Puppy and adult dog personality Forkman, Björn; Fält, Lars; Larsson, Ingalil; Olsson, Ann Published in: Proceedings of the 5th Canine Science Forum Publication date: 2016 Document license: Other Citation for published version (APA): Forkman, B., Fält, L., Larsson, I., & Olsson, A. (2016). Puppy and adult dog personality. In Proceedings of the 5th Canine Science Forum (1 ed., Vol. 1, pp. 124). Download date: 29. Sep. 2021 5th Canine Science Forum -Proceedings- June 28th – July 1st 2016, Padua, Italy A cura di Lieta Marinelli e Paolo Mongillo ISBN 978-88-6938-096-9 VA ADO UP P PADOVA UNIVERSITY PRESS 5th Canine Science Forum -Proceedings- A cura di Lieta Marinelli e Paolo Mongillo VA ADO UP P Canine Science Forum 2016 June 28th – July 1st, Padua, Italy The Canine Science Forum 2016 was organized under the patronage of: The Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science The University of Padua The Italian Society of Veterinary Physiology The Municipality of Padua Dipartimento di Biomedicina Comparata e Alimentazione Prima edizione 2016, Padova University Press Titolo originale: 5th Canine Science Forum - Proceedings - © 2016 Padova University Press Università degli Studi di Padova via 8 Febbraio 2, Padova www.padovauniversitypress.it Progetto grafico e redazione: Padova University Press ISBN 978-88-6938-096-9 Università di Padova - Padova University Press Tutti i diritti di traduzione, riproduzione e adattamento, totale o parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo (comprese le copie fotostatiche e i microfilm) sono riservati. 2 Canine Science Forum 2016 June 28th – July 1st, Padua, Italy Organizing committee: Prof. Lieta Marinelli Dr. Paolo Mongillo Scientific committee: Prof. Lieta Marinelli Dr. Paolo Mongillo Prof. Adam Miklosi Prof. Daniel Mills Prof. Emanuela Prato-Previde Prof. Paola Maria Valsecchi Acknowledgments This collection of scientific contributions was first presented at the 5th Canine Science Forum, in Padua (Italy), June 28th – July 1st 2016. The organizers would like to express their gratitude to all of those who made the event possible. In particular, the organizers would like to thank the following reviewers for evaluating the submitted abstracts: Dr. Mariana Bentosela Prof. Paolo Carnier Prof. Jaume Fatjo Dr. Angelo Gazzano Prof. Ludwig Huber Dr. Juliana Kaminski Dr. Kathryn Lord Dr. Chiara Mariti Prof. Ádám Miklósi Prof. Daniel Mills Dr. Eugenia Natoli Dr. Simona Normando Prof. Emanuela Prato-Previde Prof. James Serpell Prof. József Topál Prof. Paola Maria Valsecchi Prof. Clive Wynne Canine Science Forum 2016 June 28th – July 1st, Padua, Italy Table of Contents Invited Presentations 5 Round Table on Service Dogs 98 Oral Presentations 103 Poster Presentations 136 Index of Authors 232 Index of Keywords 237 4 Canine Science Forum 2016 June 28th – July 1st, Padua, Italy Invited Presentations Canine Science Forum 2016 June 28th – July 1st, Padua, Italy - I2 - VOCAL COMMUNICATION IN DOGS - ASPECTS OF INFORMATION CONTENT AND EVOLUTION Péter Pongrácz* (presenting) Department of Ethology, Biological Institute, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. *Corresponding author: [email protected] Abstract: There are several ways how to investigate dogs’ behavior including their acoustic communication. One of the approaches is to consider the main species-specific features of canine behavior as such traits that evolved during the domestication, resulting in a more and more perfect adaptation to the anthropogenic niche. Perhaps the most unique type of vocalization in the dog is barking, which can be found in the closely related Canid species as well; however dogs use it more abundantly and variably than their wild relatives. Our new approach to dogs’ bark was based on the assumption that the peculiarities of these vocalizations evolved under the nurturing forces of selection that created such a cluster of signals that convey variable information about the inner state of dogs to a new audience: humans. In a series of playback tests we proved that independently of the amount of their experience with dogs, human listeners can correctly categorize dog barks into several contexts, as well as attribute distinct inner states to the dogs based on the barks. We found that the affective information of dog barks is encoded by the acoustic parameters according to the structural-motivational theory by Morton. Although the acoustic proliferation of dog barks took place since the domestication, we also found evidence that barking may play a role in the intraspecific communication of dogs. In the laboratory as well as at the field, dogs are sensitive to both the contextual and the individual-specific features of other dogs’ bark. Another element of the vocal repertoire of dogs is the growl. This