Selfish Pups: Weaning Conflict and Milk Theft in Free-Ranging Dogs

Paul, Manabi; Bhadra, Anindita

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0170590

Cited by 20 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(50 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…They are primarily scavengers, but are known to hunt in packs on the fringes of human habitations too (Kumar and Paliwal, 2015;Young et al, 2011). They live in stable social packs that show interesting cooperation-conflict dynamics, especially over pup rearing (Sen Majumder et al, 2014;Paul and Bhadra, 2017;Paul et al, 2014Paul et al, , 2015. Early-life mortality is very high in spite of extensive parental and alloparental care, with only 19% of pups reaching adulthood; 63% of this mortality is human induced, including poisoning, beating and road accidents.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free-ranging dogs prefer petting over food in repeated interactions with unfamiliar humans

Bhattacharjee

Das

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dogs () are the first species to have been domesticated and, unlike other domesticated species, they have developed a special bond with their owners. The ability to respond to human gestures and language, and the hypersocial behaviours of dogs are considered key factors that have led them to become man's best friend. Free-ranging dogs provide an excellent model system for understanding the dog-human relationship in various social contexts. In India, free-ranging dogs occur in all possible human habitations. They scavenge among garbage, beg for food from humans, give birth in dens close to human habitations, and establish social bonds with people. However, there is ample dog-human conflict on the streets, leading to morbidity and mortality of dogs. Hence, the ability to assess an unfamiliar human before establishing physical contact could be adaptive for dogs, especially in the urban environment. We tested a total of 103 adult dogs to investigate their response to immediate social and long-term food and social rewards. The dogs were provided a choice of obtaining food either from an experimenter's hand or the ground. The dogs avoided making physical contact with the unfamiliar human. While immediate social reward was not effective in changing this response, the long-term test showed a strong effect of social contact. Our results revealed that these dogs tend to build trust based on affection, not food. This study provides significant insights into the dynamics of dog-human interactions on the streets and subsequent changes in behaviour of dogs through the process of learning.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free-ranging dogs prefer petting over food in repeated interactions with unfamiliar humans

Bhattacharjee

Das

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…was considered as active care. Behaviours that require no direct interaction with the focal pups, but can provide care in terms of indirect protection and social bonding due to the adult’s presence in the pups’ vicinity were considered as passive care [ 30 , 35 ]. See S1 Table for the detailed ethogram.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a case study we reported allocare by a non-lactating grandmother towards her grandpups in the presence of the mother [ 34 ]. Milk-theft is also observed in many groups of free-ranging dogs where multiple females give birth in the same breeding season, and pups tend to opportunistically suckle from any available lactating female in the group [ 35 ]. Free-ranging dogs are capable of forming large packs, in which social hierarchies are evident, which also influence the reproductive behaviour of the adults, in spite of the overall mating system being promiscuous [ 36 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The great Indian joint families of free-ranging dogs

Paul

Bhadra

2018

PLoS ONE

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cooperative breeding is an excellent example of cooperation in social groups. Domestic dogs have evolved from cooperatively hunting and breeding ancestors but have adapted to a facultatively social scavenging lifestyle on streets, and solitary living in human homes. Pets typically breed and reproduce under human supervision, but free-ranging dogs can provide insights into the natural breeding ecology of dogs. We conducted a five year-long field based behavioural study on parental care of free-ranging dogs in India. 23 mother-litter units, belonging to 15 groups were observed, which revealed the presence of widespread allo-parenting by both adult males and females. While all the females were known to be related to the pups receiving care, the relatedness with the males could not be determined. Hence, we coined the term “putative father” for caregiving males. Allomothers provided significantly less care than the mothers, but the putative fathers showed comparable levels of care with the mothers. Mothers invested more effort in nursing and allogrooming, while the putative fathers played and protected more. Our observations provide support for both the “benefit-of-philopatry” and “assured fitness returns” hypotheses. Free-ranging dogs are not cooperative breeders like wolves but are rather communal breeders; their breeding biology bearing interesting similarities with the human joint family system. This breeding strategy is likely to have played an important role in increasing pup survival in a stochastic environment and helping to adapt to living among humans during the domestication of dogs.

show abstract

“…They are known to scavenge together over large and open garbage dumps mostly without conflict and aggression (Bhadra et al, 2016; Sen Majumder et al, 2014). In free-ranging dog groups, mothers provide extensive care to their pups, but also display conflict over food sharing during the weaning period (Paul & Bhadra, 2017; Paul, Sen Majumder & Bhadra, 2014b). Allo-parental care is often observed to be provided by both females and males within groups (Paul, Sen Majumder, & Bhadra, 2014a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cooperation, only for high rewards – a solvable task-based study on free-ranging dogs

Bhattacharjee

Sarkar

et al. 2019

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The benefits of group living mostly surpass the disadvantages like sharing of resources and competition over food, space and mates, driving the evolution of social organization. Group living can be facilitated by social tolerance and cooperation among the group members. Social canids (e.g. wolves) display cooperative breeding, hunting, and prosocial activities in different contexts. Unlike cooperative pack-living wolves (Canis lupus lupus), their descendants, domesticated dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), show varying levels of associations from solitary to stable social groups. Free-ranging dogs are group-living but prefer to forage solitarily, hence providing an excellent opportunity for investigating social tolerance and coordinated task performance among the members in various situations. We tested 113 adult-only groups of free-ranging dogs in three different tasks to investigate group responses and performance in problem-solving situations in the presence of an unfamiliar human. Task 1 (unfamiliar, single food reward) and 2 (familiar, single food reward) examined group responses and cooperation from the perspective of familiarity, while Task 3 (familiar, multiple food rewards) enabled us to test whether increased food rewards promote social tolerance and food sharing among the group members. Regardless of significantly higher performance in Task 2 compared to Task 1, cooperation and food sharing were significantly lower in both. Task 3 revealed a strong positive correlation between food sharing and social tolerance, but not between success and social tolerance, suggesting a tendency for cooperation. We conclude that context-dependent cooperation and tolerance among group members facilitate group-living in free-ranging dogs.Significance statementGroup living is a common phenomenon in the animal world where the members of a group show social tolerance and co-operative behaviours towards each other. This need for cooperative intents increases manifolds while groups face different problem-solving situations in their day to day lives. Here, we tested a large number of free-ranging dog groups to understand general cooperative intents such as social tolerance and food sharing in different problem-solving conditions. We found shreds of evidence of context-dependent cooperation and social tolerance among group members with minimal display of aggression. It is not adaptive for the dogs to fight or display aggression over resources. Alternatively, use of subtle cues such as display of dominance and subordination seem to be more plausible mechanisms for the development of efficient scavenging strategies and maintaining hierarchy.

show abstract

Selfish Pups: Weaning Conflict and Milk Theft in Free-Ranging Dogs

Cited by 20 publications

References 33 publications

Free-ranging dogs prefer petting over food in repeated interactions with unfamiliar humans

Free-ranging dogs prefer petting over food in repeated interactions with unfamiliar humans

The great Indian joint families of free-ranging dogs

Cooperation, only for high rewards – a solvable task-based study on free-ranging dogs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About