Peterca Lara, Gobbo Elena, Zupan Šemrov Manja
Department of Animal Science, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Groblje 3, 1230 Domžale, Slovenia.
Animals (Basel). 2024 Dec 25;15(1):17. doi: 10.3390/ani15010017.
Our understanding of social cognition in brachycephalic dog breeds is limited. This study focused specifically on French Bulldogs and hypothesized that a closer relationship between dog and owner would improve the dogs' understanding of nonverbal cues, particularly pointing gestures. To investigate this, we tested twenty-six dogs and their owners in a two-way object choice test in which the familiar person pointed to the bowl. As understanding of pointing gestures is influenced by human-animal interaction, we used the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS) to assess various aspects of the dog-owner relationship, including dog-owner interaction, emotional closeness, and negative aspects of dog ownership and measured salivary oxytocin levels. This study examined the dogs' correct choices and their straight approach patterns to a reward bowl. Several factors influenced the two measures of social cognition, such as the age and sex of the dog, dog-owner interaction, emotional closeness, and the choice time (time it took the dog to reach the reward bowl), but also that neutered dogs and those with no training history showed better cognitive performance. We found a very high number of correct choices, which could be attributed to the owners' high scores on the dog-owner interaction scale. Oxytocin showed no direct effect on these measures. To increase the generalizability of the results, we suggest future studies focus on more than one breed to capture the temporal development of the owner-dog relationship and social cognitive abilities.
我们对短头犬品种社交认知的了解有限。本研究特别聚焦于法国斗牛犬，并假设狗与主人之间更亲密的关系会提高狗对非语言线索的理解，尤其是指向手势。为了对此进行研究，我们在一项双向物体选择测试中对26只狗及其主人进行了测试，在该测试中，熟悉的人指向碗。由于对指向手势的理解受人与动物互动的影响，我们使用莫纳什人狗关系量表（MDORS）来评估人狗关系的各个方面，包括人狗互动、情感亲密度以及养狗的负面影响，并测量唾液中的催产素水平。本研究考察了狗的正确选择以及它们走向奖励碗的直接路径模式。几个因素影响了社交认知的这两项指标，比如狗的年龄和性别、人狗互动、情感亲密度以及选择时间（狗到达奖励碗所需的时间），而且绝育的狗和没有训练经历的狗表现出了更好的认知能力。我们发现正确选择的数量非常多，这可能归因于主人在人狗互动量表上的高分。催产素对这些指标没有直接影响。为了提高结果的普遍性，我们建议未来的研究聚焦于不止一个品种，以了解人狗关系和社交认知能力的时间发展情况。
