Family dogs match their movements to those of the children they
live with, according to a poignant new study of young people and their pets. In
the study, pet dogs moved when their accompanying children did and remained
still when they stopped, a physical synchrony that often signals emotional
bonding. The family canines also tended to stay close by and to orient themselves
in the same directions as the kids, a further indication of social engagement
and attentiveness that could have implications for the emotional development of
both dogs and youngsters, as well as for the safety of the interactions between
them.
اضافة اعلان
The results add to the growing evidence that how people and
other creatures move depends to a surprising extent on who they are with, and
that social connections can be shaped and strengthened by shared activity. The
findings also raise practical questions about how children and dogs can best
learn to read each other’s body language, and how family pets might help to
encourage children to move more or best serve as a source of emotional support.
The idea that being around others influences how we move is not
new. Past research shows that romantic couples tend unconsciously to
synchronize their walking pace to a much greater extent than strangers do and
that men often speed up when walking with other men, even if the new pace is
not physiologically comfortable for them.
In the same way, moving together seems to build familiarity,
even if it did not exist before. People who take up dancing together, for
instance, often express greater closeness and cohesion afterward. Moving in
tandem seems to generate intangible, intimate bonds.
Other research suggests that these connections are not limited
to humans. When, during earlier studies, scientists asked adults to bring their
pet dogs to large, unfamiliar rooms and then walk around the space, sometimes
pausing, sometimes changing direction, and not directly engaging with their
pets, the dogs followed and repeated their owners’ actions to a remarkable
degree. About 80 percent of the time, the dogs walked when their owners walked and
fell still when they stopped. They also usually turned and pivoted whenever
their owners did, so that they stayed oriented in the same direction.
Dogs in shelters likewise aped the actions of their primary
caregivers, other studies showed, but to a lesser extent than among family
dogs, indicating looser bonds. Little was known, though, about whether pet dogs
similarly synchronize themselves with their family’s children. So for the new
study, which was published in January in Animal Cognition, researchers at
Oregon State University in Corvallis turned to a group of previously assembled
volunteers. As part of a planned, long-term study of animal-assisted
interventions for children with developmental differences, the scientists
already had recruited local families with children age 8 to 17 and their pet dogs.
They now asked 30 of the children, some with developmental
differences, such as autism, and some without, if they would bring their dogs
to a large, warehouselike space. The dogs, ranging in breed from floppy
retrievers to a Jack Russell mix, a whippet, several poodles and a Great Dane,
had received no special training at the time. They were pets.
The researchers asked the youngsters to follow pathways marked
with tape in the cavernous space, pausing sometimes, and switching directions,
without touching or talking to their dogs. The researchers filmed and later
analyzed each duo’s interactions and found that the dogs stayed close to their
young owners, walking or stilling in tune with them more than 60 percent of the time.
The dogs also turned frequently to face in the same direction as the child,
like greenhorn square dancers.
Their synchrony was less than researchers had noted earlier
among adults and their dogs but far greater than would be expected by chance,
the researchers concluded.
“The dogs clearly were paying attention and adjusting their
behavior” in response to the actions of the child, said Monique Udell, an
associate professor of animal sciences at Oregon State and senior author of the
study.
But the distance between their synchrony and that of dogs with
their adult owners suggests that families with children and dogs might want to
have the young people spend more time walking, working with, feeding and
playing with their pets, she said. “Let them learn to read each other’s body
language,” she said. “I think children, even young children, are capable of
taking on more of the responsibility of training pets than we give them credit
for.” And in the process, the pets are likely learn to respond more deeply to
the child, she said.
This study was very small and short term, though. Udell hopes to
enroll more dogs and children and follow them during service-animal training,
watching to see if, for instance, children start to orient themselves to the
actions of their dogs, as well as vice versa, and if there are differences in
synchrony according to a child’s age or dog’s breed.
She and her colleagues also are interested in studying the
bonding and interwoven movements of people and other types of pets,
particularly cats. “We’ve done a little work with cats and, so far, they blow
everything out of the water in terms of being socially responsive to their
owners’ behavior,” she said. No experiments currently are planned, however, to
test the synchrony of cats and dogs.
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