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Journal of Veterinary Behavior (2011) 6, 57-101
Abstracts from the 2010 CanineScience Forum in Vienna, Austria
EFFECTS OF GENDER ON PERFORMANCE IN HUMAN–DOGDYADS IN AN AGILITY PARCOURSIfa Aliabadi*, Manuela Wedl, Iris Sch€oberl, Barbara Bauer,Kurt KotrschalKonrad Lorenz Research Station and Department ofBehavioural Biology, University of Vienna, Austria*Corresponding author: [email protected]
If human beings and dogs are social partners, their interac-tions and performance as a team in an operational challengeshould be affected, among other factors, by their personal-ities and gender combination. To explore this idea, data werecollected at a fun-agility competition in Steyr (UpperAustria) in May 2007. A total of 27 human–dog dyads (11male and 16 female owners; 8 male and 19 female dogs,most of them of the dog breed ‘‘Eurasier’’; www.eurasier-club-austria.at) were videotaped during mastering fun-agilityparcours as a team. Saliva samples for the analysis of cortisolwere taken before and after. Questionnaires answered by theowners included the NEO-FFI personality test and anattitude-toward-dog scale. Videos were behavior-codedwith The Observer (Noldus). Principal component analysisserved to extract dimensions from the attitude questionnaireand data were analyzed using GLMs. We found that genderof the owner and the dog as well as the personality of bothpartners affected dyadic performance in the agility parcoursand salivary cortisol. Male owners controlled their dogs moreby holding them (restraining them physically) than femaleowners and male dogs were more controlled by holding thanfemale dogs, independent of owner gender. Human partnersin successfully performing teams praised their dogs more,held (physically restrained) them less, and the dogs in suchteams were closer to their human partners than dogs in lesssuccessfully performing teams. We also found effects ofhuman and dog age, and some relationships with dyadiccortisol. In summary, we found some of the predicteddifferences in dyadic functionality, particularly with regardto human–dog gender combination, but in contrast toexpectation, personalities had no significant influence.
Key words: cooperation; dyadic interactions; human–dogteams
ee front matter � 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
DOGS CANNOT BE DECEIVED BY VIRTUAL REALITY!OBJECT PERMANENCE TASKS ON THE TOUCH SCREENAndr�as P�eter1,*, Friederike Range2, P�eter Pongr�acz11E€otv€os Lor�and University, Department of Ethology,P�azm�any P�eter stny. 1/C, Budapest, H-11172University of Vienna, Department of Cognitive Biology,Althanstraße 14, Wien, A-1090*Corresponding author: [email protected];Phone: 003670 206 5122
The touch-screen procedure has been applied successfullyfor testing dogs’ learning abilities. Experiments demon-strated that dogs are able to classify photographs and tolearn to reason by exclusion with the touch-screen. Theaim of our study was to extend the scope of this procedureto testing dogs’ physical cognitive abilities. Similarly tostudies conducted with human infants, where the teststimuli were presented as a video, we presented dogswith animations, which were the analogies of real worldevents.Our question was whether dogs would solve a task on thetouch-screen in a similar way as they would do in ananalogous task in a real world setup. We chose the objectpermanence paradigm, because it was used extensively ondogs in previous experiments. First, we familiarized dogswith the use of the touch-screen and then presented themwith a moving stimulus, which disappeared ‘‘behind’’ oneof four possible hiding locations. Dogs had to touch thelocation where they had seen the stimulus disappear. In asecond experiment we introduced a short delay between thedisappearance of the target stimulus and the time when thedog was allowed to choose.Our results show that dogs could solve the task when theywere allowed to choose immediately after the disappear-ance of the target stimulus. They could even reliablychoose the correct location when the target stimulus wasmoving on a more complicated course before disappear-ing. However, when a delay of few seconds was intro-duced between the disappearance of the stimulus and therelease of the dog, their performance dropped. In realworld tests, dogs can solve an analogous object perma-nence task even when a delay of multiple minutes isinserted. This leads to the conclusion that, albeit dogslearned to solve a simple version of the task, they did notshow cognitive flexibility, which would have proven that
58 Journal of Veterinary Behavior, Vol 6, No 1, January/February 2011
they used ‘‘true object permanence ability’’ to solve thetask on the touch-screen.
