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76 Journal of Veterinary Behavior, Vol 6, No 1, January/February 2011
an off-leash area (10.4%) rated playing fetch games (c2 514.1, P 5 0.003) and a long-lasting stay (c2 5 11.0, P 50.012) more often as important risk factors. To satisfy dogowners, an off-leash area should provide sufficient space,water and hygienic conditions. To avoid escalation of con-flicts, careful attention to dog behavior during fetch gamesand long-lasting stays is recommended.
Key words: off-leash area; dog injury; aggression
DOGS’ (CANIS FAMILIARIS) ATTENTION TOWARDHUMANS: DOES IT DEPEND ON THE RELATIONSHIP?Lisa Horn*, Ludwig Huber, Friederike RangeDepartment of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna,Austria*Corresponding author: [email protected]
The ability to pay attention to other individuals is of keyimportance for all social interactions. So far, domesticdogs (Canis familiaris) have been shown to not only attendto the actions of conspecifics, but also to the actions of hu-man demonstrators – a fact that allows them to learn so-cially from humans. But a question that still remains tobe answered is how much the intensity of their attentiontowards humans depends on the identity of the humandemonstrator, and their relationship and familiarity withthem.Here, we investigated dogs’ attention towards humans thatwere differently familiar and had different relationshipswith the dog in an experimental situation, in which thedogs were not explicitly encouraged to watch the demon-stration. In two experiments, dogs could observe a humandemonstrator performing three different actions: lookingat a box, touching a box, and pretending to search withina box.In Experiment 1, we compared dogs’ attention toward theirowners with their attention towards an unfamiliarexperimenter. We found that they paid significantly moreattention to their owners, independent of the sequence, inwhich dogs observed the two demonstrations. In Experi-ment 2, a new group of dogs could observe two familiarfamily members and an unfamiliar experimenter. Like inExperiment 1, dogs paid least attention to the unfamiliarperson. The amount of attention paid to the two familymembers, however, strongly depended on the dogs’ rela-tionships with the family members – dogs only paid atten-tion differently from the unfamiliar experimenter to thosefamily members that were responsible for them.The results of this study are important not only forour understanding of how the dog-owner relationshipinfluences the performance of dogs, but also for otherexperimental studies on dogs (e.g., social learning exper-iments). They clearly show that the duration of attention,
which is often relevant for comprehending a task, dependsmore on the relationship between dog and human than onthe familiarity.
Key words: dogs; attention; dog-human relationship
ASSOCIATION BETWEEN GENE POLYMORPHISMS ANDBEHAVIORAL PHENOTYPES IN THE JAPANESE AKITA DOGA. Konno1,2,*, M. Inoue-Murayama3, T. Hasegawa11Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Sciences, TheUniversity of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo,153-8902, Japan2Japan Society for the Promotion of Science3Wildlife Research Center, Kyoto University, 2-24Tanaka-Sekiden-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8203, Japan*Corresponding author: [email protected];Phone: 181 3-5454-6709
Recent advances in genomics have been promoting theexploration of candidate genes related to behavioral traitsin humans and other animals. Here, we focus on theJapanese Akita, which is a dog native to Japan. Thegenetic constitution of this dog have been shown to bedistant from many European breeds. In addition, there is awide variation of individual differences in terms of‘‘personality’’ as well as physical features (e.g., coatcolors) within the breed. This provides us an opportunityto explore the links between the genotypes and pheno-types, which remain unclear, especially in native Asiandogs. To clarify the genetic diversity of the Akita dog, wecollected 171 DNA samples and examined the allelefrequencies of gene polymorphisms related to neurotrans-mitters and sexual hormones. We also conducted a ques-tionnaire survey and interviews to owners to capture‘‘personality’’ of individual dogs. These tests are aimedat assessing five personality traits (aggressiveness, socia-bility, neuroticism, curiosity, and distractibility) in dogs.Results indicated high genetic diversity in dopaminereceptor D4 gene, serotonin receptor 1A gene, andandrogen receptor gene (AR). Of special interest is thefinding that allele frequencies of AR varied according tocoat colors, that is, individuals with red coats had thelong type allele more frequently than those with brindledcoats. Additionally, our personality tests revealed that redcolor Akita dogs were less ‘‘nervous’’ compared to brin-dled colors. These findings suggest that some aspects ofpersonality traits in the Akita dog might be partly medi-ated through the gene polymorphisms of androgen recep-tor. Further studies of native Asian dogs may reveal thepotential relationships between the genotypes and pheno-types relevant to domestication processes from wolf todogs.
Key words: gene polymorphisms; personality; JapaneseAkita dog; androgen receptor; behavior
