Developmental Social and Communicative behavior

Question 1

Why we keep dogs?

Answer 1

▪ Domestication lead to changes in morphology and behavior
▪ Convergent evolution of dogs and humans – changes in
brain, behavior – allowed modern humans and dogs to rely on each other
▪ Breeds – for specific tasks (started ~ 3000 years ago)
▪ Live in extended family groups, provide extensive parental care
▪ Good, understandable communication to each other
▪ Reasons of keeping: companion, friendship, loyalty to owner, guarding, etc.

Question 2

Canine development

Answer 2

▪ Genetic background, environmental influences and learning are reflected in the development of adult
behaviors
▪ As puppies develop they pass through a series of
periods of heightened sensitivity to certain experiences

Question 3

sensitive periods:

Answer 3

animals are neurodevelopmentally able to respond to stimuli
– they will benefit from exposure, and if they lack exposure, they could develop behavioral problems associated with the omission (in. Overall, 2013)

Question 4

6 developmental stages described in dog

Answer 4

▪ Prenatal (-63-0 d)
▪ Neonatal (0-14 d)
▪ Transitional period (14-21 d)
▪ Socialization period (3-12/14 w)
▪ Juvenile period – post-socialization period (3 m-1/1,5 y)
▪ Adulthood (1-7/9 y)
▪ Old-age

Question 5

Prenatal development

Answer 5

▪ Healthy physiological development is dependent on dam nutritional and health status
▪ Elevated maternal stress levels will impact on development of the HPA axis and may impair normal coping abilities in the offspring

▪ This can have a permanent adverse effect on
Learning ,Play , Social behavior , Reactivity and emotions

▪ Providing the mother with a friendly environment (that affords
positive social contacts)&raquo_space;» facilitate desirable emotional development of the offspring

Question 6

Neonatal development

Answer 6

Puppies
▪ Spend most of the time – nursing or sleeping
▪ Have limited motor ability (until ~ 5 days – on the belly, by 11-15 days the hindlimbs can support weight and walking begins)
▪ Defecation and urination are reflexes that are elicited by the mother’s licking
▪ Temperature regulation is poor at birth, they show intense distress and vocalize if they become cold
▪ They have slow and sustained pain response, and withdrawal and escape from pain do not develop until early in the transitional period
▪ Eyes and ear canals are closed at birth open by 10-14 days
▪ Early handling techniques from birth to 3-5 weeks of age
»»»Mild stressors helps the puppy cope better with stress in later life

Question 7

Transitional period (2-3.weeks)

Answer 7

▪ From complete dependence – to increasing independence
▪ Begins with the opening of eyes and ears
▪ Visual and auditory orientation develops ~ 25 days
▪ Puppy begins to walk
▪ Begin to exhibit voluntary control of elimination (mother still clean their excreta)
▪ By the end of this period – puppy begins to interact with other individuals
▪ Early handling – let them walk on different surfaces – texture and temperature, show them objects of varying shapes, providing a variety of noise (low decibels) – eg.: whistles, environmental noises, human voice

Question 8

Socialization period (3-12 weeks)

Answer 8

▪ Associated with the maturation and myelination of the spinal cord
▪ Sensory systems are functional, learning capacity increases ▪ Teeth erupt – puppies begin taking solid food, mother may
regurgitate food for them
▪ They tend to sleep together, in group, and at 6 weeks, start to
sleep alone
▪ By 8-9 weeks begin to avoid soiling their den
▪ Fear postures begin to emerge at ~ 8 weeks and by 12 weeks
sociability begins to decrease (undersocialized puppy become increasingly fearful of – novel situations, people)

Question 9

Socialization period (3-12 weeks)

Answer 9

▪ Rapid development of social behavior
▪ Strong, genetic drive to form affiliations with people
▪ They are able to differentiate between individuals - different
▪ genders, size, skin/hair colour
▪ ways of behaving/behavioral patterns
▪ Spend a lot of time – developing their social skills
▪ increase in interaction with littermates, mother, environment ▪ increase in social play (with biting, barking, chasing, etc.) and
exploration
▪ learn from other dogs by observation
▪ attachment to its own and other species, to places
▪ time for the development of social relationship, also a period of social vulnerability / sensitivity to psychological stress

Question 10

Learning in socialization period: 3-12.weeks

Answer 10

• Social contacts – initiative and reactive
• Sexual behavior
• Play, social play
• Hiding behavior
• Reaction to separation and emotianally provocative situation
• Approaching and avoidance behavior
• Dominant and submissive behavior
• Exploration, activity levels
• Functional fear and avoidance
• Learning and problem solving behavior
• Trainability

