Personality, social behavior, and cortisol in dogs visiting a dog park

Carrier, Lydia Ottenheimer; Anderson, Rita E.; Walsh, Carolyn J.

doi:10.1016/j.jveb.2013.04.055

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Previous investigations examining intraspecific interactions were carried out in public open spaces where dogs were familiar with the area as well as one another (Carrier et al, 2013;Howse et al, 2018;Řezáč et al, 2011;Westgarth et al, 2010). Howse et al (2018) found that most dogs interacted only briefly with each other, gradually lost interest over time, and importantly, the number of dogs interacting affected the dynamics of the interaction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Encounters between pairs of unfamiliar dogs in a dog park

et al. 2019

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The aim of this study was to explore spontaneous social interactions between dyads of unfamiliar adult dogs. Although intraspecific encounters are frequent events in the life of pet dogs, the factors that might influence encounters, such as sex, dyad composition, reproductive status, age, and state of cohabitation (keeping the dogs singly or in groups), remained unexplored. Methods: In this study, we assigned unfamiliar, non-aggressive dogs to three types of dyads defined by sex and size. We observed their unrestrained, spontaneous behaviors in an unfamiliar dog park, where only the two dogs, the owners, and experimenter were present. Results: We found that the dogs, on average, spent only 17% of the time (less than 1 min) in proximity. Sex, dyad composition, reproductive status, and age influenced different aspects of the interactions in dyads. Female dogs were more likely to initiate the first contact in their dyad but later approached the partner less frequently, were less likely to move apart, and displayed less scent marking. Following and moving apart were more frequent in male-male interactions. Neutered dogs spent more time following the other dog and sniffed other dogs more frequently. The time companion dogs spent in proximity and number of approaches decreased with age. Conclusion: The study provides guidance for dog owners about the outcomes of intraspecific encounters based on the dog's age, sex, and reproductive status, as well as the sex of the interacting partner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CC License is provided, and changesif anyare indicated. (SID_1) Dog encounters Biologia Futura 70(2), pp. 156-165 (2019) | 157

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