In society, dogs and humans create a significant bond that allows them to be highly sensitive to our behavioral cues. Humans also have an unconscious ability to synchronize with other humans, for example, humans use hand gestures when conversing with one another. Like humans, dogs may have a conscious or unconscious ability to be synchronized with their owner when involved in activities such as walking or standing still (C. Duranton, T. Bedossa, & F. Gaunet, 2017). There is a need for dogs to be in a close enough proximity between them and their owner because of the significance of their bond. A study was done by C. Duranton, T. Bedossa, and F. Gaunet in 2017 investigating interspecific behavioral synchronization, specifically between dogs and humans.
This experiment was conducted in Maisons- Laffitte, France with 36 dog participants. The researchers decided to strictly use German-shepherds and molossids because “both are working breeds more skilled at using human cues than other nonworking breeds” (C. Duranton, T. Bedossa, & F. Gaunet, 2017). In addition, the dogs were between the ages of 1 and 12, different sexes, and two breeds because they wanted to investigate if there was a significant difference between age, sex, and breed in the context of interspecific behavioral synchronization. The owners were assigned three condition tasks to switch throughout this experiment: stand still condition, normal walking condition, and fast- walking condition. There was also a condition where the dogs could roam freely. This was done to observe if the dogs would change their pace once their owners pace changed. The results indicate that 72.9% of the dogs were able to synchronize their movements to keep up or slow down with their owners to maintain a close proximity and there was no significant difference between the age, sex, or breed of the dogs.
This study revealed the concept of “location synchronization in all the conditions presented during the study, as well as strongly synchronized activity between dogs and their owners when walking freely in an open area” (C. Duranton, T. Bedossa, & F. Gaunet, 2017). The next step would be to determine if there is a proximity effect between humans and their pets in general as well as is there a synchronization mechanism between other non-human animals in a nondomestic environment. If this could be determined, it can indicate a lot about animals and the significance or insignificance of their bonds.
References:
Duranton, C., Bedossa, T. and Gaunet, F. (2017). Pet dogs synchronize their walking pace with that of their owners in open outdoor areas. Animal Cognition, 21(2), pp.219-226.
