Pies: Dogs are pack animals -- they don't enjoy being alone

Evidence: 65 • authority: 88

Impact of Changes in Time Left Alone on Separation-Related Behaviour in UK Pet Dogs. Separation-related behaviours (SRBs), including but not limited to vocalisation, pacing, destruction and toileting, occur in the absence of human company. As well as being problematic for the dogs’ owners, such behaviours indicate that the dogs’ emotional state is compromised. As part of the COVID-19 pandemic, time spent alone decreased considerably for many pet dogs, leading to concerns about the development of SRBs when dogs are left alone more again. The main aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that dogs whose time left alone decreased most (compared to a February 2020 pre-COVID baseline) would…

Evidence: 65 • authority: 88

Popperian Dogs—Practical Rationality and Inferential Reasoning in Dogs. The last few decades have provided mounting evidence that dogs are not only able to behave in intelligent ways but also that they have the capacity to make inferences by associating visible and imagined events. In particular, the kinds of inferences shown by dogs elevate them to ‘Popperian animals’, which are rational in the sense of being able to conduct trials and errors in the head. Here, I review a selection of studies with dogs that fulfil this attribution. Dogs have been found capable of (a) making inferences by exclusion, with both computer images and word-object associations, (b) drawing inferences about the eff…

Evidence: 65 • authority: 92

Pet dogs prefer to work alone than to engage in a challenging cooperative task with conspecifics.. Understanding the role of a partner is key to effective human cooperation. While we know that non-human animals extensively cooperate with each other, how well they understand the role of their partner is unclear. This has been explored using economic games, yielding mixed results. A previous study showed that dogs understand the role of their human partner in an economic game setting, adjusting their behavior according to the partner's choices, but there are no clear results when it comes to dog conspecific cooperation. In this study, we tested pairs of pet dogs in the stag hunt game. In the…

Evidence: 65 • authority: 72

A free-ranging dog is a dog that is not confined to a yard or house. Free-ranging dogs include street dogs, village dogs, stray dogs, feral dogs, etc., and may be owned or unowned. The global dog population is estimated to be 700–900 million, of which approximately 75% are classified as free-ranging. Free-ranging dogs are common in developing countries. It is estimated that there are about 62 million free-ranging dogs in India. In Western countries free-ranging dogs are rare; in Europe they are primarily found in parts of Eastern Europe, and, to a lesser extent, in parts of Southern Europe. Free-ranging dogs survive by adapting to their environment, including scavenging through uncollected…

Evidence: 53 • authority: 92

Wolf Presence near a Temporary Sheep Pasture in Flanders: A Descriptive Camera-Trap Study.. Wolves ( Canis lupus ) have recolonized Belgium after more than a century of absence, raising concerns about interactions with livestock in densely populated regions such as Flanders. Empirical field-based documentation of wolf behavior near protected livestock in such landscapes remains limited. This study presents a short-term, descriptive camera-trap case study documenting wolf presence near a temporary sheep pasture protected by electric fencing and livestock guardian dogs (LGDs). Nineteen camera traps monitored the pasture perimeter within a military training area in northeastern Flanders over a…

Evidence: — • authority: 38