Question 11

Adaptation to environment (3-16 weeks)

Answer 11

▪ Exploration becomes increasingly important
▪ Willingness to approach novel objects, begin exploring away from the nest area
▪ Puppies learn to discriminate between situations /stimuli
associated with danger and those that are insignificant
▪ Exploration balanced by fear –as natur’s way – protecting
them from excessive danger
▪ Role of environmental enrichment
▪ The habituation to stimuli of environment increases from
the third week until the hightened sensitivity to accept
new things closes at about 14 weeks

Question 12

Examples of problems that might occure in the lack of relevant stimuli/exposure

Answer 12

▪ 0-13 days – no tactile or thermal stimuli, no handling – hyper-reactivity, altered sensitivity to touch
▪ 3-8 weeks – lack of interaction with dogs – heightened
2019.11.26.
▪ 5-12 weeks – lack of interaction with humans- fear of
human or fear of approaches of humans
▪ 10-16 weeks – lack of learning, learning from
mistakes, or novel environmental stimuli – neophobia,
inappropriate play, lack of plasticity in responses
reactivity to dogs, lack of play with others, and older dogs – lack of inhibition on arousal levels, problems in later life to be calm and to handle potentionally anxiety provoking situations

Question 13

post socialization period

Answer 13

▪ Object and environmental exploration
▪ Increasing avoidance – few, if any new social contacts are likely to develop
▪ Speed of learning begin to slow, previous learning begins to interfere with new learning
▪ Second period of heightened fear – 9-18 month (in some dogs – sudden fear of known things, loss of confidence)
▪ Testing of boundaries, challenging their owners,
or household dogs
▪ Differences in male and female dog’s behavior
▪ Socially mature ~18 month, fully mature ~ 2 years

Question 14

Behavior of adult dogs

Answer 14

▪ They form social groups – with rules
▪ Dog-dog interactions have been characterised
etc.
▪ They are able to form attachment to people and
to conspecifics or other animals
▪ Based on their temperament the personality change by learning and experience by a combination of:
▪ resource holding potential
▪ and learning
▪ and – genetics, socialization, age, problem-solving skills,

Question 15

Old age – senior dogs

Answer 15

▪ Deterioration in learning and memory
▪ Breakdown of learnt behaviors – eg.: housetraining
▪ Failure to recognize people or places
▪ Failing sensory functions
▪ Reduced energy level
▪ Changes in sleep patterns/restlessness at night
▪ Changes is social interactions
▪ Stereotypies – because anxiety, confusion
▪ Repetitive pacing, motor patterns, vocalization, etc.

Question 16

Social behavior

Answer 16

▪ Domestic dog – socialy gregarious species
▪ With complex social communication and cooperation
▪ Intraspecific communication amongst dogs
▪ Communication between dogs and humans
▪ Relationship with dogs should be based on
▪ consistently and perdictably rewarding those behaviors
that are desirable
▪ ignoring or preventing those that are undiserable
▪ effective communication…

Question 17

Canine vision

Answer 17

▪ Dogs rely less on their sense of vision – than hearing or sense of smell
▪ Visual development is completed by 5-6 weeks ▪ Dog’s vision is better than human’s in darkness
▪ Vision in daylight is less effective than human’s
▪ Their vision is sensitive to movement (they can recognize moving objects twice as well as the same object is still)
▪ Peripheral vision may range from 240 to 290° (human’s: 180°) ▪ Binocular vision may be between 60° and 116° (human’s: 140°) ▪ Dogs can see in colour, but not the same range as people –
they can see the blue- and yellow colour spectrum, and can not see red or green

Question 18

Canine Touch, tactile signaling

Answer 18

▪ The tactile system is highly developed
▪ Able to sense:
▪ It is important part of communication and attacment for dogs
who live together

▪ If we want a calm dog – the helpful petting is with long, slow strokes, deep muscle pressure and massage
▪ Rapid patting can reflect eg.: the owner’s anxiety or excitement

▪ Movement ▪ Pressure ▪ Temperature change ▪ Etc.
▪ Sensitivity to touch can be different
▪ It is important in petting dogs

