The degree of communication between humans and dogs, wolf-dogs and wolfs in association with the genetic background as a model for application to farm animals

Andrea Sommese, M.Sc.

Doctoral thesis

Abstract:

Communication is a fundamental process for every social interaction. Canids are highly communicative and, in this regard, dogs are outstanding. Dogs showed exceptional skills in communicating with people and produce signals to interact with and influence the behavior of their human partner. Most studies that focus on dogs’ visual communicative behavior towards humans usually involve a so-called unsolvable problem/task. In this scenario, the occurrence of dogs' gazing behavior has been interpreted as a request for help. In our first study, we wanted to explore the potential effects of breed and development on dogs’ human-directed communicative behavior in an unsolvable task. We selected a relatively recent breed with a very well documented history, the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, and we compared our results to their parental-breed the German shepherd.Several studies have been carried out to describe the characteristics and the personality of diverse breeds but none have focused on modern breeds like the Czechoslovakian wolfdog. Hence, in our second study, we wanted to offer a behavioral profile for our focal breed and we compared our results with German shepherds and Labrador retrievers as they are commonly kept as pet dogs. The second purpose of this study was to present a cross-country evaluation for dogs from Italy and the Czech Republic. Personality might also modulate gazing behavior in a variety of tasks. Therefore, the third study was carried out to characterize dogs based on their gazing behavior towards humans in an ambiguous situation.With our studies, we support the idea that dogs' capability and predisposition to communicate with humans have been changed through domestication but further research is still needed. Personality and individual behavior also influence the way dogs communicate with their owners and handlers. We suggest investigating more in-depth the effect and the style of the training to which the dogs are exposed

Keywords

Gazing behaviour, Wolfdogs, Impossible task, C-BARQ, Ambigous situation

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 5. 11. 2020

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: prof. Ing. Luděk Bartoš, DrSc.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources

Doctoral programme / field:
Animal Science / General Animal Science