Behavioral synchronization and affiliation: Dogs exhibit human-like skills

Behavioral and emotional co-modulation during dog-owner interaction measured by heart rate variability and activity

Behavioral and physiological synchrony facilitate emotional closeness in attachment relationships. The aim of this pseudorandomized cross-over study was to investigate the emotional and physiological link, designated as co-modulation, between dogs and their owners. We measured the heart rate variability (HRV) and physical activity of dogs belonging to co-operative breeds (n = 29) and their owners during resting baselines and positive interaction tasks (Stroking, Training, Sniffing, Playing) and collected survey data on owner temperament and dog-owner relationship. Although overall HRV and activity correlated between dogs and their owners across tasks, task-specific analyses showed that HRV of dogs and owners correlated during free behaving (Pre- and Post-Baseline), whereas the activity of dogs and owners correlated during predefined interaction tasks (Stroking and Playing). Dog overall HRV was the only predictive factor for owner overall HRV, while dog height, ownership duration, owner negative affectivity, and dog-owner interaction scale predicted dog overall HRV. Thus, the characteristics of dog, owner, and the relationship modified the HRV responses in dog-owner dyads. The physiology and behavior of dogs belonging to co-operative breeds and their owners were therefore co-modulated, demonstrating physiological and emotional connection comparable to those found in attachment relationships between humans.

Participation in a Prison-Based Training Programme Is Beneficial for Rescue Dogs

Dogs are often relinquished because of behavioural issues which may be exacerbated in rehoming centres. Prison-based dog training programmes (DTPs) may enhance outcomes for rescue dogs by providing socialisation and training opportunities to improve behaviour, welfare and likelihood of rehoming. We assessed whether dogs benefitted from participation, 1-3 times per week, in a prison-based DTP in which male young offenders learn how to train and care for dogs waiting to be rehomed. Within DTP sessions, there was significant improvement on a range of training tasks (n = 42 dogs). Analyses of videos (n = 17 dogs) in the kennels and a training barn pre- and post-DTP participation showed improvement in some positive behaviours, but no significant change in other behaviours. Subjective ratings by staff of the dogs' behaviour were made (n = 20 dogs). Desirable behaviours (e.g., playful/friendly) increased, and most undesirable behaviours (e.g., frustrated and noisy) decreased. Participation in the DTP did not mitigate all negative behaviours. However, improvements are consistent with enhanced welfare and likelihood of successful rehoming. Prison-based DTPs can be effective in supporting the work of animal rescue organisations to improve outcomes for dogs, while offering people in custody an opportunity to engage in purposeful activity and provide a community service.

Multispecies Occupations Involving Equines: An Action-Oriented Inquiry to Inform Occupational Therapy Practitioners

Research related to human-animal engagement often fails to address the complexity and nuance present in occupations and occupational therapy services that incorporate animals. The goal of this research was to develop a basic understanding of multispecies occupations (MSO) involving humans and equines, focusing on the action-oriented processes and transactions during socialization in outdoor, non-therapeutic contexts. We employed a multi-modal qualitative design with interviews and videography with n = 6 horse-human dyads, creating opportunities to understand and represent engagement beyond anthropocentric norms. Findings included a variety of dyad-specific features of occupation, including processes of embodied communication, the presence of behavioral synchrony, and perceptions of attunement arising from these processes. Examining MSO via a multi-modal inquiry offers new perspectives about the nature and experience of such occupations and supports a deeper understanding of potential mechanisms of change when animals are incorporated in occupational therapy interventions and practice.

Higher oxytocin concentrations occur in subjects who build affiliative relationships with companion robots

Building affiliative relationships with others is important for mental health. Recently, robots have been expected to play a role in improving mental health, but there is little scientific evidence as to whether they can build affiliative relationships with humans. To investigate that, we conducted studies combining behavior, physiology and questionnaires for companion robot Owners and Non-Owners. The results reveal that the steady-state concentration of oxytocin, a hormone related to affiliative relationships, was significantly higher in Owners than in Non-Owners. In addition, the Owners showed more behaviors indicative of intimacy than the Non-Owners. These results suggest that humans can build affiliative relationships with robots. Fifteen minutes of contact with the robot decreased the concentration of cortisol in both groups, suggesting that even a brief contact can contribute to improving mental health. Therefore, relationships between humans and robots may be one option to improve mental health and enhance well-being.

