Social referencing: Water rescue trained dogs are less affected than pet dogs by the stranger’s message
Recent studies provide evidence of social referencing in dog–human interactions indicating that dogs use the emotional information provided by a human informant about a novel object/stimulus to guide their own behaviour towards it. Water rescue training is a type of educational activity aimed at creating human–dog dyads specialized in rescuing people who are drowning. A […]
When facing an unfamiliar person, pet dogs present social referencing based on their owners’ direction of movement alone
When confronted with an unfamiliar object, dogs, Canis familiaris, engage in social referencing, i.e. synchronizing their reaction with that of their owner. The question of whether, like infants, they do so when confronted with an unfamiliar person, has not yet been studied. We tested the reactions of 72 pet dogs (36 shepherds and 36 molossoids) […]
Do shelter dogs engage in social referencing with their caregiver in an approach paradigm? An exploratory study
When confronted with an unfamiliar object or person, privately owned pet dogs engage in social referencing, synchronizing their reaction with that of their owners. The question of whether shelter dogs do so when confronted with a stranger has not yet been studied. We tested the reactions of 30 shelter dogs with their principal caregiver when […]