Gender Differences in Owners Interacting with Pet Dogs: An Observational Study

Abstract

Many studies show that people form strong affectional bonds with their dogs, treating them like family members or children. The present study investigates differences between women and men owners during interactions with their dogs, in a situation designed to investigate attachment and, thus, to promote emotional and affective responses: the Ainsworth's Strange Situation. Twenty‐five dog owners, 10 men and 15 women, were observed during free interactions with their pets in an adapted version of the ‘strange situation procedure’. Their behaviour towards their pets was videorecorded. Talking to the dog was evaluated together with the occurrence of affiliative and play behaviours. The owner's level of attachment to the dog was assessed using a questionnaire. Women and men differed in the use of verbal communication. Women talked more than men and had a shorter latency in starting talking. Their utterances resembled more closely infant‐directed speech or ‘motherese’. In contrast, there were no clear gender differences in affiliative and play behaviours. Both women and men engaged in play with their dogs and provided physical comfort. No differences emerged in the level of attachment reported by women and men owners in the questionnaire. These data support the hypothesis that the behaviour of modern pet owners towards their dogs is an interspecific parental behaviour, and suggest that behaviours evolved to provide care and comfort to human infants have been co‐opted for interacting with other social partners. The difference in verbal communication between women and men is in agreement with an evolutionary scenario suggesting a greater pre‐disposition in women to use language as a relational tool.

Cross-modal discrimination of human gender by domestic dogs

“…As dogs may rely on different cues to humans when associating objects (Van der Zee, Zulch, & Mills, 2012), it could be that dogs also use different information to categorize human gender. For example, although dogs are perceptually aware of anatomically derived gender-specific cues (formant dispersion and F0) in human voices (Baru, 1975), men and women also use different intonation patterns when speaking to dogs (Prato-Previde et al, 2005). This was also seen in the current study, as the F0 range in the female voices was larger than the male range.…”

“…Rosado, García-Belenguer, León, & Palacio, 2009). While there do not appear to be gender differences in owner attachment levels towards dogs (Prato-Previde et al, 2005), male and female owners do differ in their interaction style with dogs, as men speak to their dogs less frequently (Prato-Previde et al, 2005) and are less likely to perceive their dog as being stressed (Mariti et al, 2012). It is possible that gender-specific behavioural differences may create a need for dogs to categorize men and women in order to adapt their responses appropriately.…”

All my children: The roles of semantic category and phonetic similarity in the misnaming of familiar individuals

“…Although cats were owned by our participants about as often as dogs, they were rarely included in a string of incorrect names (of all of the naming strings that contained a pet's name, only four nondog names were used). Given the scarcity of misnaming episodes involving the names of family pets other than dogs, our data suggest that dogs may be a central part of (at least some) families (in fact, two of the authors, S. A. D. and C. F., have distinct memories of being called the dog's name by their mothers) as human-like members, whereas cats and other pets, although they may be part of the family, are not categorized as Bhuman-like.^Humans often form unique attachments to dogs (Jalongo, 2015;Sable, 2013) and verbally communicate with them (Prato-Previde, Fallani, & Valsecchi, 2006), which may lead to increased frequencies of dogs' names used over other pets.…”

The Short Attachment to Pets Scale (SAPS) for Children and Young People: Development, Psychometric Qualities and Demographic and Health Associations

“…Some studies indicate that pet owners feel close to their pets and search for and enjoy this closeness (Hall et al 2004;Kurdek 2008;Prato-Previde et al 2006). Furthermore, they consider pets to provide a sense of safety, supplying their owners with relief, support, affection, and comfort when it is needed (Allen et al 2002;Geisler 2004;Kurdek 2008;Odendaal and Meintjes 2003).…”