Do dogs rescue their owners from a stressful situation? A behavioral and physiological assessment

Abstract

Rescue behavior is considered a type of pro-social response, defined as a voluntary action directed to benefit another individual who is in a stressful or dangerous situation. In two experiments, we investigated whether dogs would rescue their owners when the person was trapped inside a wooden box and emitted clear signs of stress. The performance of these dogs was compared against that of a control group in which the owners remained calm while trapped. In addition, to assess if training modulated this behavior, we tested a group of dogs from the military trained in search and rescue tasks (Experiment 1). Results showed that dogs opened the box more frequently when the owner pretended to be stressed than when calm. Training shortened latencies to open the door but not the frequency of the behavior. In Experiment 2, we investigated if emotional contagion could be a possible mechanism underlying dogs' rescue responses by measuring dogs' behavior, heart rate, and saliva cortisol level in the stressed and calm conditions, and also controlled for obedience by having the calm owners call their pets while trapped. We replicated the findings of Experiment 1 as more dogs opened the door in the stressed owner condition than in the calm condition. In addition, we observed an increase in heart rate across trials in the stressed condition and a decrease across trials in the calm condition, but no differences in cortisol levels or stress-related behaviors between conditions. In brief, we found evidence that approximately half of the dogs without previous training showed spontaneous rescue behaviors directed to their owners. Neither was this behavior motivated by obedience nor by the motivation to reestablish social contact with the owner. We conclude that emotional contagion is a plausible mechanism underlying dogs' rescue behavior in the present protocol.

Pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) release their trapped and distressed owners: Individual variation and evidence of emotional contagion

“…Moreover, an average of eighteen dogs opened the apparatus in each of the three successive tests, yet only twenty-four dogs ever opened. Had each dog been tested in only one condition as in Sanford [36] and Carballo [37], the findings of the present study would primarily reflect the test condition assignments of these twenty-four task-capable dogs rather than any differences in the test conditions.…”

“…Carballo et al [37] found that dogs in the experimental group released their owners more readily and faster than did dogs in the control group, but these findings were limited by uncontrolled variables. Most notably, in the unscripted experimental condition owners were allowed to use gestures and vocal commands other than calling to the dog to elicit opening.…”

“…In the experimental condition, the owner pretended to cry and in the control condition, the owner hummed. More recently, Carballo et al [37] tested whether dogs would release their seemingly distressed owners from a wooden box. In each of two experiments, owners assigned to the experimental condition were asked to convey distress in a naturalistic manner.…”

“…Evidence that the owner's distress increased the stress of the dog in Carballo's [37] and Sanford's experiments [36] was inconsistent. Therefore, it remains unclear whether emotional contagion leads to rescue behavior in dogs.…”

“…Given that Sanford [36] and Carballo [37] did not control for task ability, it remains unclear whether dogs prosocially rescue their owners. Moreover, these studies deployed between-subjects designs and neither study assessed whether the dog understood how to open the door.…”