from others.

The term personality has been applied to human research, whereas the term temperament
has been mostly used for animal research. However, both terms have been used
interchangeably in the literature, or purely to distinguished humans for animals and avoid
anthropomorphism. Personality can be defined by “a set of behaviours that are consistent
over context and time”. Human personality is often studied using models that look at
broad dimensions of personality. For example, the Five Factor Model is one of the most
commonly used model, and the most extensively studied. It is composed of five
dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Studies of dog personality have also tried to identify the presence of broad personality
traits that are stable over time. Recently, dog’s personality dimension has been shown to
be relatively consistent over time.

There are different approaches to assess dog personality:

 Ratings of individual dogs: either a caretaker or a dog expert who is

familiar with the dog is asked to answer a questionnaire, for instance the
Canine Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire, concerning
how often the dog show certain type of behaviour.
  Test batteries: the dog is submitted to a set of test and its reactions are
evaluated on a behavioural scale. For instance, the dog is presented to a
familiar and then an unfamiliar person :in order to measure sociability or
aggression.
 Observational test: The dog’s behaviour is evaluated in a selected but not
controlled environment. An observer focus on the dog’s reactions to
naturally occurring stimuli. For example a :walk through the supermarket
can allow the observer to see the dog in various types of conditions
(crowd, loud noise …).

Several potential personality traits have been identified in dogs, for instance
"Playfulness", "Curiosity/Fearlessness, "Chase-proneness", "Sociability and
Aggressiveness" and "Shyness–Boldness". A meta-analysis of 51 published peered
review articles identified seven dimension of canine personality:

1. Reactivity (approach or avoidance of new objects, increased activity in novel

situations)
2. Fearfulness (shaking, avoiding novel situations)
3. Activity
4. Sociability (initiating friendly interactions with people and other dogs)
5. Responsiveness to Training (working with people, learning quickly)
6. Submissiveness
7. Aggression

Dog Breed plays an important role in the dog’s personality dimensions, while the effects
of age and sex have not been clearly determined. Dogs personality models can be used for
a range of tasks, including guide and working dog selection, finding appropriate families
to re-home shelter dogs, or selecting breeding stock.

Dominance is a descriptive term for the relationships between pairs of individuals.

Among ethologists, dominance has been defined as ‘‘an attribute of the pattern of
repeated, agonistic interactions between two individuals, characterized by a consistent
outcome in favor of the same dyad member and a default yielding response of its
opponent rather than escalation. The status of the consistent winner is dominant and that
of the loser subordinate.’’ Another definition is that a dominant animal has priority of
access to resources. Dominance is a relative attribute, not absolute; there is no reason to
assume that a high-ranking individual in one group would also become high ranking if
moved to another. Nor is there any good evidence that ‘‘dominance’’ is a lifelong
character trait. Competitive behavior characterized by confident (e.g. growl, inhibited
bite, stand over, stare at, chase, bark at) and submissive (e.g. crouch, avoid, displacement
lick/yawn, run away) patterns exchanged.

One test to ascertain which in a group was the dominant dog used the following criteria:
When a stranger comes to the house, which dog starts to bark first or if they start to bark
together, which dog barks more or longer? Which dog licks more often the other dog’s
mouth? If the dogs get food at the same time and at the same spot, which dog starts to eat
first or eats the other dog’s food? If the dogs start to fight, which dog wins usually?

Domestic dogs appear to pay little attention to relative size, despite the large weight
differences between the largest and smallest individuals; for example, size was not a
predictor of the outcome of encounters between dogs meeting while being exercised by
their owners nor was size correlated with neutered male dogs. Therefore, many dogs do
not appear to pay much attention to the actual fighting ability of their opponent,
presumably allowing differences in motivation (how much the dog values the resource)
and perceived motivation (what the behavior of the other dog signifies about the
likelihood that it will escalate) to play a much greater role.

Two dogs that are contesting possession of a highly valued resource for the first time, if
one is in a state of emotional arousal, or if one is in pain, or if reactivity is influenced by
recent endocrine changes or motivational states such as hunger, then the outcome of the
interaction may be different than if none of these factors were present. Equally, the
threshold at which aggression is shown may be influenced by a range of medical factors,
or, in some cases, precipitated entirely by pathological disorders. Hence, the contextual
and physiological factors present when 2 dogs first encounter each other may profoundly
influence the long-term nature of the relationship between those dogs. The complexity of
the factors involved in this type of learning means that dogs may develop different
‘‘expectations’’ about the likely response of another individual for each resource in a
range of different situations. Puppies learn early not to challenge an older dog and this
respect stays with them into adulthood. When adult animals meet for the first time, they
have no expectations of the behavior of the other: they will both, therefore, be initially
anxious and vigilant in this encounter (characterized by the tense body posture and
sudden movements typically seen when 2 dogs first meet), until they start to be able to
predict the responses of the other individual. The outcome of these early adult–adult
interactions will be influenced by the specific factors present at the time of the initial
encounters. As well as contextual and physiological factors, the previous experiences of
each member of the dyad of other dogs will also influence their behavior.

