Comportamento e comunicação entre cães domésticos durante atividades de socialização em um parque urbano: existe variação sexual e/ou racial?

Abstract

As a social animal, the importance of the socialization and interaction of dogs with members of their own species is evident. In addition, positive experiences contribute to the formation of healthy and balanced individuals. With the increasingly higher number of dogs that live and interact intimately with humans in society, knowledge and understanding of their behavioral and communicational repertoire is fundamental to foster a better coexistence between both, as well to increase the dogs' welfare. In this way, the following study aims to identify, quantify and understand this behavioral repertoire, by observing individuals during socialization activities at an urban park, looking for racial and sexual differences among the individuals observed. Twenty dogs were observed and filmed during 10 min, being 11 females and nine males. For analyses, 28 behaviors were grouped in four categories and individuals were grouped in primitive and modified breeds, in accordance of the degree of modification from the wolf. Males showed higher frequency of Attention and Territoriality behaviors and females presented more Calming Signals behaviors. In the comparisons between breeds, there was only difference in the frequency of Attention behaviors, more frequent in primitive dogs. These results indicate an influence of the sex of the individuals on the frequency of the analyzed behaviors. Moreover, it shows the importance of the observation of dogs as a species, due to the similarity between the frequencies of behaviors expressed by dogs of different racial groups.