Friederike Range

University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna | vetmed · Konrad-Lorenz-Institut für Vergleichende Verhaltensforschung

Attitudes towards wolves are important indicators of what wolf presence means to people and whether they lean towards support or opposition. Over the past 50 years, attitude surveys and interviews have uncovered that the polarisation between social groups is not only driven by tangible impacts. Moreover, uneven distribution of intangible costs fost...

A basic mechanism of domestication is the selection for fearlessness and acceptance of humans as social partners, which may affect risk-taking behavior and the ability to use humans as social support, both at the behavioural and physiological levels. We combined behavioural observations with heart rate parameters (i.e., HR and heart rate variabilit...

Inferential reasoning-the process of arriving at a conclusion from a series of premises-has been studied in a multitude of animal species through the use of the "cups task" paradigm. In one of the versions of this setup , two opaque cups-one baited, one empty-are shaken in front of the animal. As only the baited cup makes a noise when shaken, the a...

To survive and reproduce, animals need to behave adaptively by adjusting their behavior to their environment, with learning facilitating some of these processes. Dogs have become a go-to model species in comparative cognition studies, making our understanding of their learning skills paramount at multiple levels, not only with regards to basic rese...

Human presence and activities have profoundly altered animals' habitats, exposing them to greater risks but also providing new opportunities and resources. The animals‟ capacity to effectively navigate and strike a balance between risks and benefits is crucial for their survival in the Anthropocene era. Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), adept urban dwelle...

Human presence and activities have profoundly altered animals' habitats, exposing them to greater risks but also providing new opportunities and resources. The animals’ capacity to effectively navigate and strike a balance between risks and benefits is crucial for their survival in the Anthropocene era. Red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), adept urban dwelle...

Humans are exceptionally flexible in cooperation, partly due to our ability to recognize the roles of cooperative partners. While some non-human animals understand the need for a partner in such interactions, it is unclear whether they grasp the consequences of their partner’s actions and adjust accordingly. Previous studies utilizing economic game...

Behavioural scientists are increasingly recognizing the need to conduct experiments in the wild to achieve a comprehensive understanding of their species’ behaviour. For domestic dogs (Canis familiaris), such progress has been slow. While the life in human households is often regarded as dogs’ natural habitat, this classification disregards most of...

Human cooperation can be facilitated by the ability to create a mental representation of one’s own actions, as well as the actions of a partner, known as action co-representation. Even though other species also cooperate extensively, it is still unclear whether they have similar capacities. The Joint Simon task is a two-player task developed to inv...

Reciprocity is one of the most prominent explanations for the evolution of stable cooperation. Although reciprocity has been studied for decades in numerous animal species and behavioural contexts, its underlying proximate mechanisms remain unclear. Domestic dogs provide a useful model species for the study of proximate mechanisms, though there are...

Studies on coordination often present animals with the choice of either cooperating or remaining inactive; however, in nature, animals may also choose to act alone. This can be modeled with the Assurance game, an economic game that has recently been used to explore decision-making in primates. We investigated whether dyads of pet dogs coordinate in...

Social learning is a mechanism used by many species to efficiently gain information about their environment. Although many animals live in an environment where members of other species are present, little is known about inter-specific social learning. Domesticated and urbanized species provide the opportunity to investigate whether non-human animal...

Social learning is highly adaptive in transmitting essential information between individuals in many species. While several mechanisms have been observed, less is known about how much animals can remember. However, results on observational spatial memory among caching species, i.e. a form of social learning allowing individuals to remember and pilf...

Dogs have repeatedly been shown to give their paw to an experimenter more times for no reward when a rewarded conspecific partner is absent than when a rewarded conspecific is present, thereby showing inequity aversion. However, rather than being inequity averse, dogs might give their paw more when a partner is absent due to the experimenter’s proc...

Most studies on dogs’ cognitive skills in understanding human communication have been conducted on pet dogs, making them a role model for the species. However, pet dogs are just a minor and particular sample of the total dog world population, which would instead be better represented by free-ranging dogs. Since free-ranging dogs are still facing th...

Domestication has profoundly changed dogs’ morphology, physiology, and behavior compared to that of wolves. However, it remains unclear how dogs evolved the social capacities allowing them to effectively interact and bond with humans. Since endocrine systems may be prime targets of selection and driving forces of behavioral changes, some authors su...

To survive and reproduce, animals need to behave adaptively by adjusting their behavior to their environment, with learning facilitating some of these processes. Despite the fact that dogs were the subject species for Pavlov's original studies on learning, relatively little research has been done exploring dogs' basic learning capabilities, and eve...

In a previous study, we found that Positive Reinforcement Training reduced cortisol of wolves and dogs; however, this effect varied across trainer–animal dyads. Here we investigate whether and how the trainers’ use of speech may contribute to this effect. Dogs’ great interest in high-pitched, intense speech (also known as Dog Directed Speech) has a...

