Development of the attachment bond in guide dogs

Valsecchi, Paola; Previde, Emanuela Prato; Accorsi, Pier Attilio; Fallani, Gaia

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2009.12.012

Cited by 47 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…If guide dogs are not sensitive to the impaired status of their unsighted owner (Gaunet 2008), we would expect them to prefer the owner to the unfamiliar experimenter. On the other hand, we did not expect a preference towards the trainer in guide dogs still living in the kennel, since they do not have such a close relationship with him/her as the other dogs which daily share most of their time with their owner (Valsecchi et al 2010). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Guide dogs are interesting subjects for investigating developmental aspects of dog-human communication as they face changes in living conditions, environmental stimuli and human reference figures three times in their life: (1) they live within a puppy-walker's family during the first year of their life; (2) they go to the guide dog school to start their training, which lasts 6-8 months and is carried out by a single trainer, and during this period, they are housed in kennels; and (3) at the end of training, guide dogs are assigned to blind people with whom they live the rest of their life. Interestingly, it has been shown that, although there may be some differences in intensity, they form an attachment bond with all the three reference figures: the puppy walker, the trainer and the blind owner (Fallani et al 2006;Valsecchi et al 2010). Assuming that at 12 months of age, when dogs leave the puppy walker's house to enter the school, dogs have already developed gazing behaviour towards humans (Passalacqua et al 2011), and considering that after years of service with blind owners, guide dogs are comparable to pet dogs in the expression of gazing (Gaunet 2008), it is interesting to investigate whether and to what extent this behaviour is affected by a 6-8 month period of life (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Guide dogs as a model for investigating the effect of life experience and training on gazing behaviour

et al. 2015

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The present study aimed at evaluating possible behavioural differences between guide dogs living in a kennel and interacting with a trainer and those living in a house and interacting with a blind person and their family, when they are faced with an unsolvable task. Fifty-two Labrador retrievers were tested: 13 Trained Guide dogs at the end of their training programme and 11 Working Guide dogs that had been living with their blind owner for at least 1 year. Two control groups of Labrador retrievers were also tested: 14 Young Untrained dogs of the same age as the Trained Guide and 14 Old Untrained dogs of the same age as the Working Guide dogs. Results showed that the Trained Guide dogs gazed towards the owner or the stranger for less time and with a higher latency and spent more time interacting with the experimental apparatus than the other three groups, which all behaved similarly. None of the groups tested showed preferences in gazing towards the stranger or the owner. Together, the results suggest that at the end of their training programme, guide dogs are less prone to engage in human-directed gazing behaviour and more likely to act independently when facing an unsolvable task. Conversely, guide dogs that have been living with a blind person (and their family) for 1 year behave like pet dogs. These findings indicate that guide dogs' gazing towards humans is favoured by living in close proximity with people and by interacting with them.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Guide dogs as a model for investigating the effect of life experience and training on gazing behaviour

et al. 2015

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“…Where researchers have included puppy raisers in their studies, this has tended to be as a source of information about the animal. For example, Valscchi et al [6] investigated attachment between guide dogs in training and their raisers. However, the focus was on the dog’s attachment to the human, rather than the human raiser’s attachment to the animal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Experience of Being a Guide Dog Puppy Raiser Volunteer: A Longitudinal Qualitative Collective Case Study

