Why do some dogs immediately turn to their owner for help when faced with a problem, while others keep trying to solve it themselves?
New research suggests the answer may lie in a combination of a dog’s original breed function, whether it comes from working or show lines, and its experience of regular sport or work.
Researchers from ELTE Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest studied 137 purebred dogs from 49 breeds to investigate the factors influencing dogs’ dependence on humans. The research, published in BMC Biology, looked specifically at dogs from breeds originally selected either to work cooperatively with people or to work more independently.
The dogs were also divided according to whether they came from working or show breeding lines and whether they regularly participated in sport or working activities.
Who asks humans for help?
One part of the experiment involved an “unsolvable task”. Dogs were initially taught that they could retrieve a food reward from a transparent container. During the final trial, however, the container was secured so the dog could see the food but could no longer reach it.
Researchers then examined behaviours including whether dogs looked back towards their owner, alternated their gaze between the owner and container, and how persistent they were in trying to solve the problem.
Dogs from cooperative breeds looked back towards their owners significantly more frequently than dogs from breeds historically selected to work independently. They also showed more gaze alternation between the problem and the human.
The researchers suggest this could reflect the jobs for which different breeds were originally developed. Cooperative breeds were selected to work under the guidance and control of a handler, while independent breeds often needed to make decisions and solve problems without continual human direction.
But breed function wasn’t the whole story.
Dogs from show lines that did not regularly work or participate in sport looked back towards humans the most when faced with the impossible task. Meanwhile, dogs regularly involved in sport looked back for shorter periods than non-working dogs.
Regular activity also appeared to be associated with persistence. Non-working dogs gave up on the task sooner than working dogs, while dogs with no training gave up sooner than those receiving regular training.
What happened when owners left?
The researchers also conducted a separation test in which each dog was left alone in the testing room for three minutes.
Here, breeding line again appeared to matter. Dogs from show lines whined more than dogs from working lines. Barking differed according to both breed type and breeding line, with working-line dogs from independent breeds barking more than their show-line counterparts.
The researchers note that whining is often associated with fear or anxiety during separation, while barking can be associated with frustration. However, dogs whose owners had reported severe separation-related problems were deliberately excluded from the study, so the findings should not be interpreted as showing that show-line dogs necessarily suffer from separation anxiety.
Genetics and experience both matter
The findings suggest that dogs’ relationships with humans cannot necessarily be explained simply by breed.
The researchers propose that human dependency may have been shaped at several levels – first through selection for breeds that worked either cooperatively or independently with humans, and subsequently through the development of different working and show lines within breeds.
Importantly, those inherited tendencies may then be modified by a dog’s experiences.
Regular training, sport and working activity appeared capable of altering some of the behavioural differences associated with breeding line. The authors suggest that sport requiring independent work could reduce human dependency in show-line dogs, while training and sport involving working-line dogs could potentially strengthen their reliance on communication with their owner.
The study does have limitations. Only small numbers of individual dogs represented each breed and 17 different sports were grouped together, meaning the researchers could not investigate whether particular activities had different effects. Information about breeding line and sporting activity also relied partly on information supplied by owners and breeders.
Nevertheless, the findings add an interesting dimension to our understanding of canine behaviour: the dog we see today may reflect not only generations of selection for a particular job, but more recent breeding choices and the training, sport and experiences we provide throughout its life.