Key words: touch-screen; object permanence; dog
TESTING FOR HUMAN DIRECTED AGGRESSION IN DOGSJoanne A.M. van der Borg1,*, Bonne Beerda1,Monique Ooms1, Adriana Silveira de Souza1, Marjan vanHagen2, Bas Kemp11Adaptation Physiology Group, Department of AnimalSciences, Wageningen University, PO Box 338, 6700 AHWageningen, The Netherlands2The Dutch Kennel Club, Emmalaan 16-18, 1075 AVAmsterdam, The Netherlands*Corresponding author: [email protected]
In western societies like the Netherlands and United Statesthe incidence of dog bites is in the range of 8 to 18 per 1,000people with about 3 of these victims seeking medical help.Behavior tests are used to identify aggressive dogs and expelthese from the breeding population or society, but there areuncertainties regarding the usefulness of such tests. TheDutch Socially Acceptable Behavior (SAB)-test has beenused since 2001 to select against unwanted aggression andfear in specific dog breeds. To evaluate the usefulness oftesting on human directed aggression SAB test results of 345dogs (479 indoor and outdoor test records), were analyzed toassess the reliability, validity and feasibility of the test.Dogs were labelled aggressive when they had at least oneowner-reported bite to human, regardless of the context andthe severity of inflicted wounds, and if the dogs wereconsidered to be aggressive by the judges of the Dutchkennel club as a result of displaying a lunge, snap or bite atleast once during the SAB-test. Aggressive dogs showedsignificantly more threats and attacks than did non-aggressive controls. A principal components analysis ofdetailed observations on 76 dogs grouped bare teeth, snap,bite, growl in one dimension, confirming the test’s capacityto measure an aggressive response.Analysis of 479 test records revealed a sensitivity, speci-ficity and accuracy of 0.33, 0.81 and 0.64, respectively. Thelow sensitivity may be explained, in part, by our decision toclassify dogs as aggressive on the basis of one bite incidentonly, as reported by a dog’s owner, and by a relative weakcapacity of the test to detect specific forms of aggression.Different subtests contributed differently to the provocationof aggression. Typically, attacks by dogs occurred duringsubtests that involved approach and petting with a dummyhand or doll, and in the second half of the SAB test, i.e., inthe absence of the owner. The robustness of the test was in-vestigated primarily by comparing the results on 133 dogswhen they were tested outdoors, which is the common prac-tice, with those obtained indoors. The accuracy decreasedfrom 0.67 to 0.62, but overall the indoor test outcomeswere similar to those found outdoors. Scores for aggression
and fear were significantly higher when dogs were testedfor the first time in the morning than the second time inthe afternoon, suggesting desensitization. Salivary cortisolconcentrations in 20 dogs were not different in samplestaken before and after the test, which suggests that thedogs were not under severe levels of stress.The SAB test allows one to evaluate aggression in dogs, butpresent findings indicate that a considerable portion ofaggressive dogs remain undetected, e.g., those that in practicebehave aggressively in the absence of fear. Recommendationsto increase the test’s usefulness include adding test compo-nents that target different forms of aggression and exploitingmore detailed information on a dog’s behavior during testing.Formulating a risk assessment based on detailed informationinstead of simply producing a pass-fail judgement will facili-tate a purpose specific us of the SAB-test.
Key words: behavior test; human directed aggression;validity; reliability; saliva cortisol
TIMING OF REINFORCEMENT DURING DOG TRAININGClare M. Browne*, Nicola J. Starkey, Mary T. Foster,James S. McEwanSchool of Psychology, University of Waikato, Private Bag3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Research on dog-human communication has demonstratedthat dogs are extremely responsive to human cues such aspointing, eye gazing and vocalizations. Because dogs are soreceptive to such cues, it is reasonable to assume that subtlefeedback from humans has an effect on the efficacy of dogtraining. Timing of reinforcement in the field of dogbehavior has not been researched extensively. Researchon other species has demonstrated that although animalscan learn tasks with delays to reinforcement, longer delaysresult in longer average times to task acquisition andrelatively lower rates of responding. The aim of this studywas to examine owners’ latencies to providing reinforcersfor their dogs’ responses during basic dog training.Video observations were made at three New Zealand dogobedience clubs. Fifteen people volunteered to take part inthis study with their dogs. All participants were members ofbeginner classes and were videoed while training their dogsin class. Behaviors appropriate for examining the timing ofreinforcement required a clearly-definable start and finishpoint, so ‘sit’ and ‘down’ were chosen for analysis. Timeswere measured between the owners’ commands, the dogs’responses, secondary reinforcement (verbal praise), and pri-mary reinforcement (food).Preliminary analysis of data from seven participants showsthat dogs were reinforced for responding correctly to 27% ofcommands. These events were used for timing analysis. Inaddition, the dogs responded correctly but received noreinforcer of any type for 31% of commands, they responded
