Human‐directed social behaviour in dogs shows significant heritability

Abstract

Through domestication and co-evolution with humans, dogs have developed abilities to attract human attention, e.g. in a manner of seeking assistance when faced with a problem solving task. The aims of this study were to investigate within breed variation in human-directed contact seeking in dogs and to estimate its genetic basis. To do this, 498 research beagles, bred and kept under standardized conditions, were tested in an unsolvable problem task. Contact seeking behaviours recorded included both eye contact and physical interactions. Behavioural data was summarized through a principal component analysis, resulting in four components: test interactions, social interactions, eye contact and physical contact. Females scored significantly higher on social interactions and physical contact and age had an effect on eye contact scores. Narrow sense heritabilities (h 2 ) of the two largest components were estimated at 0.32 and 0.23 but were not significant for the last two components. These results show that within the studied dog population, behavioural variation in human-directed social behaviours was sex dependent and that the utilization of eye contact seeking increased with age and experience. Hence, heritability estimates indicate a significant genetic contribution to the variation found in human-directed social interactions, suggesting that social skills in dogs have a genetic basis, but can also be shaped and enhanced through individual experiences. This research gives the opportunity to further investigate the genetics behind dogs' social skills, which could also play a significant part into research on human social disorders such as autism.

Genetic Characterization of Dog Personality Traits

“…The distinct behavioral predispositions of individual dog breeds clearly indicate a strong genetic component to dog personality, which is further strengthened by estimates of substantial within-breed genetic variance found for a variety of dog behavioral traits across studies ( e.g. , Wilsson and Sundgren 1997; Saetre et al 2006; Meyer et al 2012; Arvelius et al 2014a; Persson et al 2015). …”

The role of domestication and experience in ‘looking back’ towards humans in an unsolvable task

“…In a seminal study comparing wolves and dogs, Miklósi and colleagues found that when confronted with an unexpectedly unsolvable task, 4 month-old pet dogs were more likely to “look back” to their owner and did so sooner and for longer than wolves of the same age raised in a ‘pet-like’ environment3. Since this first study, the propensity to look back in dogs has been shown to differ between breed-groups67 and to have a genetic basis89, providing further circumstantial support for a potential effect of domestication on this behaviour.…”

Lessons from the canine Oxtr gene: populations, variants and functional aspects

“…Moreover, it has recently been shown that mechanism of processing emotional auditory information in the brain is alike in dog and man (Andics et al ). Efficient inter‐specific communication and an at least as strong bonding to humans than to conspecifics seem to be inherited features critical in differentiating the domesticated dog from wolves (Miklosi and Topal , Persson et al , Udell et al , Viranyi et al ). Nevertheless, the questions remain: which pathway of the nervous system could mostly be affected, and do behavioral differences characteristic to breeds or individual dogs reflect variations within this system?…”