Question 19

Canine Sound, auditory signaling

Answer 19

▪ Ears are open at 14-19 days
▪ Dogs hear a frequency range of between 20 Hz – 45 000 Hz (best 1000- 4000 Hz)
▪ Dogs with sound sensitivity - pest control devices : 20 000-60 000 Hz !
▪ They are able to discriminate and localize sound better (due to the mobility of the pinna)
▪ Vocalization:
▪ Higher pitched vocalizations are intended to increase social interaction
▪ Lower pitched sounds carry more threat – make the target withdraw
▪ Humans can learn to interpret most canine vocalizations, but there is a
limit – with the subtle variations (eg.: play/defensive-possessive growl)

Question 20

Canine Smell – olfactory sense

Answer 20

▪ Smell is the primary sense of dogs
▪ The canine’s capacity for odor detection has been reported to be as much as 10,000–100,000 times that of the average human
▪ They have follow it with slower head movements and deeper sniffs
▪ Dogs can link a smell in the environment to the individual leaving the mark if they meet later (even at a different location)
▪ up to 30 times grater olfactory epithelial surface area,
▪ linked by up to 60 times as many sensory cells,
▪ to a 40 times larger olfactory bulb than that of humans.
▪ Initially they locate scents using rapid head movements and sniffs, then

Question 21

Pheromones

Answer 21

▪ They use as part of communication
▪ Pheromones are endogenous chemicals that carry messages
▪ Species specific and they have a specific innate behavioral response, which response is independent of learning
▪ Regions of production: facial glands, ear, interdigital glands, inter- mammary sulcus, urogenital region, circum-anal glands
▪ Pheromones are detected by the vomeronasal organ
▪ Once within the VNO the pheromones are absorbed and transported by pheromone –binding proteins to receptors in the VNO body, impulses are then transmitted to the limbic system – where they alter the dog emotional state
▪ Some of dog’s and cat’s pheromones have been shown to have a useful clinical effect. They have been synthesised and their analogues are marketed for use in a variety of situations

Question 22

Auditory communication

Answer 22

▪ Howling – maintaining group cohesion, (coordination of pack activities), a form of long distance communication to reunite the pack
▪ Whining/whimpering – usually related to care-seeking behavior
or distress – the behavior could be further shaped by
instrumental learning – owners can reward it by attention
▪ Growling – communicate a threat, but also growls are also
heard during play
▪ Barking – is a puppy-like behavior in wolves, in dogs barking is a well-developed vocalization present in a wide range of contexts
(eg.:territorial behavior, excitement, play, attention seeking,
warning, etc.)
▪ Classification by – tone (throaty/low, middle, shrill/high),
intensity (high, medium, low), with other signs

Question 23

Visual communication 1.

Answer 23

▪ Body postures, movements, facial gestures 
▪ Ears
▪ up/forward – alertness/confidence 
▪ down/back – fear/appeasement
▪ Tail
▪ up - alertness/confidence 
▪ down - fear/appeasement
▪ up – alertness/arousal 
▪ middle – relaxation/attention 
▪ down – fear/appeasement
▪ Head

Question 24

Visual communication 2.

Answer 24

▪ Lips peaceful intetions
▪ Yawning, licking of the lips – appeasement to disarm a threat, but is often an indication of motivational conflict
▪ Licking
▪ Raising with the corner of the mouth pulled
▪ forward – indicate offensive agression or threat
▪ backwards, exposing the teeth – deffensive agression or threat
▪ backward, but without exposing the teeth – appeasement gesture
▪ Relaxed, slightly open mouth, the tongue hanging out – indicate
▪ puppies – request for food by licking the mouth of an adult dog, mother
▪ underlying motivational conflict, social anxiety and fear
▪ appeasement signal to other adult
▪ the owner’s face – request for food, attention, can be the part of greeting behavior

Question 25

Visual communication 3.

Answer 25

▪ Gaze
▪ direct visual contact – can indicate an overtly threatening attitude
▪ avoiding visual contact – fear or appeasement
▪ blinking – reduce the level of confrontation
▪ Body posture
▪ standing tall and/or leaning forward – alertness or confidence ▪ crouching – fear/appeasement
▪ lying laterally – appeasement
▪ rolling over onto the back – appeasement
▪ mounting – high arousal, intact male – female in oestrus, may be displayed by females as well as males
▪ all of them – may also be displayed by dogs during play

Question 26

Olfactory communication

Answer 26

▪ Signals contain information about
▪ Physical, physiological, behavioral characteristics ▪ Eg.: identity, sex, breeding condition, age, social
status, etc.
▪ Olfactory cues are found in all body secretion
▪ Each dog has an individual odor
▪ Chemical communication plays a fundamental role in canine social, maternal and
reproductive behavior