A dog’s environment impacts their communication behaviours

A dog’s environment impacts their communication behaviours

New research has confirmed that a dog’s environment impacts their communication behaviours. Dogs generally matched the enthusiasm of their owners! Craig Lebrau lets Pet Problems Solved know more…

The environments that we put our animals in may have an effect on their psyches. We are definitely impacted by the environments that we inhabit but we have not had proof that canine communication and behaviours are also impacted by the dog’s environment.

Whether it is childcare courses for one’s children or a favourite room in the home (to name just a few examples among many), the impact of one’s environment on our ways of communicating and behaving can be and often is massive.

New study looking at human and canine communication

For our animals, however, we have had no proof, just vague assumptions, that we have made based on our own ways of experiencing the world around us. Until now, that is, thanks to a new study that has just emerged where researchers found that dogs do indeed adapt their communicative behaviours to mirror their environment.

For a long time, it has been said that animals’ behaviours and communication skills are reflective of their environment. This is truer again for animals that become the pets of individuals around the globe. Now, it finally seems like this debate has been put to rest, with a new study confirming that a dog’s environment impacts their communication behaviours.

This study was based on understanding how a pet owner’s behaviours and communication strategies impact that of their pets. In the past, it has been suggested that dogs rely on a communication history – or even follow a method of communication involving the least amount of effort possible to be successful. This new study indicates that, for dogs at least, owner behaviours and communications not only impact that of their dogs, but that they are far more impactful than we previously thought them to be.

Dogs have evolved communication behaviours that mimic humans

Our own communication methods have evolved to such a point that they can be easily observed across all cultures and languages. And because dogs have a significant sensitivity to our expressions, gestures, and even vocalisations, there is the finding that after over thirty-thousand years of domestication and collaborative living with humans, dogs have evolved communication behaviours that mimic our own in many ways.

To explore this concept, researchers on this study designed and created an experiment that closely examined form, effort, and overall longevity and success of interactions between dogs and humans. This experiment used hidden objects and focused on thirty owners and their dogs. The results of this experiment showed that in this hidden object experiment, the dogs caught the attention of a ‘communication partner’ and showed them over to external points. At this point, the owners waited outside.

After the communication partner hid the toy in view of the dog, the owner was let into the room and the dog was tasked with showing its owner where its favourite toy had been hidden. If the owner successfully found this toy, then they were rewarded with some play time.

This experiment was played out in two frameworks: up close and distance setups. The more excitedly the owner asked their dog to show them where the favourite toy was, the more excited that the dog got to show them.

Read: The importance of pet play

Dogs match the enthusiasm of their owners

This is a big finding that confirms what we have only been able to guess at up until this point. Not only are communication and behaviour efforts recognised easily by the dogs, but they are also very much mirrored in that the dogs generally match the enthusiasm of their owners, a subconscious effort in behavioural communication that has likely (if not certainly) been fine tuned over the last thirty-thousand years or so as domestication has continued and the bonds between humans and their dogs have strengthened more over time.

When it comes to understanding the communication levels of not only ourselves as a species, but the animals that we choose to surround ourselves with, it is fair to say that there has long been an assumption that our pets not only respond to our behaviours and communications but that they understand them and communicate accordingly in return. However, this has been nothing more than an assumption. Until now.

This recent study not only strongly indicates but goes so far as to prove that dogs respond to and communicate in alignment with the behaviours and communications of their owners and the atmosphere of the environment that they are in at the time. This is the first study that has definitively proven this to be effective and true. There are likely going to be further studies as a subsequent response to the success of this first study. So, hopefully, the best is yet to come.

Have you noticed your dog’s enthusiasm levels matching yours?
Do you think that your dog’s environment impacts their communication behaviours?

About the author:
Craig Lebrau is the CMO of Media Insider, a PR company that aims to disrupt the way companies communicate their brand in the digital era.