Humans stand out for their capacity to flexibly cooperate, possibly because they understand their partners' role. Researchers have explored if such understanding is unique to humans by assessing whether non-human species wait to manipulate a cooperative apparatus until a delayed partner arrives. If animals do wait, then it is assumed that they reco...

Domestication dramatically changes behaviour, including communication, as seen in the case of dogs (Canis familiaris) and wolves (Canis lupus). We tested the hypothesis that domestication may affect an ancient, shared communication form of canids, the howling which seems to have higher individual variation in dogs: the perception and usage of howls...

Domestication has altered dogs’ conspecific social organization compared to their closest, non-domesticated relatives, grey wolves. Wolves live in packs whose survival depends on coordinated behaviour, but dogs rely less on conspecifics, which predicts greater cohesiveness in wolf than dog packs. Endocrine correlates such as oxytocin and glucocorti...

Introduction To explore human-canid relationships, we tested similarly socialized and raised dogs (Canis familiaris) and wolves (Canis lupus) and their trainers in a wildlife park. The aims of our study were twofold: first, we aimed to test which factors influenced the relationships that the trainers formed with the dogs or wolves and second, we in...

Ostensive communication, communication motivated not only by an informative intention, but also by an intention to make this informative intention overt, is thought to be restricted to human signalers and to rely on metacognitive skills. On the receiver side, human infants and dogs have been found to selectively respond to human ostensive communica...

Reputation is a key component in social interactions of group-living animals and appears to play a role in the establishment of cooperation. Animals can form reputations of individuals by directly interacting with them or by observing them interact with a third party, i.e., eavesdropping. Previous research has focused on whether dogs (Canis lupus f...

Canids are believed to be clever animals applying sophisticated social and hunting strategies. However, current studies under natural conditions do not indicate higher cognitive requirements beyond associative learning, but likely also underestimate them as applied methods are still in a fledgling stage. Experimental studies on captive canids — alm...

In the current chapter we focus on the social relationships dogs and wolves establish with their pack mates. Dominance and affiliation are relevant features to describe the social relationships of both wolves and dogs. In both species, submissive behaviours and greeting are the best indicators of formal dominance relationships, and in general a lin...

In this final chapter we review the hypotheses that have been put forward in relation to ‘what changed’ from wolves to dogs in relation to behaviour and cognition. Based on the studies summarized in the different chapters we assess the support for each and outline where more effort is needed to fill the gaps in our knowledge. Finally, we give our o...

In this chapter, we review studies comparing the social learning and cooperative abilities of wolves and dogs, both with conspecifics and humans. As regards social learning, their performance is similar in basic tasks involving local enhancement and observational memory. But when it comes to paying attention to the exact details of a demonstration...

Understanding and making sense of the physical world may involve both learning and reasoning. In the current chapter, we explore studies comparing wolves’ and dogs’ speed and flexibility in learning, object permanence and means-end understanding, as well as different aspects relating to inferential reasoning and numerical competence.No major differ...

Dogs, together with humans, are one of the most successful species on the planet. In the Western world, dogs usually live as companions and often take on important roles for their human partners. However, a larger proportion of dogs worldwide are free-ranging – living in the human environment, but otherwise making their own decisions. In this chapt...

One of the most well-studied differences between wolves and dogs is their ability to understand and communicate with humans. Here we review these studies and come to surprising conclusions. Overall, based on current knowledge, dog-wolf differences in communicative abilities with humans appear rather small and if existing at all, they are quantitati...

In chapter 6 we review studies exploring how wolves and dogs related to humans. Taken together results show that initial differences between wolves and dogs in their interactions with humans, when revisited, do not often hold up to closer inspection. Moreover, since the first comparisons almost 15 years ago, research on different dog populations ha...

This short review summarizes aspects of the socio-ecology of wolves that might be relevant to understand dog-wolf differences in behaviour and cognition. It highlights the cooperative nature of wolves that usually live in family packs, raise their pups together, and jointly participate in hunting, as well as defending their territories and carcasse...

When comparing the behavior and cognition of different species, several caveats need to be kept in mind such as the population the animals originated from as well as the kind of experiences they have acquired. In regard to wolves and dogs, several research groups have reared the animals in similar ways to allow for valid comparisons. Here we provid...

Several factors may underlie the ability of animals to solve problems in the physical environment including motivation, attention and inhibitory control. Here we review studies comparing wolves and dogs on these aspects. The data available to date suggest that while wolves are more neophobic than dogs, they are also more explorative and manipulativ...

Based on claims that dogs are less aggressive and show more sophisticated socio-cognitive skills compared with wolves, dog domestication has been invoked to support the idea that humans underwent a similar ‘self-domestication’ process. Here, we review studies on wolf–dog differences and conclude that results do not support such claims: dogs do not...

Recently, Bray et al. (2021) showed that behavioural performance in cognitive tasks involving humans is highly heritable in dog puppies. Although the paper shows substantial heritability of specific behavioural traits, the absence of control conditions does not allow for strong support of the authors’ claim that the cognitive performance they measu...

