Effects of maternal investment, temperament, and cognition on guide dog success

Abstract

A continuing debate in studies of social development in both humans and other animals is the extent to which early life experiences affect adult behavior. Also unclear are the relative contributions of cognitive skills ("intelligence") and temperament for successful outcomes. Guide dogs are particularly suited to research on these questions. To succeed as a guide dog, individuals must accomplish complex navigation and decision making without succumbing to distractions and unforeseen obstacles. Faced with these rigorous demands, only ∼70% of dogs that enter training ultimately achieve success. What predicts success as a guide dog? To address these questions, we followed 98 puppies from birth to adulthood. We found that high levels of overall maternal behavior were linked with a higher likelihood of program failure. Furthermore, mothers whose nursing style required greater effort by puppies were more likely to produce successful offspring, whereas mothers whose nursing style required less effort were more likely to produce offspring that failed. In young adults, an inability to solve a multistep task quickly, compounded with high levels of perseveration during the task, was associated with failure. Young adults that were released from the program also appeared more anxious, as indicated by a short latency to vocalize when faced with a novel object task. Our results suggest that both maternal nursing behavior and individual traits of cognition and temperament are associated with guide dog success.guide dogs | nursing style | maternal style | temperament | cognition I t is often assumed that, in both human and nonhuman animals, variation in cognitive abilities contributes to variation in problemsolving skills. However, there remains little consensus about what attributes, exactly, comprise such abilities, because performance is affected not just by variation in general "intelligence" (1) or reasoning ability (e.g., refs. 2, 3) but also by variation in more affective attributes, such as impulse control, neophobia, motivation, and exploration (e.g., refs. 4-6).Similarly, the long-term effects of early life experiences remain poorly understood. There is now considerable evidence that early exposure to stress has lasting effects on physiology [e.g., humans (refs. 7-9), rodents (refs. 10, 11), rhesus macaques (ref.12 and reviewed in ref. 13)]. In rhesus macaques, mothering style is correlated with offspring cortisol and serotonin levels (14, 15), and in baboons, the male offspring of subordinate mothers exhibit higher glucocorticoid levels than the offspring of more dominant mothers (16). In rodents, experiences across the early weeks of life have lasting implications for later temperament measures, such as stress reactivity and fear (17, 18), and cognitive skills, such as spatial memory (19). Similar effects are observed in children, where negative life events in childhood are linked to later reductions in adolescent self-control (20).Guide dogs are particularly suited to research on the longterm effects of early experi...

A review of maternal behaviour in dogs and potential areas for further research

“…Ventral nursing (mother lying on stomach) was associated with more puppies released from the program, whereas vertical nursing (mother sitting or standing position) were related to program success (Bray et al . ). When mothers nursed ventrally their static position and the proximity of the nipples to the puppies' faces reduced the level of effort to suckle.…”

“…, Bray et al . , ). In free‐roaming dogs, as well as in several of the wild canids, maternal care starts to be replaced by pack care (with the help of adult female and male dogs related to the puppies) at around 3 to 4 weeks.…”

“…Bray et al . () reported that puppies raised by bitches with high scores regarding maternal care, displayed higher activity when isolated, a short latency before vocalising when presented with a novel object, and poor performance and perseverance during a problem‐solving task, leading to a failure to be selected for use as guide dogs.…”

“…, Bray et al . , ); Labrador and golden retriever (Bray et al . , ); mixed dog breeds (Guardini et al .…”

“…Nevertheless, to our knowledge, characterisation of maternal behaviour by breed has not been studied. Breeds that have been used to study maternal behaviour include beagle (Rheingold 1963, Scott & Fuller 1965, Grant 1987, Guardini et al 2016, Orfanou et al 2016; cocker spaniel (Rheingold 1963, Scott & Fuller 1965; German shepherd dog (Foyer et al 2016, Bray et al 2017a, 2017b; Labrador and golden retriever (Bray et al 2017a(Bray et al , 2017b; mixed dog breeds (Guardini et al and Hart 1979;Markwell & Thorne 1987;Grant 1987). The number of investigations aiming to characterise maternal care in domestic dogs during the first postpartum weeks is limited (Scott & Marston 1950;James 1952;Bleicher 1962;Freak, 1962, Rheingold 1963.…”