Encounters between pairs of unfamiliar dogs in a dog park

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore spontaneous social interactions between dyads of unfamiliar adult dogs. Although intraspecific encounters are frequent events in the life of pet dogs, the factors that might influence encounters, such as sex, dyad composition, reproductive status, age, and state of cohabitation (keeping the dogs singly or in groups), remained unexplored. Methods: In this study, we assigned unfamiliar, non-aggressive dogs to three types of dyads defined by sex and size. We observed their unrestrained, spontaneous behaviors in an unfamiliar dog park, where only the two dogs, the owners, and experimenter were present. Results: We found that the dogs, on average, spent only 17% of the time (less than 1 min) in proximity. Sex, dyad composition, reproductive status, and age influenced different aspects of the interactions in dyads. Female dogs were more likely to initiate the first contact in their dyad but later approached the partner less frequently, were less likely to move apart, and displayed less scent marking. Following and moving apart were more frequent in male-male interactions. Neutered dogs spent more time following the other dog and sniffed other dogs more frequently. The time companion dogs spent in proximity and number of approaches decreased with age. Conclusion: The study provides guidance for dog owners about the outcomes of intraspecific encounters based on the dog's age, sex, and reproductive status, as well as the sex of the interacting partner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CC License is provided, and changesif anyare indicated. (SID_1) Dog encounters Biologia Futura 70(2), pp. 156-165 (2019) | 157

A Preliminary Study toward a Rapid Assessment of Age-Related Behavioral Differences in Family Dogs

“…The lower rates of approaching and following behaviors in the old dog group toward the human experimenter observed here resemble previous findings of a lower number of approaches and social greetings toward conspecifics [13,21,22]. Fearfulness is not a likely explanation since older dogs were also less avoidant of the novel and moving toy dog in the toy dog sub-test, which reflects a loss in social interest or a more passive approach to social interactions [23].…”

“…Problem solving ability is influenced by not only cognition but also social factors, since in many problem-solving situations, dogs appear to resort to social strategies [25,26]. However, the decline in social interest with age [13,21] might help older dogs to focus on the problem.…”

“…Over the last two decades, we have seen an increase in attempts to capture how age affects non-pathological canine behavior. Examples span from attention [7,8], memory [9,10], sleep physiology [11], personality [12], and social interaction [13] to higher cognitive functions, such as reasoning by exclusion and reversal learning [10,14,15]. A more practical problem related to the study of canine aging is how to standardize and optimize the behavioral testing protocols toward, for example, creating quick and easy assessment tools for practicing veterinarians.…”

The future of biology from a canine perspective

“…Future research directions are either expected to involve well-designed, controlled field experiments of the various dog-dog and dog-human interactions (Pongrácz et al, 2014) or contrarily enter the depths of understanding through the neural mechanisms beyond specific sociocognitive capacities of the canids (e.g., Andics et al, 2014). The study of Iotchev et al (2019) fits to the "new age" of canine science as they were interested in the demographic factors (age, sex, and reproductive status) that could influence the dyadic interactions of companion dogs that were unfamiliar with each other in a naturalistic environment (a dog park).…”

“…Based on the results of Iotchev et al (2019), it is clear that unfamiliar companion dogs spend only a relatively small proportion of their free-ranging time interacting with each other. Females initiated dyadic interactions sooner and remained with their canine partner longer than males.…”