Dogs have an olfactory sense 40 times more sensitive than a human's and they commence
their lives operating almost exclusively on smell and touch. The special scents that dogs
use for communication are called pheromones. Different hormones are secreted when a
dog is angry, fearful or confident, and some chemical signatures identify the sex and age
of the dog, and if a female is in the estrus cycle, pregnant or recently given birth. Many of
the pheromone chemicals can be found dissolved in a dog's urine, and sniffing where
another dog has urinated gives the dog a great deal of information about that dog. Male
dogs prefer to mark vertical surfaces and having the scent higher allows the air to carry it
further. The height of the marking tells other dogs about the size of the dog, as among
canines size is an important factor in dominance.

Dogs (and wolves) not only use urine but also their stools to mark their territories. The
anal gland of canines give a particular signature to fecal deposits and identifies the
marker as well as the place where the dung is left. Dogs are very particular about these
landmarks, and engage in what is to humans a meaningless and complex ritual before
defecating. Most dogs start with a careful bout of sniffing of a location, perhaps to erect
an exact line or boundary between their territory and another dog's territory. This
behavior may also involve a small degree of elevation, such as a rock or fallen branch, to
aid scent dispersal. Scratching the ground after defecating is a visual sign pointing to the
scent marking. The freshness of the scent gives visitors some idea of the current status of
a piece of territory and if it is used frequently. Regions under dispute, or used by different
animals at different times, may lead to marking battles with every scent marked-over by a
new competitor.

Dogs have a general behavioral trait of strongly preferring novelty ("neophillia")

compared to familiarity. The average sleep time of a dog in captivity in a 24-hour period
is 10.1 hours.
Dogs reach sexual maturity and can reproduce during their first year in contrast to a wolf
at two years. The dog female can bear another litter within 8 months of the last one. The
canid genus is influenced by the photoperiod and generally reproduces in the springtime.
Domestic dogs are not reliant on seasonality for reproduction in contrast to the wolf,
coyote, Australian dingo and African basenji that may have only one, seasonal, estrus
each year. Feral dogs are influenced by the photoperiod with around half of the breeding
females mating in the springtime, which is thought to indicate an ancestral reproductive
trait not overcome by domestication, as can be inferred from wolves and Cape hunting
dogs.

Domestic dogs are polygamous in contrast to wolves that are generally monogamous.
Therefore, domestic dogs have no pair bonding and the protection of a single mate, but
rather have multiple mates in a year. There is no paternal care in dogs as opposed to
wolves where all pack members assist the mother with the pups. The consequence is that
wolves put a lot of energy into producing a few pups in contrast to dogs that maximize
the production of pups. This higher pup production rate enables dogs to maintain or even
increase their population with a lower pup survival rate than wolves, and allows dogs a
greater capacity than wolves to grow their population after a population crash or when
entering a new habitat. It is proposed that these differences are an alternative breeding
strategy adapted to a life of scavenging instead of hunting. In contrast to domestic dogs,
feral dogs are monogamous. Domestic dogs tend to have a litter size of 10, wolves 3, and
feral dogs 5-8. Feral pups have a very high mortality rate with only 5% surviving at the
age of one year, and sometimes the pups are left unattended making them vulnerable to
predators. Domestic dogs stand alone among all canids for a total lack of paternal care.

Dogs differ from wolves and most other large canid species as they generally do not
regurgitate food for their young, nor the young of other dogs in the same territory.
However, this difference was not observed in all domestic dogs. Regurgitating of food by
the females for the young, as well as care for the young by the males, has been observed
in domestic dogs, dingos and in feral or semi-feral dogs. In one study of a group of free-
ranging dogs, for the first 2 weeks immediately after parturition the lactating females
were observed to be more aggressive to protect the pups. The male parents were in
contact with the litters as ‘guard’ dogs for the first 6–8 weeks of the litters’ life. In
absence of the mothers, they were observed to prevent the approach of strangers by
vocalizations or even by physical attacks. Moreover, one male fed the litter by
regurgitation showing the existence of paternal care in some free-roaming dogs

Dogs likely were the first animals to be domesticated and as such have shared a common
environment with humans for over ten thousand years. Only recently, however, has this
species' behavior been subject to scientific scrutiny. Most of this work has been inspired
by research in human cognitive psychology and suggests that in many ways dogs are
more human-like than any other species, including nonhuman primates.

Studies using an operant framework have indicated that humans can influence the
behavior of dogs through food, petting and voice. Food and 20–30 seconds of petting
maintained operant responding in dogs. Some dogs will show a preference for petting
once food is readily available, and dogs will remain in close proximity to a person
providing petting and show no satiation to that stimulus. Petting alone was sufficient to
maintain the operant response of military dogs to voice commands, and responses to basic
obedience commands in all dogs increased when only vocal praise was provided for
correct responses.

