Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves (<i>Canis lupus arctos</i>): the influence of competition for food, age and sex

Cafazzo, Simona; Lazzaroni, Martina; Marshall-Pescini, Sarah

doi:10.7717/peerj.2707

Cited by 29 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(89 reference statements)

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“…Older dogs were more likely to be classified as dominant than younger dogs, in agreement with the literature for both wolves and dogs [22,23,46,47,79]. One-year old dogs had a 50% probability of being classified as dominant, which seems high given their age and amount of experience.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Importantly, the relationships tend to be less strong in larger dog packs and to be more specifically related to the formal dominance style [26,27,45]. Age, sex, leadership and reproductive success have also been found to be related to dominance status in free ranging and/or pet dogs [24,26,[46][47][48][49]. Theoretical models predict that intra-specific dominance, especially when tied to consistent leadership, is only useful in small groups characterized by asymmetric distribution of experience and familiarity with the environment [50,51].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assertive, trainable and older dogs are perceived as more dominant in multi-dog households

2020

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Social dominance is an important and widely used concept, however, different interpretations have led to ambiguity in the scientific literature and in popular science. Even though in ethology dominance is an attribute of dyadic encounters, and not a characteristic of the individual, 'dominance' has often been referred to as a personality trait in animals. Since few studies have specifically examined the link between personality traits and dominance status, we investigated this in dogs living in multi-dog households using a questionnaire, which required owners to specify whether the dog had a dominant or submissive status, and comprised items of both the features of the individual (i.e. personality traits) and previous social experience (interactions with group members and strangers). Four distinct personality factors emerged from 23 behavioural items by principal component analysis, labelled as assertiveness, trainability, intraspecific aggression and independence. Binomial logistic regression was used to examine how the demographic information of the dogs and the personality factors predicted the owner's estimate of the dog' status as dominant or submissive. The personality factor assertiveness accounted for 34% of the variance in dominance status, trainability 5% and dog age contributed 4%. Dogs perceived as dominant scored more highly on the factors assertiveness and trainability, which can help explain why 'dominance' has often been suggested to be a personality trait, rather than a dyad-specific social status according to different traditions in behavioural research. Similar to the 'social dominance' trait in humans, owner ascribed dominance showed a quadratic trajectory in cross-sectional mean change across the lifespan, increasing during adulthood and then maintaining high levels until old age. Overall, our study proposes a multifactorial background of dominance relationships in pet dogs, suggesting that not only previous experience of social interactions between individuals but also age and personality traits influence owner perceived dominance status in multi-dog households.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assertive, trainable and older dogs are perceived as more dominant in multi-dog households

2020

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“…In one study on free-ranging dogs, a sex age graded hierarchy was found, such that males dominate females in each age class, and adults dominate over subadults, and subadults over juveniles . However, sex had no clear effect on dominance in a family pack of captive arctic wolves, although sex-separated linear hierarchies showed a stronger linearity than female-male hierarchies (Cafazzo, Lazzaroni & Marshall-Pescini, 2016). Personality traits might also associate with dominance status.…”

Section: Dominance In Dogs As Rated By Owners Corresponds To Ethologimentioning

confidence: 85%

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

Kubinyi

Wallis

2018

Preprint

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Dominance is well defined in ethology, debated in psychology, and is often unclear among the dog owning public and in the press. However, to date, no study has examined how owners perceive dominance in dogs, and what different behaviours and personality types are used to describe dominant and subordinate individuals. A questionnaire study was launched to investigate the external validity of owner-derived estimates of dominance in dog dyads sharing the same household (N = 1151). According to the owners, dogs rated as dominant (87%) have priority access to resources (resting place, food, and rewards), undertake certain tasks (defend and lead the group, bark more), display dominance (win fights, lick the other's mouth less, and mark over the other's urine), share certain personality traits (smarter, more aggressive and impulsive), and are older than their partner dog (all p < 0.0001). An age-related hypothesis has been suggested to explain dominance in dogs, but we found that dog age did not explain the occurrence of dominance-related behaviours over the owners' estimate of dominance status. Results suggest that owner-derived reports of dominance ranks of dogs living in multi-dog households correspond to ethologically valid behavioural markers of dominance. Size and physical condition were unrelated to the perceived dominance. Surprisingly, in mixed-sex dyads, females were more frequently rated as dominant than males, which might correspond to a higher proportion of neutered females in this subgroup. For future studies that wish to allocate dominance status using owner report, we offer a novel survey.

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“…Studies in wild and captive wolves disagree on what should be considered the natural social and hierarchical structure. While captive wolves and domestic dogs showed heightened agonistic behaviour and a social structure best described by a linear hierarchical model (Cafazzo, Lazzaroni, & Marshall-Pescini, 2016;Cafazzo, Valsecchi, Bonanni, & Natoli, 2010), wild wolves have been described as living in family units, consisting of a breeding pair with their offspring (Gadbois, 2004;Mech, 1999;Packard, 2003). Family compositions suggest a non-linear and more complex but, at the same time, more flexible hierarchical structure (Packard, 2003) with the parents playing the roles of leaders, making group decisions and initiating group movements (Peterson, Jacobs, Drummer, Mech, & Smith, 2002).…”

Section: Evolution Of Social Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

An information-theory approach to geometry for animal groups

Dahl

Ferrando

Zuberbuehler

2019

Preprint

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AbstractOne of the hardest problems in studying animal behaviour is to quantify patterns of social interaction at the group level. Recent technological developments in global positioning system (GPS) devices have opened up new avenues for locating animals with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Likewise, advances in computing power have enabled new levels of data analyses with complex mathematical models to address unresolved problems in animal behaviour, such as the nature of group geometry and the impact of group-level interactions on individuals. Here, we present an information theory-based tool for the analysis of group behaviour. We illustrate its affordances with GPS data collected from a freely interacting pack of 15 Siberian huskies (Canis lupus familiaris). We found that individual freedom in movement decisions was limited to about 4%, while a subject’s location could be predicted with 96% median accuracy by the locations of other group members, a pattern mediated by dominance, kin relations, sex, the relative time of the day and external events, such as feeding. We conclude that information theory-based approaches, coupled with state-of-the-art bio-logging technology, provide a powerful tool for future studies of animal social interactions beyond the dyadic level.

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Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves (Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex

Cited by 29 publications

References 46 publications

Assertive, trainable and older dogs are perceived as more dominant in multi-dog households

Assertive, trainable and older dogs are perceived as more dominant in multi-dog households

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

An information-theory approach to geometry for animal groups

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