Although dogs have a special place in human history as the first domesticated species and play important roles in many cultures around the world, their role in scientific studies has been relatively recent. With a few notable exceptions (e.g., Darwin, Pavlov, Scott & Fuller), domestic dogs were not commonly the subject of rigorous scientific investigation of behavior until the late 1990s. While the number of canine science studies has increased dramatically over the last 20 years, most research groups are limited in the inferences they can draw due to the relatively small sample sizes used along with the exceptional diversity observed in dogs (e.g., breed, geographic location, experience). To this end, we introduce the ManyDogs Project, an international consortium of researchers interested in taking a big team science approach to understanding canine behavioral science. We begin by discussing why studying dogs provides valuable insights into behavior and cognition, evolutionary processes, human health, and applications for animal welfare. We then highlight other big team science projects that have previously been conducted in canine science and emphasize the benefits of our approach. Finally, we introduce the ManyDogs Project and our mission: 1) replicating important findings, 2) investigating moderators that need a large sample size such as breed differences, 3) reaching methodological consensus, 4) investigating cross-cultural differences, and finally 5) setting a standard for replication studies in general. In doing so, we hope to address previous limitations in individual lab studies and previous big team science frameworks to deepen our understanding of canine behavior and cognition.
To promote collaboration across canine science, address reproducibility issues, and advance open science practices within animal cognition, we have launched the ManyDogs consortium, modeled on similar ManyX projects in other fields. We aimed to create a collaborative network that (a) uses large, diverse samples to investigate and replicate findings, (b) promotes open science practices of preregistering hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans, (c) investigates the influence of differences across populations and breeds, and (d) examines how different research methods and testing environments influence the robustness of results. Our first study combines a phenomenon that appears to be highly robust, dogs’ ability to follow human pointing, with a question that remains controversial: do dogs interpret pointing as an informative gesture, as an imperative command, or as a simple associative cue? We collected preliminary data (N = 61) from a single laboratory on two conditions of a 2-alternative object choice task: (1) Ostensive (experimenter pointed to a baited cup after making eye-contact and saying the dog’s name); (2) Non-ostensive (experimenter pointed to a baited cup without making eye-contact or saying the dog’s name). Dogs followed the ostensive point, but not the non-ostensive point, significantly more often than expected by chance. Preliminary results also provided suggestive evidence for variability in point-following across dog breeds. The next phase is the global participation stage of the project. We propose to replicate this protocol in a large and diverse sample of research sites, simultaneously assessing replicability between labs and further investigating the question of dogs’ point-following comprehension.
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