Investigating the Function of Play Bows in Dog and Wolf Puppies (Canis lupus familiaris, Canis lupus occidentalis)

Abstract

Animals utilize behavioral signals across a range of different contexts in order to communicate with others and produce probable behavioral outcomes. During play animals frequently adopt action patterns used in other contexts. Researchers have therefore hypothesized that play signals have evolved to clarify communicative intent. One highly stereotyped play signal is the canid play bow, but its function remains contested. In order to clarify how canid puppies use play bows, we used data on play bows in immature wolves (ages 2.7–7.8 months) and dogs (ages 2 to 5 months) to test hypotheses evaluated in a previous study of adult dogs. We found that young dogs used play bows similarly to adult dogs; play bows most often occurred after a brief pause in play followed by complementary highly active play states. However, while the relative number of play bows and total observation time was similar between dog and wolf puppies, wolves did not follow this behavioral pattern, as play bows were unsuccessful in eliciting further play activity by the partner. While some similarities for the function of play bows in dog and wolf puppies were documented, it appears that play bows may function differently in wolf puppies in regards to re-initiating play.

Dogs produce distinctive play pants: Confirming Simonet

“…Nearly all of the captured play pants occurred in conjunction with other canine play signals, confirming that this is a domain-specific expression aligned with play behaviors and activities such as the play bow, play slap, chase, fetch, and play face as previously defined (Byosiere et al, 2016(Byosiere et al, , 2018Bekoff, 1974Bekoff, , 2015Horowitz, 2009;Horowitz & Hecht, 2016;Rooney et al, 2001). These vocalizations are also distinct from play growling (e.g., Faragó et al, 2010) and play barking (e.g., Yin & McCowan, 2004;Horowitz & Hecht, 2016) We suggest these criteria be used in future work on the canine play pant as a starting point for investigating the play pant vocalization in dog-dog and human-dog play.…”

“…We also hypothesized that if the pant is specifically indicative of a playful state, then it should align with other play behaviors such as play bows, play slaps, loose bodies, and play face. These and other behaviors have been documented in dogdog play (Byosiere et al, 2016(Byosiere et al, , 2018Bekoff, 1974Bekoff, , 2015Horowitz, 2009;Horowitz & Hecht, 2016) and dog-human play such as playing tug-of-war, chasing, or tickling (Rooney et al, 2001;Horowitz & Hecht, 2016). While more audible vocalizations such as play growling (e.g., Faragó et al, 2010) and play barking (e.g., Yin & McCowan, 2004) To identify vocalizations that may be a play pant, we used Simonet et al's (2005) description of the vocalization as a "pronounced breathy forced exhalation" (p. 1) and analyzed samples of her original audio recordings with permission of her widower (R. Brost, personal communication, August 12, 2022).…”

The use of infrared thermography to noninvasively measure the surface temperature of polar bears during bouts of social play

“…The beginning of a play bout was defined as the time of the first contact between two polar bears, which included facial contact or paw to body contact. The end of the play bout was recorded when the bears had no contact with each other for 1 min or more (Byosiere et al, 2016). If the two play partners began playing again after 1 min, it was considered a new play bout (Byosiere et al, 2016).…”

Are These Cats Playing? A Closer Look at Social Play in Cats and Proposal for a Psychobiological Approach and Standard Terminology

“…Metacommunicative signals from a sender must be unambiguous and reduce distance between interacting animals (46). Potential metasignals indicating a social play context have been studied in dogs (47)(48)(49), while there is some debate about their specific meaning and function (40,50,51).…”