Abstract
Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)
have been submitted to a vast process of artificial selection and to
date, there are hundreds of breeds that differ in their physical and
behavioral features. In addition, dogs possess important skills to
communicate with humans. Previous evidence indicates that those
abilities are related to the domestication process and are modulated by
instrumental learning processes. Very few studies, however, have
evaluated breed differences in the use and learning of interspecific
communicative responses. In Study 1 Retrievers, German Shepherds and
Poodles were compared in the acquisition and extinction of their gaze
toward the human face, in a conflict situation involving food within
sight but out of reach. The groups did not differ in the acquisition of
the response, but throughout the extinction phase Retrievers gazed to
the human significantly more than the other groups. In Study 2, similar
results were obtained in a test without any previous explicit training.
These results suggest that these three major popular breeds differ in
gazing to humans in a communicative situation.
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