Free-ranging dogs in groups are less fearful of humans

What is it about?

Free-ranging dogs live in human-dominated environments in the global south. In India, they depend largely on human-generated resources for food. They experience both positive and negative social cues from humans, in the form of food provisioning, petting, threats and beatings. The dogs show behavioural plasticity in their interactions with humans in various contexts. An earlier experiment with solitary dogs showed that they are capable of comprehending different human social cues like friendly gestures, mild threatening by the raising of a hand and high-impact threatening by raising a small stick. They respond differently to the different cues, both in the presence and absence of a food reward. However, free-ranging dogs live in social groups and are known to show bonding among group members; they show cooperative behaviours like alloparenting and defend territories together. Hence, it is important to understand how they would respond to human social cues when present as a group. We carried out similar experiments with groups of dogs and found that they respond differently to the cues as before, but show greater approach rates than in the solitary condition. The experiment revealed further behavioural flexibility of free-ranging dogs in their interactions with humans, and showed that they show a bolder response when present with conspecifics. However, even with conspecifics, the high-impact threat elicited an avoidance/fearful response.

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Why is it important?

This finding is important for people to understand how free-ranging dogs respond to their gestures and postures on the streets. This can help to address situations of dog-huma conflict.