A study using dogs that were trained to remain motionless while unsedated and
unrestrained in an MRI scanner exhibited caudate activation to a hand signal associated
with reward. Further work found that the magnitude of the canine caudate response is
similar to that of humans, while the between-subject variability in dogs may be less than
humans. In a further study, 5 scents were presented (self, familiar human, strange human,
familiar dog, strange dog). While the olfactory bulb/peduncle was activated to a similar
degree by all the scents, the caudate was activated maximally to the familiar human.
Importantly, the scent of the familiar human was not the handler, meaning that the
caudate response differentiated the scent in the absence of the person being present. The
caudate activation suggested that not only did the dogs discriminate that scent from the
others, they had a positive association with it. Although these signals came from two
different people, the humans lived in the same household as the dog and therefore
represented the dog's primary social circle. And while dogs should be highly tuned to the
smell of items that are not comparable, it seems that the “reward response” is reserved for
their humans.
Research has shown that there are individual differences in the interactions between dogs
and their human masters that have significant effects on dog behavior. In 1997, a study
showed that the type of relationship between dog and master, characterized as either
companionship or working relationship, significantly affected the dog's performance on a
cognitive problem-solving task. They speculate that companion dogs have a more
dependent relationship with their owners, and look to them to solve problems. In contrast,
working dogs are more independent.

Service dogs are those that are trained to help people with disabilities. Detection
dogs are trained to using their sense of smell to detect substances such as explosives,
illegal drugs, wildlife scat, or blood. In science, dogs have helped humans understand
about the conditioned reflex. Attack dogs, dogs that have been trained to attack on
command, are employed in security, police, and military roles.

The human-dog relationship is based on unconditional trust, however if this trust is lost it
will be difficult to reinstate. As a last resort, humans will use a slap but a dog will use a
bite. A dog's thick fur protects it from the bite of another dog but humans are furless and
are not so protected.

In the UK between 2005 and 2013, there were 17 fatal dog attacks. In 2007-08 there were
4,611 hospital admissions due to dog attacks, which increased to 5,221 in 2008-09. It has
been estimated that more than 200,000 people a year are bitten by dogs in England, with
the annual cost to the National Health Service of treating injuries about £3 million. A
report published in 2014 stated there were 6,743 hospital admissions specifically caused
by dog bites, a 5.8% increase from the 6,372 admissions in the previous 12 months.

In the US between 1979 and 1996, there were more than 300 human dog bite-related
fatalities. In the US in 2013, there were 31 dog-bite related deaths. Each year, more than
4.5 million people in the US are bitten by dogs and almost 1 in 5 require medical
attention.

Attack training is condemned by some as promoting ferocity in dogs; a 1975 American

study showed that 10% of dogs that have bitten a person received attack dog training at
some point.
 DOGS BEHAVIOUR

Communication begins with understanding. If you want to build a better

relationship with your dog, you can start by working to understand the meaning
behind some of dog behaviors.

As the oldest domesticated animal species, the behavior of dogs has

inevitably have been shaped by millennia of contact with humans. As a result of
this evolution, dogs, more than any other species, have acquired the ability to
communicate with humans, which means dogs are smart.. Dog’s social-cognitive
abilities are not expressed by the dog's closest canine relatives nor by other
mammals such as apes.

About intelligence, Dog intelligence is the ability of the dog to perceive

information and retain it as knowledge to solve problems.

The dog's senses include vision, hearing, sense of smell, taste, touch and
sensitivity to the earth's magnetic field.

Dog’s communication is about how dogs "speak" to each other, how they
understand messages that humans send to them, and how humans can translate the
ideas from dogs. Humans communicate with dogs by using vocalization, hand
signals and body posture.

Play between dogs usually involves several behaviours that are often seen
in aggressive encounters, for example, nipping, biting and growling. Dogs place
these behaviours in the context of play. Similar signals are given throughout the
play bout to maintain the context of the potentially aggressive activities.

In 2012, a study found that dogs oriented toward their owner or a stranger
more often when the person was pretending to cry than when they were talking or
humming.
 Dogs have an olfactory sense 40 times more sensitive than a human's and
they commence their lives operating almost exclusively on smell and touch. The
special scents that dogs use for communication are called pheromones.

Dogs reach sexual maturity and can reproduce during their first year. The
dog female can bear another litter within 8 months of the last one. The canin
genus generally reproduces in the springtime.

The human-dog relationship is based on unconditional trust, however if

this trust is lost it will be difficult to reinstate. As a last resort, humans will use a
slap but a dog will use a bite. It’ll be dangerous for human because humans are
furless and are not so protected.

About another dogs behaviour called panting, dogs sweat through the pads
on their feet, most of their body heat is expelled through their mouth when they
pant. It's their primary means of regulating body temperature.

About dog barking, In nature, dogs bark to raise an alarm at the first signs
of possible danger or to herald a new arrival. Barking is an important means of
canine communication.

Toys and other object will be chewed by your dog, just like a growing
child. If your dog is fully grown, you may also come home to find your couch
cushions or favorite pair of shoes ripped to shreds, but it is not because they enjoy
the taste. Your dog could be exhibiting signs of separation anxiety or anxiety in
general.

A dog will bite a person as a way of communicating their current state of

mind. The dog could be reacting in aggression, fear or nervousness. There are,
however, ways to prevent a dog bite from ever happening if you stay in tune to the
dog’s body language.