Dogs children: our dogs see us as parents?

As social animals, dogs have an innate need to form strong bonds with others of the same species. However, to be pets, they have also developed the need to form strong bonds with humans.

Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) studied the type of link you are dogs with humans, based on attachment theory. Their results suggest that the links are dogs with humans would be very similar in principle to the links that make young children with their parents.

Attachment theory suggests that the strong bond of babies to their parents is an evolutionary adaptation that protects infants because attachment makes them often look to their parents or caregivers. Vetmeduni Vienna scientists suggest that dogs have developed a similar evolution over adaptation, by which they can not only stick to their conspecifics, but also to humans. This would have helped them a lot, since most dogs live as pets or in some kind of dependency relationship to people.

During the research, scientists evaluated particularly what is known as a secure base effect, which is one component of attachment theory that says that the caregiver or parent provides a secure base for the child to explore the world with confidence. For dogs, the base securely provide the owner or keeper of the dog.

Through several experiments, they concluded that dogs are actually dependent on the security provided by their owners or caregivers to explore their environment with confidence. When caregivers or owners were not, the dogs were reluctant to explore and even to take food that was in place. This even if there were other people in the place.

This research says a lot about the differences between dogs and wolves (which only form stronger links among them) and the collaborative evolution of the dog and man. Besides being a starting point for further studies on the evolution of dog behavior, it can lead to applied studies about how to approach strange dogs making them feel safe (useful eg for trainers and veterinarians).

However, there are aspects to be assessed in the future. For example, if there are also different types of attachment as found the children-parents (secure attachment, insecure or avoidant attachment and ambivalent attachment) relationship on the dog-man relationship.