Effects of Sociality Level on Companion Dog Training through Food Reinforcement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of sociality level in dogs using food reinforcement. The companion dogs living mostly inside (IS) and those living mostly outside (OS) groups were further classified into high sociality (HS) and low sociality (LS) groups using a social test. The data were analyzed by observing videos of the dogs and recording nine categories of sociality. Passive; activity; and communication tasks were measured in terms of the time the dog first contacted the trainer; the time it took for the dog to approach within 1 m of the trainer, and the time the dog remained in contact. The IS and OS groups showed no significant differences in any category; except for close to trainer within 1 m of the active phase. However, in a comparison between the overall HS and LS groups; significant positive changes were observed in all items except for the first contact time to the trainer of the passive and active phase. This is an important result of the sociality level; as positive results can be predicted not only in a dog's ability to adapt to the environment but also in the communication and training exchanges between dogs and humans.