Behavioral and Perceptual Differences between Sexes in Dogs: An Overview

Abstract

Simple SummaryWe explore the differences in male and female dogs regarding personality traits as well as cognitive and perceptual processes. Our aim was to explore whether the differences in male and female dogs were affected by the domestication process. The results show that dogs are largely in line with the life-history theories, reflecting the sex differences described in wild animals.AbstractIn this paper, we review the scientific reports of sex-related differences in dogs as compared to the outcomes described for wild animals. Our aim was to explore whether the differences in male and female dogs were affected by the domestication process, in which artificial selection is the main driver. For this purpose, we used information regarding personality traits, cognitive processes, and perception, for which there is a wide theoretical framework in behavioral ecology. Aggressiveness and boldness, described as a behavioral syndrome, were reported as being higher in males than females. Females also seemed more inclined to interspecific social interactions with humans in tasks that require cooperative skills, whereas males appeared more inclined to social play, thus implying different levels of social engagement between the sexes, depending on the context. Studies on cognitive processes underlined a greater flexibility in resorting to a particular navigation strategy in males. Most lateralization studies seem to support the view that males are preferentially left-handed and females are preferentially right-handed. Reports on visual focusing coherently rank females as superior in focusing on single social and physical stimuli. Only male dogs are able to discriminate kin; however, the timing of the olfactory recording in sexes is related to the stimulus relevance. Dogs are largely in line with life-history theories, which indicate that sex differences in dogs are mainly rooted in their biological and evolutionary heritage, remaining unchanged despite artificial selection. In contrast, the higher intraspecific sociability in wild male animals was not replicated in dogs.

Does Functionality Condition the Population Structure and Genetic Diversity of Endangered Dog Breeds under Island Territorial Isolation?

“…Differences in boldness and shyness are acknowledged predictors of performance in working dogs, with bolder animals being the better performers [ 42 ]. Boldness is an individual characteristic providing less aversion to risk or novelty that enables the individual actively seeking out and engaging in social cooperative and competitive interactions [ 43 ]. This mirrors the recently reported opinions of working farm dog handlers, who identified boldness in their dogs as a desirable trait.…”

“…However, female to male ratio inverted in CB, which suggests a certain interest for breeders and owners in the males of the CB breed, which could be presumably linked to their application as guard or shepherding animals. In nature, for males, territorial defense versus access to female success ratio may be balanced by ameliorative reproductive success, whereas females have fewer direct advantages from this ratio; hence, the energy invested in the defense may be detracted by the functions related to the sex-specific behaviors linked to reproduction [ 43 ]. The same authors suggested that male dogs tend to be more social and to engage more in dog/human contact than females, whereas, in cooperative behavior in trying to solve a problem, the opposite trend has been found.…”

“…The same authors suggested that male dogs tend to be more social and to engage more in dog/human contact than females, whereas, in cooperative behavior in trying to solve a problem, the opposite trend has been found. These features may condition breeder preference when the selection criterion is performance for a specific outcome, such as guarding [ 43 ], as already discussed. However, hunters reported no differences between males or females in hunting performance [ 45 ], even if a certain interaction between breed sex conditioning effect was suggested, with male Dachshunds and West Highland White Terriers being found to be significantly more trainable than females of the same breeds [ 46 ].…”

A Retrospective Analysis of Dog–Dog and Dog–Human Cases of Aggression in Northern Italy

“…In the present study, more males were reported for episodes of aggression compared to females. This aspect has been demonstrated in several studies, and it might be explained by the tendency of males to be more competitive and more prone to use confrontation rather than appeasement in social conflict [26,27]. A significant difference in gender distribution was found between the group of dogs aggressive towards humans and the group of dogs aggressive towards other dogs, with a higher number of entire and spayed females in the latter group.…”

Dominance in dogs as rated by owners corresponds to ethologically valid markers of dominance

“…This could be related to the fact that dominant females were more often neutered than dominant males. Previous studies have determined that hormonal activity influences inter-dog aggression (Sherman et al, 1996) and aggression has been found to be more frequent in neutered females compared to intact females and neutered males (Wright & Nesselrote, 1987, Scandurra et al, 2018. Our study has several limitations: (1) We did not measure the dominant behaviour of the dogs, only the dominance perceived by the owner.…”