Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jul 23;13(14):2390.
doi: 10.3390/ani13142390.

Factors Contributing to Successful Spontaneous Dog-Human Cooperation

Melitta Csepregi  1   2   3 , Márta Gácsi  1   2
Affiliations

Factors Contributing to Successful Spontaneous Dog-Human Cooperation

Melitta Csepregi et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Dogs' ability to cooperate with humans is widely acknowledged, but the factors influencing their spontaneous cooperative tendencies are largely unknown. We investigated whether breed function, training experience, and owner-reported social motivation level contribute to spontaneous dog-owner cooperation. Family dogs (N = 100) of three breed groups (non-working dogs, cooperative/independent working breeds) with various training experiences were tested in an 'out-of-reach' task with their owners as their partners, who never directly asked for help during the test. We measured dogs' behaviour along three main components of successful cooperation: paying attention, understanding the problem, and willingness to cooperate. Breed groups had no significant effect on dogs' behaviour. No factor was associated with the behavioural variables related to not understanding the task. Dogs with high training levels and high social motivation showed more attention-related behaviours and were more likely to help the owner (training level and social motivation were not correlated with each other). Our results highlight the importance of training experience and social motivation in dogs' attentiveness and spontaneous cooperativity. This also points to the need for careful sample balancing and experimental procedures that do not rely on specific trained skills.

Keywords: cooperation; dog; dog–human interaction.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Illustration of the rooms where the experiment was carried out. The blue lines represent doors.
Figure 2
Figure 2
A descriptive breakdown of the percentage of all (N = 100) dogs showing attention and cooperation-related behaviours.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Percentage of time spent orienting towards the owner across the different training levels. The dots represent individual data points. (**: p < 0.01).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Percentage of time spent close to the owner by the two social motivation groups. (**: p < 0.01). The different shapes show the three training levels as individual data points within the social motivation groups.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Percentage of dogs in the three breed groups standing at the door leading to the target room for at least three consecutive seconds during the test phase, while the owner was not nearby.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The relative frequency of gaze alternations between the owner and the key across the different training levels. (*: p < 0.05; ***: p < 0.001).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Percentage of subjects manipulating the key at the different social motivation levels. (*: p < 0.05).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Brosnan S.F., de Waal F.B. A proximate perspective on reciprocal altruism. Hum. Nat. 2002;13:129–152. doi: 10.1007/s12110-002-1017-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Naderi S., Miklósi Á., Dóka A., Csányi V. Co-operative interactions between blind persons and their dogs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 2001;74:59–80. doi: 10.1016/S0168-1591(01)00152-6. - DOI
    1. Gácsi M., Győri B., Virányi Z., Kubinyi E., Range F., Belényi B., Miklósi Á. Explaining Dog Wolf Differences in Utilizing Human Pointing Gestures: Selection for Synergistic Shifts in the Development of Some Social Skills. PLoS ONE. 2009;4:e6584. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006584. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pongrácz P. The Social Dog. Academic Press; Cambridge, MA, USA: 2014. Social learning in dogs; pp. 249–293.
    1. Lakatos G., Gácsi M., Topál J., Miklósi Á. Comprehension and utilisation of pointing gestures and gazing in dog–human communication in relatively complex situations. Anim. Cogn. 2012;15:201–213. doi: 10.1007/s10071-011-0446-x. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources