Social communicative characteristics of adolescent police dogs: Acquired experience plays a crucial role

Abstract

The domestic dog is known for its strong ability to respond to human social cues. However, conclusions based on highly socialized dogs may not generalize to all populations since acquired experience is known to greatly influence canine cognition. To further explore this question, we employed a classic gesture comprehension paradigm to test a group of adolescent police dogs with distinct background. Results showed that these dogs exhibited a different social communicative cognition ability, characterized by an enhanced following of marker gesture but an impaired following of pointing gesture. Compared to public data, these police dogs performed significantly worse on the pointing gesture but much better on the marker gesture than assistance dog puppies. Their performance on the pointing gesture was comparable to wolf puppies’, whereas they significantly surpassed them on the marker gesture. Compared to free ranging dogs with limited socialization, they also showed a similar level of performance on the pointing gesture. Our findings shed new light on the cognitive differences among distinct dog populations and reveal acquired experience could greatly shape domestic dogs’ social cognition ability, serving as a critical supplement to existing results.