TITLE:
Relevance of Visual, Auditory, and Olfactory Cues in Pet Dogs’ Awareness of Humans
AUTHORS:
Megumi Fukuzawa, Marina Watanabe
KEYWORDS:
Behavioural Response, Dog, Human Communicative Cues
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Animal Sciences,
Vol.7 No.3,
July
12,
2017
ABSTRACT: Many studies have looked at
how dogs respond to human communicative information. Here, we examined which
human communicative factors were important in influencing dogs’ responses.
Eleven healthy pet dogs with no apparent aggressive behaviour toward
people were recruited. Five sensory conditions (all cues presented; either a visual,
an auditory, or an olfactory cue presented; no cues presented) were provided three times
randomly to each dog during the tests. All tests were video recorded, and both
the dogs’ behaviour and time taken to reach the person when she
presented each of the sensory cue conditions were observed. Total rates of reaching
the person were as follows: 97.0% (all cues), 87.9% (auditory cues), 84.4%
(visual cues), 84.4% (olfactory cues), and 69.7% (no cues). The time taken for the dog
to notice the person in the box and then obtain a reward from her differed among the five conditions: all cues (6.00 ± 0.32 s) and visual cues (6.02 ± 0.91 s) were significantly faster than auditory cues
(18.56 ± 9.57 s) and no cues (26.55 ± 11.72 s). Thus the type of information input was
important in recognition of the person by the dogs and influenced the dogs’ response times; visual cues appeared advantageous in
confirming the person’s presence.