Is this love? Sex differences in dog-owner attachment behavior suggest similarities with adult human bonds

Biagio D’Aniello,Paolo Mongillo,Lieta Marinelli,Anna Scandurra,Claudia Pinelli

doi:10.1007/s10071-021-01545-w

Abstract

Sex differences in the behavioral responses of Labrador Retriever dogs in the Strange Situation Test were explored. Behaviors expressed by dogs during seven 3-min episodes were analyzed through a Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The scores of factors obtained were analyzed with a Generalized Linear Mixed Model to reveal the effects of the dog’s sex and age and the owner’s sex. In Episode 1 (dog and owner) and 5 (dog alone), the PCA identified three and two factors, respectively, which overall explained 68.7% and 59.8% of the variance, with no effect of sex. In Episodes 2 (dog, owner, and stranger), 3 and 6 (dog and stranger), and 4 and 7 (dog and owner), the PCA identified four factors, which overall explained 51.0% of the variance. Effects of sex were found on: Factor 1 (distress), with lower scores obtained by females in Episode 2 and higher in Episode 3; Factor 2 (sociability), which was overall higher in females; Factor 3 (separation-distress), with females, but not males, obtaining higher scores when left with the stranger than when with the owner. Therefore, females were overall more social but seemed more affected than males by the owner’s absence. Parallels can be traced between our results and sex differences found in adult human romantic attachment, suggesting that the dog-owner bond has characteristics that are not found in the infant-mother relationship.

Highlights

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) show high socio-cognitive skills for interacting with humans, allowing them a better adaptation to the anthropogenic niche (Miklósi and Topál 2013; Udell and Wynne 2008)
The final Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the behaviors expressed in 1-DO obtained a KMO = 0.501
This study reports the first evidence of differences between female and male dogs in the expression of dog-owner attachment behaviors in the Situation Test” (SST)

Summary

Introduction

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) show high socio-cognitive skills for interacting with humans, allowing them a better adaptation to the anthropogenic niche (Miklósi and Topál 2013; Udell and Wynne 2008). Besides being skilled in interpreting some forms of human communication, dogs are able to send effective signals to humans, for example seeking help when encountering an unsolvable problem (D’Aniello and Scandurra 2016; Miklósi et al 2003; Scandurra et al 2015). The reading of human emotions can drive dogs’ behavioral responses in the social referencing process allowing them to approach or avoid a fearful stimulus (Merola et al 2012a,2013, b) It is not clear whether dogs understand the fear emotion conveyed by vocal and visual signals of humans (Yong and Ruffman 2015) but it is established that they perceive the fearful message transferred by chemosignals (D’Aniello et al 2018; Siniscalchi et al 2016)

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Conclusion