PDTE 2010 January Newsletter

tion of these new perspectives on the canine
world (see his excellent book in Ref.
1), and in the promotion of initiatives. His
group organized the First Canine Science
Forum in Budapest in July 2008, where
participation included world-renowned
specialists like R.K. Wayne, J. Serpell, H.
Parker, P. Savolainen, K. Overall and M.
Bekoff, among others.
One of the recent and most challenging
interests of Miklósi’s group is the study of
the dog and wolf’s abilities to understand
human gestures [4]. Nobody doubts that
dogs – and wolves, but doubts are allowed
here – can understand human gestures.
But what is the origin of this ability? Has
it been shaped during domestication, in
such a way that dogs have been subject
to selective pressure to be able to understand
human gestures, and consequently,
wolves do not share this ability? Or is it, on
the contrary, an emergent cognitive ability
which arises from the combination of other
primary cognitive abilities, acquired during
pre-domestication, that are also present in
its (presumed) ancestor, the wolf?
Both proposals are supported by two separate
theories on dog evolution and social
cognition, producing an exciting debate
along a large number of scientific publications
([4-9] vs. [10-12]). The year 2009 has
seen dogs appear in some of the most
prominent journals like Nature, Science,
PNAS and others, and these examples are
widely used as an evolutionary paradigm
to study human species evolution.
We, as dog trainers and lovers, must take
advantage of the huge amount of ideas
PDTE Lectures and Workshops
In Poland 28 – 30 September 2009
– 27 September 2008
arising from this new way of understanding
dogs and dog behaviour. We should
exploit every possible result that could
allow us to help dogs, by using gestures
or “demo dogs” or, as Dr. Miklosi says,
the dog observational learning ability that
could make them able to deal with a wider
range of situations. Vice versa, we must
be participative in helping scientists keep
their research close to reality, suggesting
new ways of analysis, and offering them
the value of our experience.
The gap between academic knowledge
and daily practice is still very wide.
Experiments with robotic signals (humans
behaving like robots) seem not to be the
most appropriate way to test dogs’ ability
to interpret human intention; samples are
still (statistically) too small, and some conclusions
about evolution and the effects of
selection during domestication also seem
almost reckless.
When Dr. Miklósi told us about the debate
on human gesture comprehension, he
asked the audience, “Did you know
anything about this?” When no one in the
room answered, he said, “We live in different
worlds.”
But we should not live in different worlds;
we need science in our dog training world,
as it bring rigorous theoretical support to
the knowledge we are using. Science also
should ask us for our real experience in
daily work with dogs.
[1] “Dog behaviour, evolution and cognition”, Á.
Miklósi, Oxford Univ. Press (2007)
[2] “Multiple and ancient origins of the domestic
dog”, C. Vilà et al., Science 276, (1997) 1687
[3] “Genome sequence, comparative analysis and
haplotype structure of the domestic dog”, Lindblad-
Toh, Nature 438, (2005) 803
[4] “Use of experimenter-given cues in dogs”, Á.
Miklósi et al., Animal Cognition 1 (1998) 113
[5] “The domestication of social cognition in dogs”,
B. Hare et al., Science 298 (2002) 1634
[6] “A simple reason for a big difference: wolves do
not look back at humans, but dogs do”, Á. Miklósi et
al., Current Biology 13 (2003) 763
[7] “Human-like social skills in dogs?”, B. Hare & M.
Tomasello, Trends in Cognitive Science 9 (2005)
439
[8] “Comprehension of human pointing gestures in
young human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs
(Canis familiaris)”, Z. Virányi et al., Animal Cognition
11 (2008) 373
[9] “Differential Sensitivity to Human Communication
in Dogs, Wolves, and Human Infants”, J. Topál et al.,
Science 325 (2009) 1269
[10] “Wolves outperform dogs in following human
social cues”, M. A. R. Udell et al., Animal Behaviour
76 (2008) 1767
[11] “What did domestication do to dogs?”, M.A.R.
Udell et al., Biological Reviews, in press
[12] “When do dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) start to
understand human pointing? The role of ontogeny in
the development of inter-species communication.”,
N. R. Dorey et al., Animal Behaviour, in press
Links:
- Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University,
in Budapest:
http://etologia.aitia.ai
- Family Dog Project: http://familydogproject.elte.hu
A Summary of the PDTE Nosework
workshop HELD ON
29 – 30 September 2009
by Raili Halme, Finland, wilL be
published in THE next Newsletter
in may 2010.
- Canine Science Forum (Budapest 2008): http://
csf2008.elte.hu
- Canine Science Forum (Vienna 2010): http://
csf2010.univie.ac.at
- CompCog, an ESF Research Networking
Programme with title “Evolution of Social Cognition:
Comparisons and integration across a wide
range of human and non-human animal species”:
A programme that brings together 28 European
laboratories from 11 countries, and runs for 5 years
up to April 2013: http://www.compcog.org/
PDTE NEWS Page 34