Dog Cooperation, Part 1

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Dog Emotion and Cognition

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Duke University

Dog Emotion and Cognition

2151 ratings

Dog Emotion and Cognition will introduce you to the exciting new study of dog psychology, what the latest discoveries tell us about how dogs think and feel about us, and how we can use this new knowledge to further strengthen our relationship with our best friends.

From the lesson

Problems That Dogs Can and Cannot Solve

In this module, you will learn about the genius of dogs. Brilliant examples of the canine mind will be explored. Dogs seem to be capable of inferential reasoning using the "principle of exclusion" as well as learning new words by imitating humans. Next, Dr. Hare discusses dog's abilities to understand physical problem solving compared to other species (hint, this isn't most dog's strong suit). Last, he will discuss how dogs are not cooperative breeders, do have a relaxed social system, and are excellent hunting companions for humans.

Dog Cooperation, Part 17:46

Dog Cooperation, Part 26:20

Dog Cooperation, Part 34:37

Meet the Instructors

Brian Hare
Associate Professor
Evolutionary Anthropology

So this lecture is all about dogs back in the pack.

And particularly what we're gonna look at or

we're gonna focus on is cooperation in dogs.

And we're gonna directly compare the social system of wolves to dogs.

I think there's a lot of interest in how similar dogs are to wolves.

And what might some of the differences be between the two species,

in terms of how they interact socially but even how they cooperate.

So, we're gonna walk through a comparison between the two species and

then talk a little bit about what might be the mechanism that allows

these species to be so successful working together.

So for the book, I think Chapter 8 really focuses on this in The Genius of Dogs.

If you are following along with the book, that would be where you'd wanna look.

And in Dognition, I think the empathy games are most relevant to what we

are going to talk about, particularly at the end of the lecture today.

Because the games that you play through Dognition are similar to the games

that we highlight as being important to dog, understanding dog operation.

And you can find out it in your dog, what they do.

Okay. Memory will also important because again,

one of things is important for a lot of these cooperative activities is memory.

Okay, so, the first thing that really stands out when you compare wolves and

dogs are lots of interesting differences.

So, wolves and dogs are different in a really important way

that is very similar when you think about how we talk about bonobos and chimpanzees.

Where bonobos are actually attracted to strangers,

whereas chimpanzees are intolerant of strangers.

It seems like wolves are a little bit like chimpanzees, or

actually a lot like chimpanzees.

They're very intolerant of strangers and in fact they can be very aggressive

towards strange pack members that might meet out as they're foraging.

Whereas dogs, they may be actually more like bonobos.

They're certainly not, often they're not, aggressive towards strange dogs.

That's why when you go out to the dog park they often will play with dogs they've

never met before.

And they might even be xenophilic, just like bonobos.

They might even be attracted to strangers,

more interested in playing with a dog they haven't played with before.

There's really no evidence that feral dogs, dogs that are living without

the impact of humans influencing their relationships, actually kill each other.

Certainly not at the rate that wolves do.

And I think as depicted here in this photo, one of the remarkable things that

dogs do, is they actually allow another dog to smell their genital region.

And that is something that wolves typically do not allow others to do.

They're trying to, it seems, hide information about themselves, and

they're very intolerant of that.

Whereas dogs are very tolerant of one another,

checking out each other in that way.

So, wolves not so happy to meet strangers,

whereas dogs seem to be much more tolerant.

Another way that dogs and wolves are really different from another,

is that wolves are really committed cooperative breeders.

That means there's a mating pair as many people are familiar,

who work together to raise offspring.

Yearlings sometimes stay behind and

that's how larger packs form and they'll help raise the siblings.

Feral dogs, again that live without impact from humans interfering with their social

relationships, they do not cooperatively breed.

A female dog will go off on her own and have her pups.

There is very little evidence that there are yearlings that help to stay, and

help raise dog puppies in any context, and males provide very little help.

In fact, there have been a few exceptions to that, and they're noted in

the literature, where actually a male dog did provision offspring.

And it was so surprising to the researchers that they made a big deal of

it in the paper.

So, dogs certainly not cooperative breeders, and

likely as a result of domestication.

Although there's a really interesting exception to this, which is dingoes

seem to mirror the social system of wolves,

here at least, based on what we know currently.

So I think it'd be really interesting to study dingo social systems more

especially, given that they might be sort of in between what we're seeing

in feral dogs that are the result of pet dogs escaping from homes.

And living around human communities, whereas dingoes have been

living without human interference for many, many, many generations.

So given that wolves are cooperative breeders, adults in the pack,

obviously they work together to feed and protect the offspring each year.

And as a result there's actually quite high survivorship.

Many of the pups survive, and especially when that's compared to feral dog mothers,

who lose the vast majority of their offspring.

The estimates I've seen are as few as 1% of feral dog puppies make it to their

first year, and that's just not a sustainable level of loss.

And it's clear that feral dog populations really struggle to have offspring survive,

and it's largely due to the fact that they are not breeding cooperatively

as best as the researchers who're studying this can tell.

So, another consequence of dogs not being cooperative breeders is, as I said before,

males are not helping protect or feed offspring.

There's really no one that stays behind in a den as the mother goes off to forage.

So, there's no one protecting those offspring.

And that's probably why they suffer so much mortality, cuz as they start getting

mobile and they leave the den, and they stay around the den,

there's no one to make alarm bark calls when there's a predator.

There's no one there to protect them from a predator.

So, they are easy prey.

Okay, so wolves are famously cooperative hunters.

They're successful at bringing down large prey when hunting together.

One interesting thing is there is very little experimental evidence with wolves

testing how they actually understand their roles when they're cooperating.

Do they actually understand they need the help of another individual to solve

certain problems?

And that they understand that certain individuals have different roles

when they're hunting or working together?

And that some individuals are more skilled than others?

That type of work has not been done yet.

It has been done with great apes, and

we know for instance that chimpanzees can solve all those types of problems.

It would be really neat to do that kind of work with wolves to see what they do.

Dogs obviously are not cooperative hunters, with the exception with us,

potentially.

There's no evidence in the literature that I could find of feral dogs

actively hunting together with any level of coordination.

And in general, feral dogs really rely on scavenging off humans.

Again, Dingo standing out as a potential exception here.

There's plenty of evidence for dingoes, preying on different marsupials.

Of course, marsupials are in many cases so vulnerable, that it's not that

they are necessarily preying on animals that are able to really defend themselves.

With the exception of some of the larger kangaroos or wallabies, which

they have been seen to prey on, and in some cases multiple individuals chasing.

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