# Spatial Problem-Solving in Working Dogs: The Combined Effect of Body-Size Awareness, Social Learning and Functional Breed Selection

## TL;DR

The study explores how working dogs solve spatial problems, finding that body awareness and social learning influence their decisions more than breed type.

## Contribution

The study reveals that both cooperative and independent dog breeds equally use body-awareness and social learning in problem-solving.

## Key findings

- Dogs chose detours when shortcuts were inconvenient, especially after observing a demonstration.
- Breed type had minimal impact on decision-making, except cooperative breeds watched demonstrations longer.
- Flexible use of social and self-based information contributes to dogs' adaptability in human environments.

## Abstract

Hundreds of recognized dog breeds show exceptional variety of morphology, and often markedly different behaviors, too. Based on the extent of their reliance on human-given signals, many dog breeds are characterized as either cooperative or independent workers. Here, we investigated the behavior of these two breed types in a complex problem-solving situation. We tested N = 149 dogs from more than fifty breeds, where the dogs had to obtain the reward by either making a detour around a transparent obstacle or using either an uncomfortably small or conveniently large opening as a shortcut across it. To add a social aspect to the test, in some groups, the experimenter showed the dogs how to detour the obstacle. We found that dogs made decisions that showed the effect of both body-awareness and social learning. Dogs chose the shortcut across the obstacle when it seemed comfortably large but opted for the longer detour especially when the opening was small and they observed the demonstration. Breed type had only a minimal effect: cooperative breeds spent more time watching the demonstrator. We conclude that flexible reliance of purebred working dogs on the available social and self-representation-based information could contribute to their success in the highly variable human environment.

Cooperative and independently working dog breeds differ in the extent of their reliance on human-given instructions; thus, they are ideal subjects for investigating dog–human interactions in a biologically relevant way. We tested N = 149 dogs from 26 cooperative and 28 independent breeds in a problem-solving scenario that combined asocial and social elements. Dogs had to detour a transparent obstacle, where we also provided a shortcut (either comfortably large or inconveniently small to pass through). Half of the subjects in each condition observed the human demonstration of how to detour the obstacle. Our main questions were whether functional breed selection would affect the body-size awareness-based decision-making, and whether breed types would differently rely on social learning. We found that dogs from both breed types equally relied on body-awareness and social learning. They mainly opted for the detour (instead of using the shortcut) and less often approached the opening directly when the door was small, plus they had observed the demonstrator before. We only found a breed-type effect in observing the demonstration, where cooperative dogs watched the demonstrator for longer. The results indicate that adaptive reliance on both intrinsic (body-awareness) and extrinsic factors (social learning) could contribute to the ubiquitous success of dogs in the anthropogenic environment.