Uncovering the origins of dog–human eye contact: dingoes establish eye contact more than wolves, but less than dogs

Johnston, Angie M.; Turrin, Courtney; Watson, Lyn; Arre, Alyssa M.; Santos, Laurie R.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.09.002

Cited by 27 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…That is, even after intensive socialisation, wolves appear uninterested in human communicative signals or engaging in communicative interactions with humans (Miklósi 2007). Johnston et al (2017) investigated the preference of dingoes to make eye contact with humans. In contrast to wolves (Nagasawa et al 2015), dingoes initiated eye contact with humans, but did so for a shorter time than dogs, and they tended to avoid prolonged eye contact (Johnston et al 2017).…”

Section: Behavioural Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Johnston et al (2017) investigated the preference of dingoes to make eye contact with humans. In contrast to wolves (Nagasawa et al 2015), dingoes initiated eye contact with humans, but did so for a shorter time than dogs, and they tended to avoid prolonged eye contact (Johnston et al 2017). Agreeing with Smith and Litchfield (2013), dingoes are not as motivated as dogs to initiate or seek eye contact with humans, or to maintain it.…”

Section: Behavioural Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Agreeing with Smith and Litchfield (2013), dingoes are not as motivated as dogs to initiate or seek eye contact with humans, or to maintain it. Johnston et al (2017) suggested that dingoes might have developed some motivation to initiate eye contact with people early interactions, but did not develop the desire to maintain this contact as this occurred at a later stage of dog domestication.…”

Section: Behavioural Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Taxonomic status of the Australian dingo: the case for Canis dingo Meyer, 1793

Smith

Cairns

Adams

et al. 2019

Zootaxa

Self Cite

104

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The taxonomic status and systematic nomenclature of the Australian dingo remain contentious, resulting in decades of inconsistent applications in the scientific literature and in policy. Prompted by a recent publication calling for dingoes to be considered taxonomically as domestic dogs (Jackson et al. 2017, Zootaxa 4317, 201-224), we review the issues of the taxonomy applied to canids, and summarise the main differences between dingoes and other canids. We conclude that (1) the Australian dingo is a geographically isolated (allopatric) species from all other Canis, and is genetically, phenotypically, ecologically, and behaviourally distinct; and (2) the dingo appears largely devoid of many of the signs of domestication, including surviving largely as a wild animal in Australia for millennia. The case of defining dingo taxonomy provides a quintessential example of the disagreements between species concepts (e.g., biological, phylogenetic, ecological, morphological). Applying the biological species concept sensu stricto to the dingo as suggested by Jackson et al. (2017) and consistently across the Canidae would lead to an aggregation of all Canis populations, implying for example that dogs and wolves are the same species. Such an aggregation would have substantial implications for taxonomic clarity, biological research, and wildlife conservation. Any changes to the current nomen of the dingo (currently Canis dingo Meyer, 1793), must therefore offer a strong, evidence-based argument in favour of it being recognised as a subspecies of Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758, or as Canis familiaris Linnaeus, 1758, and a successful application to the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature - neither of which can be adequately supported. Although there are many species concepts, the sum of the evidence presented in this paper affirms the classification of the dingo as a distinct taxon, namely Canis dingo.

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Section: Behavioural Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Behavioural Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Behavioural Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Taxonomic status of the Australian dingo: the case for Canis dingo Meyer, 1793

Smith

Cairns

Adams

et al. 2019

Zootaxa

Self Cite

104

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“…Interestingly, comparative studies have shown that wolves do not seek human contact to the same extent when faced with a problem (Miklósi et al, 2003;Udell, 2015;Heberlein et al, 2016) and dogs perform better in the pointing task than both wolves (Hare et al, 2002;Virányi et al, 2008) and chimpanzees (Kirchhofer et al, 2012). Also, there are studies indicating that the ancient, feralised dog breed the Australian dingo performs between that of wolves and modern dogs both in pointing understanding and spontaneous eye contact (Smith and Litchfield, 2010;Johnston et al, 2017). This suggests that these are behaviours that have been affected by domestication.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding of human referential gestures is not correlated to human-directed social behaviour in Labrador retrievers and German shepherd dogs

Sundman

Persson

Grozelier

et al. 2018

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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Dogs are known to excel in interspecific communication with humans and both communicate with humans and follow human communicative cues. Two tests commonly used to test these skills are, firstly, the problem-solving paradigm, and, secondly, following human referential signals, for example pointing. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether dogs that seek more human contact in an unsolvable problem-solving paradigm also better understand human communicative cues in a pointing test. We also assessed between-and within-breed variation in both tests. 167 dogs were tested and were of the breeds German shepherd dog and Labrador retriever. The Labradors were separated into the two selection lines: common type (bred for show and pet) and field type (bred for hunting). A principal component analysis of behaviours during the problem solving revealed four components: Passivity, Experimenter Contact, Owner Contact and Eye Contact. We analysed the effect of these components on success rate in the pointing test and we found no effect for three of them, while a negative correlation was found for Owner Contact (F(1,147) = 6.892; P = 0.010). This was only present in common-typed Labradors. We conclude that the ability to follow a pointing cue does not predict the propensity for human-directed social behaviour in a problem-solving situation and suggest that the two tests measure different aspects of human-directed social behaviour in dogs.

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“…Dogs seek human eye-contact more often and for a longer duration than wolves (Nagasawa et al 2015). The dingo seeks less human eye-contact than dogs, but more than wolves (Johnston et al 2017). This is interesting as the split between dogs and dingoes occurred at least 5000 years ago ( Figure 2) and therefore, the dingo has undergone early domestication but not recent selection (Cairns et al 2017).…”

Section: A Genetic Basismentioning

confidence: 94%

Pawsitive selection : Genetics of dog-human communication

Persson

2020

Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations

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This doctoral thesis only has my name on it but as The Beatles sang "I get by with a little help from my friends". So here are my thank you's: First of all, I believe that I have had the best main supervisor possible, Per Jensen. Pelle, thank you for believing in me and for giving me this opportunity. You have given me a lot of trust and responsibility and you have always been there to support. To my other supervisors, Lina Roth and Dominic Wright. Lina, your support has been invaluable! You always have wise and appreciated input. Your eye for details is incorporated throughout my PhD. And Dominic, thank you for being patient and for guiding me through the winding roads of GWAS. To technicians Ann-Charlotte, Petros and Lejla for the help with equipment and for keeping everything run smoothly in the lab. To my co-authors Ann-Sofie, Martin, Petros, Agaia, Johan and Lise-Lotte for all the work you have put in on my/your/our projects. To Rebecca and Lina for proof reading this wall of text. To all other colleagues at the biology department for contributing to an entertaining work environment and interesting topics for fika-discussions. To my family for always encouraging my academic endeavours. To Mattias for sticking with me and supporting me through all the PhD ups and downs. To our lovely daughters Seia and Idun that has taught me to be really efficient in multitasking and that sleep is overrated. To "kontoret" that I will really, really, really miss: List of publications included in this thesis The thesis is based on these listed papers. In the text, they will be referred to as their roman numbers (I-IV).

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Uncovering the origins of dog–human eye contact: dingoes establish eye contact more than wolves, but less than dogs

Cited by 27 publications

References 26 publications

Taxonomic status of the Australian dingo: the case for Canis dingo Meyer, 1793

Taxonomic status of the Australian dingo: the case for Canis dingo Meyer, 1793

Understanding of human referential gestures is not correlated to human-directed social behaviour in Labrador retrievers and German shepherd dogs

Pawsitive selection : Genetics of dog-human communication

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