Abstract
Simple SummaryWe explore the differences in male and female dogs regarding personality traits as well as cognitive and perceptual processes. Our aim was to explore whether the differences in male and female dogs were affected by the domestication process. The results show that dogs are largely in line with the life-history theories, reflecting the sex differences described in wild animals.In this paper, we review the scientific reports of sex-related differences in dogs as compared to the outcomes described for wild animals. Our aim was to explore whether the differences in male and female dogs were affected by the domestication process, in which artificial selection is the main driver. For this purpose, we used information regarding personality traits, cognitive processes, and perception, for which there is a wide theoretical framework in behavioral ecology. Aggressiveness and boldness, described as a behavioral syndrome, were reported as being higher in males than females. Females also seemed more inclined to interspecific social interactions with humans in tasks that require cooperative skills, whereas males appeared more inclined to social play, thus implying different levels of social engagement between the sexes, depending on the context. Studies on cognitive processes underlined a greater flexibility in resorting to a particular navigation strategy in males. Most lateralization studies seem to support the view that males are preferentially left-handed and females are preferentially right-handed. Reports on visual focusing coherently rank females as superior in focusing on single social and physical stimuli. Only male dogs are able to discriminate kin; however, the timing of the olfactory recording in sexes is related to the stimulus relevance. Dogs are largely in line with life-history theories, which indicate that sex differences in dogs are mainly rooted in their biological and evolutionary heritage, remaining unchanged despite artificial selection. In contrast, the higher intraspecific sociability in wild male animals was not replicated in dogs.
Highlights
In behavioral ecology, there has been increased interest in studies on individual behavioral differences in animals
Studies of spatial skills underlined a higher flexibility in resorting to a particular navigation strategy in males in an outdoor environment; females appear to be better at spatial learning tasks in restricted areas
Lateralization studies seem to support the view that males are preferentially left-pawed and females are preferentially right-pawed; some studies have failed to replicate these results
Summary
There has been increased interest in studies on individual behavioral differences in animals. Examples include studies of behavioral phenotypes, temperaments, or personalities in both vertebrate and non-vertebrate species (refer to [1] for a review). These studies have underlined several inter-individual differences in different traits, such as aggressiveness [2,3], activity levels [4,5], sociability [3], and boldness [6]. Sex status is a biological trait that affects the determination of an individual’s behavioral responses to physical and social environmental challenges, biasing the behavior of the sexes. Individual competition may favor the expression of traits that improve reproductive fitness, these specific adaptations are often costly in terms of energy and survival at both the morpho-physiological and behavioral levels [7,8,9].
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