Ontogeny's impacts on human–dog communication

The domestication hypothesis for dogs' skills with human communication: a response to Udell et al. (2008) and Wynne et al. (2008)

“…Moreover, experiments 2 and 3, which Wynne et al (2008) did not discuss in their commentary, showed the same overall result: 6-week-old puppies did not differ from adult dogs in the comprehension of distal pointing cues. Pooling the results on following pointing cues from these last two experiments and comparing 6-week-old puppies to adult dogs showed no age effect (independent sample t test: t 78 ¼ 1.756, P ¼ 0.083), and indeed the puppies were numerically higher (mean correct choices: 6-week-olds: 5.06; adults: 4.54).…”

“…Moreover, Riedel et al (2008) conducted two additional studies demonstrating that dog puppies are not simply attracted to the hand of the experimenter but actually understand the communicative nature of the gesture across age groups. Wynne et al (2008) raised two concerns regarding this study. First, they questioned the conclusion that age does not affect dogs' comprehension of pointing in a major way, attributing the lack of an age effect to a lack of statistical power.…”

“…First, Wynne et al (2008) reanalysed Riedel et al's (2008) data and, after removing the control condition from the factorial analyses, found a stronger age effect than was originally reported. Their justification for removing the control condition was that age would not have affected the control condition in the same way as the experimental conditions, and so its inclusion may have lowered the dogs' overall performance.…”

“…We also present a test of shelter dogs naïve to cognitive testing to examine whether it is the case that shelter dogs are less skilled at using human communicative cues than other groups of dogs. Finally, we directly rebut the critique of Wynne et al (2008) and argue that there remains no evidence of significant differences in performance between dogs of different ages in their use of human communicative cues. We conclude that the domestication hypothesis remains the best explanation for dogs' special skills for communicating with humans.…”

“…Specifically they found that wolves were more skilled than shelter dogs and pet dogs tested outdoors, and equally as skilled as pet dogs tested indoors. In a second study, Wynne et al (2008) critiqued an experiment by Riedel et al (2008) that examined the use of human communicative cues by dog puppies. Riedel and colleagues reported a series of three studies showing that domestic dog puppies comprehended a human pointing gesture as early as 6 weeks of age.…”