New data on communication behaviour between the young child and his pet dog

A systematic investigation of communication behaviour between 2-to-5 year old children and their pet dogs (N=18), from video films shot in the home, shows that children take the initiative in communication more often, and that they seek more body contact with their dog. Different characteristics of the children such as age, family size and different characteristics of the dog such as size and sex are significantly correlated (p<.01 or p<.05) with the quantity of communications and with the different types of child behaviour in relation to the dog (stroking, hitting, etcz.sfnc;). This preliminary report leads to suggestions for further investigations of the data.