Levels of maternal care in dogs affect adult offspring temperament

Foyer, Pernilla; Wilsson, Erik; Jensen, Per

doi:10.1038/srep19253

Cited by 69 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

105

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Like Foyer et al (21) and Guardini et al (22), we found an association between maternal behavior and young adult behavior in tests of temperament. However, contrary to their results, we found that increased maternal behavior was positively associated with undesirable anxiety-related behaviors and performance in young adult dogs, including high activity when isolated, a short latency to vocalize when presented with a novel object, and perseverative errors and poor performance during a problemsolving task.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…In dogs, high levels of maternal care have been linked to physical and social engagement, aggression, and lower levels of anxiety and fear (21)(22)(23). Furthermore, aspects of young adult temperament, as measured by behavioral observations and questionnaires after 6 mo of age, have routinely been found to affect working dog success (24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

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

Bray

Sammel

Cheney

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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...

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bray

Sammel

Cheney

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We have found that the results of dogs in a very similar type of behavioural test reflect quality and quantity of maternal care received during the first weeks of life (Foyer et al, 2015;2013), which may be related to genetic differences between mothers.…”

Section: Assessing Dog Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 86%

The Genetics of How Dogs Became Our Social Allies

Jensen

Persson

Wright

et al. 2016

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dogs were domesticated from wolves about 15000 years ago and an important selection pressure (intentional or unintentional) has been their ability to communicate and cooperate with us. They show extensive human-directed sociability, which varies within as well as between breeds and which is not shared by ancestral wolves. Hence, dogs are potentially ideal models for studying the genetics of social behaviour. Here we review some recent research carried out by others and us on this subject. We present results showing that recent selection of different breed types can be used as a model system for investigating the genetic architecture of personalities. Furthermore, we review data showing that human-directed social behaviour is significantly related to a small number of genes, which have known connections to human social disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. We suggest that dogs are excellent study subjects for analyzing the evolution and genetics of social behaviour, and can serve as probes for human health and welfare.

show abstract

“…The behaviours documented are specific to the duration, and at times the frequency, of dam presence, nursing, contact and anogenital licking (Rheingold, 1963;Scott and Fuller, 1965;Korda and Brewinska, 1977a,b;Grant, 1987;Guardini et al, 2015;Foyer et al, 2016;Guardini et al, 2016). However, it is difficult to compare the findings of these studies due to inconsistent behavioural definitions and measurements that have been used (Table 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, the way in which contact between dam and puppy has been measured varies across studies. Rheingold (1963) defined contact as any physical contact between the mother and pups, while Foyer et al (2016) recorded contact as the duration of time the mother has elbows on the ground and is in physical contact (excluding the tail and limbs) with at least one puppy within the whelping box. There are also differences in the methodologies employed for quantifying maternal behaviours.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%