01/01/2016
A new study has come out on dominance in dogs that contributes some seriously detailed data and careful analysis to the question of whether there is social dominance and social hierarchies in groups of dogs. The authors examined the behaviour of a group of 16 dogs over the course of 12 weeks. They were looking for behaviours that are good indicators of status, which required behaviours to be common, unidirectional (typically performed by one individual in the dyad but not the other), and linearity (whether it can be used to fit members into a rank order with statistics). The findings are interesting and the paper is worth a read. High posture, low posture, and body tail wag were good indicators of status, with high posture indicating dominance and low posture and body tail wag indicating submission. Lowering of posture was also a good indicator that the other dog would get priority access to resources. There were some other behaviours that were less common but still far more likely to be performed by only one member of a dyad, and some behaviours unrelated to dominance that could be considered indicative of other states, such as conflict. The authors are careful to note that the results may not be applicable to all groups of dogs, but conclude that dominance is a useful construct to apply to dogs, and linear hierarchies do occur in groups of dogs. They also note that posture is believed to be very important in signalling status among wolves. Full paper (free): http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0133978 -0133978-t006 Image: Sara Reusche.
