ASSOCIATION BETWEEN HOUSING TYPE AND GAZE, SOCIABILITY, AND FEAR-APPEASEMENT RESPONSES IN DOGS

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the effects of housing conditions, shelter versus family house, on gaze response as well as on sociability and fear-appeasement (tail and ears down and crouching) behaviors. Also, the objective is to analyze whether there is a relationship between these behaviors. Eight shelter and nine family dogs, adult, both sexes and mixed breeds were assessed in a sociability test in which dogs were exposed to the presence of an unknown human who act-ed passively and a communicative task in which a person remain near a visible but unreachable source of food. Results showed that, in both tests, shelter dogs showed more fear-appeasement behaviors than family dogs but there were no differences in their approaching levels to the human. Moreover, the groups didn’t show differences in their gaze response towards the human face. However, gaze duration was longer in the communicative task, where food was present, than in the sociability test, in both groups. In conclusion, housing in a shelter could modify some responses of the dogs related to fear-appeasement towards humans affecting the quality of the bond between them.