The evolution of social timing

Sociality and timing are tightly interrelated in human interaction as seen in turn-taking or synchronised dance movements. Sociality and timing also show in communicative acts of other species that might be pleasurable, but also necessary for survival. Sociality and timing often co-occur, but their shared phylogenetic trajectory is unknown: How, when, and why did they become so tightly linked? Answering these questions is complicated by several constraints; these include the use of divergent operational definitions across fields and species, the focus on diverse mechanistic explanations (e.g., physiological, neural, or cognitive), and the frequent adoption of anthropocentric theories and methodologies in comparative research. These limitations hinder the development of an integrative framework on the evolutionary trajectory of social timing and make comparative studies not as fruitful as they could be. Here, we outline a theoretical and empirical framework to test contrasting hypotheses on the evolution of social timing with species-appropriate paradigms and consistent definitions. To facilitate future research, we introduce an initial set of representative species and empirical hypotheses. The proposed framework aims at building and contrasting evolutionary trees of social timing toward and beyond the crucial branch represented by our own lineage. Given the integration of cross-species and quantitative approaches, this research line might lead to an integrated empirical-theoretical paradigm and, as a long-term goal, explain why humans are such socially coordinated animals.

Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Behavioural Tendencies of Cats and Dogs in Japan

Physical and mental effects stemming from COVID-19 have impacted not only people's lives but also the lives of their pets, which in recent years are often seen as members of the family. This study aimed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan on pets and their owners. Participants reported changes in physical activity and mental health, as well as working conditions and frequency of interaction with pets, before and after behavioural restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also asked about their pets' behaviours using the Feline Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire (Fe-BARQ) and the Canine Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ). This study showed that most cat and dog owners spent more time at home due to the COVID-19 behavioural restrictions and that the frequency of contact interaction with their pets increased. However, this study showed higher stress-related behaviours (e.g., cats: excessive grooming; dogs: aggression towards owners) among pets whose owners increased contact interaction. Furthermore, owners' low mental health was correlated with high stress-related behaviours (e.g., touch sensitivity) in pets. The results of this study indicate that the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan may have affected not only the lives of owners but also the interaction between owners and their pets, and consequently their pets' behaviours. Therefore, there is also concern that changes in lifestyle patterns caused by pandemics could form a negative feedback loop between the health status of both owners and their pets.

A review of frailty instruments in human medicine and proposal of a frailty instrument for dogs

Over the last few decades, frailty has become a pillar of research and clinical assessment in human gerontology. This complex syndrome, characterized by loss of physiologic reserves leading to decreased resilience to stressors, is of critical importance because it predicts higher risks of poor health outcomes, including mortality. Thus, identifying frailty among the elderly human population has become a key focus of gerontology. This narrative review presents current scientific literature on frailty in both humans and animals. The authors discuss the need for an accessible frailty instrument for companion dogs suitable for general use in veterinary medicine and the advances that would be facilitated by this instrument. A phenotypic frailty instrument for companion dogs, utilizing components that are easily collected by owners, or in the general practice setting, is proposed. The authors elaborate on the domains (physical condition, physical activity, mobility, strength, cognitive task performance, and social behavior), factors that will be included, and the data from the Dog Aging Project that inform each domain.

Visual perception of emotion cues in dogs: a critical review of methodologies

Comparative studies of human-dog cognition have grown exponentially since the 2000's, but the focus on how dogs look at us (as well as other dogs) as social partners is a more recent phenomenon despite its importance to human-dog interactions. Here, we briefly summarise the current state of research in visual perception of emotion cues in dogs and why this area is important; we then critically review its most commonly used methods, by discussing conceptual and methodological challenges and associated limitations in depth; finally, we suggest some possible solutions and recommend best practice for future research. Typically, most studies in this field have concentrated on facial emotional cues, with full body information rarely considered. There are many challenges in the way studies are conceptually designed (e.g., use of non-naturalistic stimuli) and the way researchers incorporate biases (e.g., anthropomorphism) into experimental designs, which may lead to problematic conclusions. However, technological and scientific advances offer the opportunity to gather much more valid, objective, and systematic data in this rapidly expanding field of study. Solving conceptual and methodological challenges in the field of emotion perception research in dogs will not only be beneficial in improving research in dog-human interactions, but also within the comparative psychology area, in which dogs are an important model species to study evolutionary processes.