The ability to represent approximate quantities appears to be phylogenetically widespread, but the selective pressures and proximate mechanisms favouring this ability remain unknown. We analysed quantity discrimination data from 672 subjects across 33 bird and mammal species, using a novel Bayesian model that combined phylogenetic regression with a...

Social relationships can be described by a series of components, all having putatively different functional roles in the lives of humans and other social species. For instance, certain relationship characteristics can strongly influence how individuals deal with stress, ultimately influencing their fitness. However, species vary highly in regard to...

Reputation is a key component in social interactions of group-living animals. Considering dogs’ dependence on humans, it may benefit them to form reputations of humans to choose an appropriate partner with whom to associate. It is also unknown whether this ability is an effect of domestication or inherited from their ancestor, wolves. This study in...

Domestic dogs have been shown to reciprocate help received from conspecifics in food-giving tasks. However, it is not yet known whether dogs also reciprocate help received from humans. Here, we investigated whether dogs reciprocate the receipt of food from humans. In an experience phase, subjects encountered a helpful human who provided them with f...

Dogs’ increased human-directed sociability compared to wolves may be the result of increased oxytocin system activity and decreased stress responses, but comparative studies accounting for life experience are lacking. We compared hand-raised, pack-living wolves’ and dogs’ behavior and hormone concentrations after interacting with a closely bonded a...

Oxytocin (OT) promotes pro-sociality, bonding, and cooperation in a variety of species. Measuring oxytocin metabolite (OTM) concentrations in urine or saliva provides intriguing opportunities to study human and animal behaviour with minimal disturbance. However, a thorough validation of analytical methods and an assessment of the physiological sign...

The relationship between dogs and their owners is characterized by an affective and enduring bond. It has been suggested that oxytocin might be the underlying mechanism driving this relationship, however evidence is mixed. In this study we tested whether intranasally administered oxytocin (compared to saline) would influence dogs’ behavioural synch...

https://prezi.com/view/bA1rIjmjxIYg3kLnd5ee/

Within the last decade, oxytocin (OT) has attracted a lot of attention in the context of various human social behaviors. Besides its importance in regulating physiological processes in females related to giving birth and lactation, OT is involved in the establishment and maintenance of social relationships, trust and emotion recognition. However, r...

Reputation is a key component in social interactions of group-living animals and appears to play a role in the establishment of cooperation. Animals can form a reputation of an individual by directly interacting with them or by observing them interact with a third party, i.e., eavesdropping. Elephants are an interesting taxon in which to investigat...

Dogs are exceptionally well adapted to life close to humans, and alterations in their endocrine system during the domestication process may be an underlying mechanism. In particular, it has been suggested that low circulating cortisol concentrations in conjunction with simultaneously high oxytocin concentrations may have resulted in dogs' increased...

Due to domestication, dogs differ from wolves in the way they respond to their environment, including to humans. Selection for tameness and the associated changes to the autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation have been proposed as the primary mechanisms of domestication. To test this idea, we compared two low-arousal states in equally raised and...

In humans, age-related changes in personality occur in a non-random fashion with respect to their direction, timing, and magnitude. In dogs, there are still gaps in our knowledge about the detailed dynamics of age-related personality changes. We analysed the personality of 217 Border collies aged from 0.5 to 15 years both cross-sectionally and long...

Dogs demonstrate behavioural changes and cognitive decline during aging. Compared to laboratory dogs, little is known about aging in pet dogs exposed to different environments and nutrition. In this study, we examined the effects of age, an enriched diet and lifelong training on different behavioural and cognitive measures in 119 pet dogs (>6yrs)....

A wide array of species throughout the animal kingdom has shown the ability to distinguish between quantities. Aside from being important for optimal foraging decisions, this ability seems to also be of great relevance in group-living animals as it allows them to inform their decisions regarding engagement in between-group conflicts based on the si...

Eavesdropping is the acquisition of information by observing third-party interactions. Considering dogs’ (Canis lupus familiaris) dependence on humans, it would be beneficial for them to eavesdrop on human interactions to choose an appropriate partner to associate with. Previous studies have found that dogs preferred a human who acted generously or...

Cooperation is vital for the survival of many species and has been extensively researched at the ultimate level however, there is a considerable degree of variation within a given species in the extent of cooperative behaviours exhibited. Possible factors that have been discussed to contribute to this variation are the social relationship between t...

Inequity aversion, the resistance to inequitable outcomes, has been demonstrated in a wide variety of animal species. Inequity aversion was hypothesised to have co-evolved with cooperation but only limited evidence supports this. Dogs provide a suitable model species to test this hypothesis as dogs were previously shown to be inequity averse and do...

Self-control has been shown to be linked with being cooperative and successful in humans and with the g-factor in chimpanzees. As such, it is likely to play an important role in all forms of problem-solving. Self-control, however, does not just vary across individuals but seems also to be dependent on the ecological niche of the respective species....