Protectors, Aggressors, and Kinfolk: Dogs in a Tribal Community

One Health promotion and the politics of dog management in remote, northern Australian communities

“…Our findings are consistent with previous studies on the direct benefits and disadvantages of keeping dogs in remote communities, both in Australia and worldwide 1 , 3 , 7 , 19 , 41 . However, by further exploring dogs’ roles and activities, we find that in the remote communities studied, people’s perceptions of the benefits and disadvantages of dogs appear to be conditional on whether a dog belongs to their family.…”

“…Allowing owned, domestic dogs to free-roam is a common practice worldwide. Contrary to western norms, it does not indicate that dogs lack value 1 – 3 . Free-roaming dogs are abundant in many remote communities in Australia, where they live in close relationships to humans 4 – 7 .…”

A cultural selection analysis of human-dog interactions – A primer

“…Other lines of future research could attempt to interpret findings in other disciplines using a behavior analytic framework. These findings may include, but are not limited to, changes of human-dog interactions across different ages (e.g., from the Middle Ages to industrial revolution; Menache, 2005), changes in gender proportions in canine performance sports (e.g., Wlodarczyk, 2014Wlodarczyk, , 2016, the impact of human-dog interactions and healthpromoting practices (e.g., Chen, 2018;Westgarth et al, 2014), the interactions with dogs in contemporary indigenous or native communities (e.g., Erikson, 2005;Jervis et al, 2018;Serpell, 2017), the relationship between positive child-dog interactions and other prosocial behavior (e.g., Cooke & Farrington, 2016;Flynn, 2011) and the role of companion dogs in domestic violence settings (e.g., Fitzgerald, 2007;Gallagher et al, 2008), for example.…”

“…In any case, prior to becoming man's best friend, in early days dogs seem to have been critical for human hunting success and survival on almost all continents (Guagnin et al, 2018;Leathlobhair et al, 2018;Perri, 2016). Although some societies perceive dogs as vermin or keep them for human consumption (Coppinger & Coppinger, 2016;Germonpre et al, 2017;White, 2018;Tanabe, 2006), the overall amicable and prosperous association of humans and dogs persisted over millennia into various contemporary societies (Jervis et al, 2018).…”

“…The mounting interest in the evolutionary and contemporary aspects of human-dog association has resulted in rapidly growing research efforts from a wide range of disciplines with dissimilar assumptions, methodologies, and areas of emphasis; among them, anthrozoology, behavioral ecology, comparative cognition, ethology, genetics, neuroscience, psychology, social sciences, and veterinary behavior and medicine (e.g., Bennett, 2013;Carlisle et al, 2018;Fall et al, 2019;Fukuzawa & Hashi, 2017;Gray et al, 2015;Jervis et al, 2018;Ortolani et al, 2009;Persson et al, 2018;Rehn & Keeling, 2016;Seksel & Lindeman, 2001;Taylor et al, 2016;van der Borg et al, 2018;van Herwijnen et al, 2018;Yamamoto et al, 2009;Yilmaz, 2017). Despite the popularity of canine-related research among various disciplines, behavior analytic research efforts are scarce (e.g., Edwards & Poling, 2011;Feuerbacher & Wynne, 2015;Feuerbacher & Wynne, 2016;Hall, 2017;Hall et al, 2015;Pfaller-Sadovsky et al, 2017;Protopopova et al, 2016), notwithstanding their potential to contribute to the understanding of the behavioral phenomena entailed in humandog interactions, and application when needed.…”