Cooperation increases bottlenose dolphins' (Tursiops truncatus) social affiliation

Dolphins live in a fission-fusion society, where strong social bonds and alliances can last for decades. However, the mechanism that allows dolphins to form such strong social bonds is still unclear. Here, we hypothesized the existence of a positive feedback mechanism in which social affiliation promotes dolphins' cooperation, which in turn promotes their social affiliation. To test it, we stimulated the cooperation of the 11 dolphins studied by providing a cooperative enrichment tool based on a rope-pulling task to access a resource. Then we measured the social affiliation [simple ratio index (SRI)] of each possible pair of dolphins and evaluated whether it increased after cooperation. We also evaluated whether, before cooperation, pairs that cooperated had a higher SRI than those that did not cooperate. Our findings showed that the 11 cooperating pairs had significantly stronger social affiliation before cooperation than the 15 non-cooperating pairs. Furthermore, cooperating pairs significantly increased their social affiliation after cooperation, while non-cooperating pairs did not. As a result, our findings provide support to our hypothesis, and suggest that the previous social affiliation between dolphins facilitates cooperation, which in turn promotes their social affiliation.

Does Pet Parenting Style predict the social and problem-solving behavior of pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)?

The behavior and cognition of pet domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) has drawn increasing scientific attention over the last several decades. One area of focus has been the influence of lifetime variables, including the home environment and prior experiences, on the social and problem-solving behavior of dogs. While the human-dog relationship has become an important area of study, only a few studies have empirically investigated how the quality of that relationship may influence a dog's performance on behavioral or cognitive tasks. In the current study, we asked if a human caretaker's self-reported expectations and patterns of responding towards their dog (Pet Parenting Style) would predict the dog's social and problem-solving behavior. Owners who had previously been asked to complete a Pet Parenting Style survey were later invited to have their dogs participate in three behavioral tests: The Secure Base Test, a Sociability Test and the Solvable Task. Consistent with the human development literature, results indicated that Pet Parenting Styles did predict patterns of dog behavior and cognition on these tests. On average, dogs with authoritative owners (high expectations, high responsiveness) had the highest rate of secure attachment, were highly social, sensitive to social context and were more persistent and successful on the problem-solving task than dogs with authoritarian owners (high expectations and low responsiveness) and permissive owners (low expectations, low responsiveness). These findings suggest that the quality and style of individual dog-human relationships, including Pet Parenting Style, may be relevant when evaluating and interpreting outcomes of canine cognition research.

One- and Two-Month-Old Dog Puppies Exhibit Behavioural Synchronization with Humans Independently of Familiarity

Behavioural synchronization is a widespread skill in social species as it helps increase group cohesion among individuals. Such a phenomenon is involved in social interactions between conspecifics as well as between individuals from different species. Most importantly, familiarity and affiliation between interacting partners influence the degree of behavioural synchronization they would exhibit with each other. For example, in human-dog dyads, the more a dog is affiliated with its human partner, the more it behaves in a synchronous way with them. However, little is known about the ontogeny of such a behaviour, especially from an interspecific perspective. The aim of the present study was thus to investigate the existence and modalities of activity synchrony, a type of behavioural synchronization, between humans and puppies. To do so, we observed 29 dog puppies interacting with two different humans (familiar and unfamiliar experimenters). Puppy movements and general activity in relation to the human ones were observed. Results evidenced that puppies did exhibit locomotor synchrony with humans, but familiarity did not affect its degree. It is the first time that activity synchrony with human walk is evidenced in puppies, highly suggesting that dogs' ability to behave in synchronization with humans seems to be genetically selected through the process of domestication, while the effect of familiarity on it might develop later during the individual ontogeny.

Human-Dog Relationship during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic forced an abrupt interruption of social contacts and interpersonal affective relationships all over the world, according to national directives. Many considerable inconveniences occurred with important repercussions also on the emotional state of people and their pets. We carried out a national survey to evaluate the human-dog relationship in a social isolation context using an adapted version of Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale, the perception of the dogs' discomfort by their human owners, and the resilience of the dog through the quantification of symptoms, in time of the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results highlighted that the human-dog interaction was similar during quarantine; however, there was lower owner's perception of a dog's cost during the quarantine than before it.