Chur‐Hansen

Werner

McGuiness

et al. 2014

Animals

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Simple SummaryGuide dogs are important service animals. They cannot be trained without the input of volunteer puppy raisers, who serve as custodians for the animals for around 12 months. To date very little research has considered the experience of being a guide dog puppy raiser, including the costs and benefits to psychological, physical and social health. In this study one litter of puppies and their raisers were followed from before the animal arrived until one year had passed. Overall, less positive experiences were reported than more negative ones. This has implications for the organisations that seek volunteers to raise service animals.AbstractThere are no published studies that consider the experiences of guide dog puppy raisers. As these people are volunteers, their continued willingness to participate in the training of dogs for assisting the vision impaired and blind is essential for the viability of guide dog schools around the world. Using a qualitative, longitudinal methodology, data were collected from nine guide dog puppy raisers at four time points: before receiving the puppy, one week, then three months after the puppy arrived, and 13 months after the puppy arrived (at which time all puppies had left the raisers). Participants reported more challenges than benefits in raising the puppies. Volunteering to be a guide dog puppy raiser may not be the pleasant experience that is anticipated when community members first offer their services. Understanding what it is like to be a puppy raiser and working towards ways in which to address problems is essential, given that, without volunteers to train and care for puppies, vision impaired and blind people would not have access to guide dogs.

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“…Dogs are able to develop individual attachment relationship with humans even in adulthood (Gácsi, Topál, Miklósi, Dóka, & Csányi, 2001;Valsecchi, Previde, Accorsi, & Fallani, 2010), follow referential pointing gestures provided by humans (Kaminski, Bräuer, Call, & Tomasello, 2009;Soproni, Miklósi, Topál, & Csányi, 2002), are capable of social referencing (Merola, Prato-Previde, & Marshall-Pescini, 2012) as well as have different personalities resembling human personality types (Gosling, Kwan, & John, 2003;Turcsán, Range, Virányi, Miklósi, & Kubinyi, 2012). For the current study it is especially important to point out that dogs can successfully communicate and cooperate with humans that is they show social behaviours that humans can easily understand without massive prior learning (dogs' showing behaviour: Miklósi, Polgárdi, Topál, & Csányi, 2000; children recognise emotional content of dog barks: Pongrácz, Molnár, Dóka, & Miklósi, 2011; disabled people recognise assistance dogs' conflict behaviour: Gácsi, Szakadát, & Miklósi, 2013;similarities in the emotion processing at the neural level in dogs and humans: , and most importantly, dog owners tend to attribute complex emotions to their pets (secondary emotions: Morris, Doe, & Godsell, 2008;guilt: Hecht, Miklósi, & Gácsi, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans attribute emotions to a robot that shows simple behavioural patterns borrowed from dog behaviour

Gácsi

Kis

Faragó

et al. 2016

Computers in Human Behavior

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In social robotics it has been a crucial issue to determine the minimal set of relevant behaviour actions that humans interpret as social competencies. As a potential alternative of mimicking human abilities, it has been proposed to use a non-human animal, the dog as a natural model for developing simple, non-linguistic emotional expressions for non-humanoid social robots. In the present study human participants were presented with short video sequences in which a PeopleBot robot and a dog displayed behaviours that corresponded to five emotional states (joy, fear, anger, sadness, and neutral) in a neutral environment. The actions of the robot were developed on the basis of dog expressive behaviours that had been described in previous studies of dog-human interactions. In their answers to open-ended questions, participants spontaneously attributed emotional states to both the robot and the dog.They could also successfully match all dog videos and all robot videos with the correct emotional state. We conclude that our bottom up approach (starting from a simpler animal signalling system, rather than decomposing complex human signalling systems) can be used as a promising model for developing believable and easily recognisable emotional displays for non-humanoid social robots. Highlights:Humans spontaneously attribute emotions to an ethologically inspired robot 2 Dog emotional videos prime the attribution of emotions to robot videos Participants were able to match both dog and robot videos to the corresponding emotions Experience with dogs does not help identify dog and robot emotions

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Development of the attachment bond in guide dogs

Cited by 47 publications

References 21 publications

Guide dogs as a model for investigating the effect of life experience and training on gazing behaviour

Guide dogs as a model for investigating the effect of life experience and training on gazing behaviour

The Experience of Being a Guide Dog Puppy Raiser Volunteer: A Longitudinal Qualitative Collective Case Study

Humans attribute emotions to a robot that shows simple behavioural patterns borrowed from dog behaviour

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