conservative vocalization (which in general is identical to the growls of wolves) was investigated in such experiments where we tested whether and how dogs respond to the contextual and indexical information encoded to different types of growls. With the so-called modality matching paradigm we found that dogs emit honest signals regarding their body size in agonistic (food-guarding) context, but their growls convey an exaggerated body size during play. In a recent study we also found that dogs may manipulate the size-related indexical component of their growls when they experience different levels of threat from an approaching stranger. Regarding the contextual information of dog growls, our results showed that dogs differentiate not only between agonistic and playful growls, but also between different agonistic situations, which suggests that dog growls may possess functionally referential attributes, too. For the future, we propose that the bioacoustical research on dog vocalizations should incorporate more aspects of applied ethology (like animal welfare and the more profound understanding of nuisance barks); as well as conducting surveys on the genetic background of the vocal phenotype of canine vocalizations. Keywords: bark; dog; domestication; growl; vocalizations Preface The dog is considered as ’artificial species’ by some authors (e.g. Miklósi & Topál, 2013) in a sense that it is a domesticated species without any extant wild-living ancestor – and also almost the entire dog population lives in more or less tight association with humans (i.e. in an ’artificial environment’). Of course, this does not mean that the evolutionary aspects of the behavior of dogs would not be a worthy subject for ethologists – if someone needs to be convinced about this, it is enough to think about the hundreds of empirical and 6 Canine Science Forum 2016 June 28th – July 1st, Padua, Italy theoretical papers on dogs’ behavior from the last 25 years. The roots of social behavior and cognitive capacity in dogs are originating obviously from its genetic ancestors, however, the long process of domestication (including the challenges of recent and present times) exerted new and strong selective forces on the socio-cognitive traits of dogs as well. This new evolutionary process resulted in such characteristics of dogs that served as adaptations predominantly to the new, anthropogenic environment. Ethologists who are interested in the evolutionary processes as well as in – for example – communicative behavior, find the co-existence between humans and dogs as an especially rewarding research field, because of the easy access to large numbers of experimental subjects of both species, willing to participate in tests, and serving with new and new phenomena to be studied. Introduction to the research of the acoustic communication of dogs As it was mentioned earlier, the basic idea behind our scientific approach to dog behavior was the paradigm stating that the most important species-specific feature of dogs is the capacity to get interactively integrated to the anthropogenic environment. This means that the human group represents the natural environment for the dog (e.g. Topál et al., 2009), which needs sophisticated means of adaptations from the dog, enabling it to survive and thrive. Following the concept of ‘human behavioral complex’ (Csányi, 2000), communication is one of the important ingredients that is essential for successful group living. In case of dog-human co-existence, our main research target was understandably the interspecific communication; however, specific forms of intraspecific signaling provided also interesting contrasts for a better understanding of the complexity of canine vocal behavior. The importance of acoustic signals in dog-human communication Similarly to the Canid species living in the wild, dogs communicate also predominantly through the sensory channels of olfaction, vision and hearing. The possible relevance of dog-human acoustic communication emerges from among the other means of information transfer due to the limitations of our species in comprehending canine chemical and visual signals. Canine chemical signals play an important intraspecific role in sexual and individual recognition (Bradshaw & Nott, 1995); however, they may not be relevant for humans, for example because of the difference between the sensitivity of olfactory systems of the two species (Marshall & Moulton, 1981). Dogs’ visual signals, although they can be apparent, show strong taxon-specificity. While there is a significant overlap between the visual signals of wolves and dogs (Bradshaw & Nott, 1995), the opposite is true for dogs and humans. It was shown for example that young infants misjudge the emotional state of dogs based on the assessment of dog