Dog-human behavioral synchronization: family dogs synchronize their behavior with child family members

Research on dog social cognition has received widespread attention. However, the vast majority of this research has focused on dogs' relationships and responsiveness towards adult humans. While little research has considered dog-child interactions from a cognitive perspective, how dogs perceive and socially engage with children is critical to fully understand their interspecific social cognition. In several recent studies, dogs have been shown to exhibit behavioral synchrony, often associated with increased affiliation and social responsiveness, with their adult owners. In the current study, we asked if family dogs would also exhibit behavioral synchrony with child family members. Our findings demonstrated that dogs engaged in all three measured components of behavioral synchrony with their child partner-activity synchrony (p < 0.0001), proximity (p < 0.0001), and orientation (p = 0.0026)-at levels greater than would be expected by chance. The finding that family dogs synchronize their behavior with that of child family members may shed light on how dogs perceive familiar children. Aspects of pet dog responsiveness to human actions previously reported in studies with adult humans appear to generalize to cohabitant children in at least some cases. However, some differences between our study outcomes and those reported in the dog-adult human literature were also observed. Given the prevalence of families with both children and dogs, and the growing popularity of child-focused animal-assisted interventions, knowledge about how dogs respond to the behavior of human children may also help inform and improve safe and successful dog-child interactions.

Dog-assisted therapy in the dental clinic. Part B. Hazards and assessment of potential risks to the health and safety of the dental therapy dog

Background

A dental therapy dog may help anxious patients in the dental clinic overcome their fear and facilitate the completion of necessary dental care. Dental clinic activities are associated with hazards that may pose potential risks to the health and safety of the dental therapy dog.

Objectives

To describe potential hazards associated with risks to health and safety to therapy dogs in dental clinics and to present suggestions for risk minimisation by adopting best practices in dental clinic settings.

Materials and method

Literature searches in Medline, http://Clinicaltrials.gov, and Google Scholar for qualitative and quantitative assessments of occupational hazards and risks in dental clinics, in combination with a review of the reference list of the included studies. Identified hazards and risks were analysed relative to their relevance for the health and welfare of a therapy dog present in a dental clinic setting.

Results

Workplace hazards in the dental clinic that apply to both humans and therapy dogs are allergies, sharps injury, eye injury, stress, rhinitis, hearing impairment, and other hazards. Additional concerns associated with risks for the dental therapy dog are situations involving erratic patient behaviour and threats if the patient is an undisclosed disease carrier. Risks to the health and safety of the dental therapy dog in the clinics are present but are low if the dental clinical staff and dog handlers comply with best practices.

Conclusions

Best practice includes awareness amongst the clinic staff and the dog handler of all potential hazards in the dental clinic and on how to reduce these hazards as well as adverse events that may scare the dental therapy dog. The dental therapy dog team must be specially trained to work in a dental clinic. Each treatment session has to be exclusively tailored to that specific appointment and the individual patient.

Communication in Dogs

Simple Summary

Communication takes place between members of the same species, as well as between heterospecific individuals, such as the long co-habitation process and inter-dependent relationship present in domestic dogs and humans. Dogs engage in visual communication by modifying different parts of their body; in tactile communication; and also in auditory and olfactory communication, with vocalizations and body odours, respectively. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the recent literature about dog communication, describing the different nature of the signals used in conspecific and heterospecific interactions and their communicative meaning. Lateralized dog brain patterns underlying basic neural mechanisms are also discussed, for both conspecific and heterospecific social communication.

Abstract

Dogs have a vast and flexible repertoire of visual, acoustic, and olfactory signals that allow an expressive and fine tuned conspecific and dog–human communication. Dogs use this behavioural repertoire when communicating with humans, employing the same signals used during conspecific interactions, some of which can acquire and carry a different meaning when directed toward humans. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the latest progress made in the study of dog communication, describing the different nature of the signals used in conspecific (dog–dog) and heterospecific (dog–human) interactions and their communicative meaning. Finally, behavioural asymmetries that reflect lateralized neural patterns involved in both dog–dog and dog–human social communication are discussed.