The Effect of Domestication and Experience on the Social Interaction of Dogs and Wolves With a Human Companion.

The results of current wolf-dog studies on human-directed behaviors seem to suggest that domestication has acted on dogs' general attitudes and not on specific socio-cognitive skills. A recent hypothesis suggests that domestication may have increased dogs' overall sociability (hypersociability hypothesis). The aim of the present study was to test one aspect of the hypersociability hypothesis, whereby dogs should be more interested in social human contact compared to wolves, and to investigate the relative roles of both domestication and experience on the value that dogs attribute to human social contact. We compared equally raised wolves and dogs kept at the Wolf Science Center (WSCw, WSCd) but also dogs with different human socialization experiences i.e., pet dogs and free-ranging dogs. We presented subjects with a simple test, divided in two phases: in the Pre-test phase animals were exposed to two people in succession. One person invited the animal for a social/cuddle session (contact provider) and the other fed the animal (food provider). In the Test phase, animals could choose which of the two persons to approach, when both stood in a neutral posture. We directly compared WSCd with WSCw and free-ranging dogs with pet dogs. We found that in the Pre-test, WSCd and free-ranging dogs spent more time with the contact provider than WSCw and pet dogs, respectively. The results regarding the free-ranging dog and pet dog comparison were surprising, hence we conducted a follow-up testing pet dogs in a familiar, distraction-free area. Free-ranging dogs and this group of pet dogs did not differ in the time spent cuddling. In the test phase, WSCd were more likely than WSCw to approach the two experimenters. However, neither for the WSCd-WSCw comparison nor for the free-ranging dogs-pet dogs comparison, we could find a clear preference for one person over the other. Our findings support the idea that domestication has affected dogs' behavior in terms of their overall interest in being in proximity with a human partner also in case of dogs with a relatively sparse socialization experience (free-ranging dogs). However, it remains unclear what the driving motivation to interact with the human may be.

Sow-Piglet Nose Contacts in Free-Farrowing Pens.

Nose contact is a frequent form of social behaviour in pigs, but the motivational reasons underlying this behaviour remain unclear. We investigated the frequency, direction and type of sow-piglet nosing behaviour and its association with sow and piglet traits. Social nosing behaviour was recorded by live observations and video recordings in 22 sows and their 249 piglets in free-farrowing pens once weekly during the first three weeks after farrowing (3 times 30 min of observations per litter). Piglet-to-sow nosing occurred on average 32.8 ± 2.35 times per 30 min per litter. Heavier piglets at one week of age nosed the sow more than lighter piglets (P = 0.01). Piglet-to-sow nosing was unrelated to the piglet's sex or teat order. Sow-to-piglet nosing occurred on average 3.6 ± 0.53 times per 30 min, and this was unrelated to litter size. Primiparous sows nosed their piglets more in the second week after farrowing. Litters in which piglet-to-sow nosing occurred more showed less variation in the expression of this behaviour across the weeks. Social nosing between sow and piglets deserves further research to understand the positive implications of this behaviour for sow and piglet welfare.

Repeatability, reproducibility and consistency of horse shape data and its association with linearly described conformation traits in Franches-Montagnes stallions.

Linear description (LD) of conformation traits was introduced in horse breeding to minimise subjectivity in scoring. However, recent studies have shown that LD traits show essentially the same problems as traditionally scored traits, such as data converging around the mean value with very small standard deviations. To improve the assessment of conformation traits of horses, we investigated the application of the recently described horse shape space model based upon 403 digitised photographs of 243 Franches-Montagnes (FM) stallions and extracted joint angles based on specific landmark triplets. Repeatability, reproducibility and consistency of the resulting shape data and joint angles were assessed with Procrustes ANOVA (Rep) and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC). Furthermore, we developed a subjective score to classify the posture of the horses on each photograph. We derived relative warp scores (PCs) based upon the digitised photos conducting a principal component analysis (PCA). The PCs of the shapes and joint angles were compared to the posture scores and to the linear description data using linear mixed effect models including significant posture scores as random factors. The digitisation process was highly repeatable and reproducible for the shape (Rep = 0.72-0.99, ICC = 0.99). The consistency of the shape was limited by the age and posture (p < 0.05). The angle measurements were highly repeatable within one digitiser. Between digitisers, we found a higher variability of ICC values (ICC = 0.054-0.92), indicating digitising error in specific landmarks (e.g. shoulder point). The posture scores were highly repeatable (Fleiss' kappa = 0.713-0.857). We identified significant associations (p(X2) < 0.05) with traits describing the withers height, shoulder length and incline, overall leg conformation, walk and trot step length. The horse shape data and angles provide additional information to explore the morphology of horses and therefore can be applied to improve the knowledge of the genetic architecture of LD traits.