Sometimes we hold dogs responsible when we don’t get the type of play we want, even subconsciously. One way to explore this phenomenon is to look at whether a shelter dog’s play behavior affects whether it will be adopted. Alexandra Protopopova and colleagues at the University of Florida Canine Cognition and Behavior Lab and Arizona State University Canine Science Collaboratory found that when a potential adopter takes out a shelter dog for a one-on-one interaction, only two behavioral variables predicted whether that dog was leaving the shelter: 1) lying in close proximity to the person, and 2) responding to the person’s play solicitation. You heard me right: of all the things a dog might do when first meeting someone, only two things were associated with whether a dog was adopted: dogs laying close to the person were about 14 times more likely to be adopted, and a dog who ignored a person’s play initiation was unlikely to be adopted
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 09:44:35 +0000
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