Dogs follow friends not leaders, and look where robots point

[minkee]

No really, someone checked!

First link is to an article from a study that showed that feral dogs are more likely to follow the dog with the most friends, rather than an 'alpha'. http://www.livescience.com/40453-dogs-f ... lphas.html The study itself is linked in the article, but you have to pay to see it http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7210000783

Second study is so silly I had to share it Who thinks that this would be the best possible thing they could research? https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dog ... ocial-cues "Dogs pick up on robot's social cues". One interesting part, though, is that they only 'read' the robots if a human had interacted with them like it was a human first.

[ClareMarsh]

Having done captive wolves, wild wolves and now feral dogs is it ever going to occur to someone that studying domestic dog "packs" might be the most useful data

It is interesting though, I definitely see with Ted and dogs that we meet regularly that he has bonded with that you get co-operative behaviour, for e.g. his mate Jack barking for all he was worth with Ted even though he had no idea what Ted was barking at (a carrier bag blowing in a tree ). This is a relationship that started out with Jack not really wanting anything to do with Ted, including snarking at him a bit which with careful management has led to Jack running up excitedly to greet Ted, so they have built a relationship so I can see how the dog who can make friends successfully will have more dogs around it.

[Nettle]

Having done captive wolves, wild wolves and now feral dogs is it ever going to occur to someone that studying domestic dog "packs" might be the most useful data

My thoughts too! And they are so easy to study. But obviously not as glamorous.

I am waiting eagerly for the first scientists to clock that hounds are kept and worked in packs, and their behaviour knocks most of the theories into a cocked hat. There are over 300 registered packs of hounds in UK and to the best of my knowledge no research has been conducted on any of them.

[minkee]

But there's so much other, more worthwhile studies to be done - like that "mice don't prefer one painting over another" study

[jacksdad]

Having done captive wolves, wild wolves and now feral dogs is it ever going to occur to someone that studying domestic dog "packs" might be the most useful data

My thoughts too! And they are so easy to study. But obviously not as glamorous.

I am waiting eagerly for the first scientists to clock that hounds are kept and worked in packs, and their behaviour knocks most of the theories into a cocked hat. There are over 300 registered packs of hounds in UK and to the best of my knowledge no research has been conducted on any of them.

If I had to guess.....science is still not thinking of living with us humans as the normal habitat for dogs. so they look to the wolves or feral dogs or wild dogs to try and understand dogs without human intervention. which does truly have some value. BUT, dogs as we know them to day, they are created to live with us and live with other dogs while living with us. So, I would submit that one or more dogs living with human supervision/intervention is a natural situation for dogs and to better understand dogs...study dogs in their primarily natural situation, living and/or along side of us with us, and enter-acting with us.

[Nettle]

The question I would like answered - which I doubt will be found out for a long time yet - is why in hell did domestic animals throw their lot in with humans to begin with? It's been a rubbish deal for most of them.

[JudyN]

The question I would like answered - which I doubt will be found out for a long time yet - is why in hell did domestic animals throw their lot in with humans to begin with? It's been a rubbish deal for most of them.

Rubbish could be the key word there But the question is backwards in a way - they are only domestic because they threw their lot in with us, and the key must be reproductive success.

Think of the bears that become a nuisance when they encroach on human-inhabited properties... now, if just a few of these happened to be friendly (which probably equates to brave and/or stupid), how long would it be before the friendlier cubs were made pets of, and then bred from - selectively of course, as a fair few of the first generations would want to rip your head off. Before long, we have malleable, trainable, cute bears

As regards studies of dogs vs wolves/wild dogs: studying dogs in a human environment would be far more complex, as the human interactions would have a HUGE impact on their behaviour. You couldn't even say if sitting is a 'natural' position for a dog - dogs who would never sit normally may have been trained to do it as a way of getting anything (e.g. NILIF). Genetic variation could be an issue too, though less in, say, a pack of foxhounds than in an average multi-dog household.

[Nettle]

What I didn't say well enough was - if you look at the treatment of domestic animals in most human societies including what we are pleased to think of as the developed world, they are horribly maltreated for the most part.

[jacksdad]

As regards studies of dogs vs wolves/wild dogs: studying dogs in a human environment would be far more complex....

I agree it would be complex...... but i still submit it is the natural state for dogs and thus should be studied in that context.

dogs in a human environment isn't limited to dog living as pets in our homes, it is my understanding most dogs world wide live that way. Dog in a human environment would range from being in our home living as pets, to being a 100% outdoor farm dog working to protect a flock, to simply being a village dogs living with people but not "owned" or working for people to list just a couple of examples.

So absolutely it would be complex, but that is their natural state in my opinion.

[ClareMarsh]

But there's so much other, more worthwhile studies to be done - like that "mice don't prefer one painting over another" study

I found myself quite fascinated

[bendog]

The question I would like answered - which I doubt will be found out for a long time yet - is why in hell did domestic animals throw their lot in with humans to begin with? It's been a rubbish deal for most of them.

From a genetic point of view dogs have actually done fantastically well.

From a welfare/behaviour point of view, yes, there are issues! But fact is there are a hell of a lot more dogs in the world than there are wolves. So that is a fairly big evolutionary success. So much so that in many areas we are having to limit them from breeding (spay, neuter, etc)

I don't know enough about domestic livestock evolution to really comment but I would guess that they were "domesticated" in a more human driven way through farming etc than dogs (if we are assuming dogs "domesticated themselves" according to flight distance etc type theories)