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| Fotó: Gácsi |
A segítő- és terápiás kutyák sikeresebben oldják meg a feladatokat mint a képzetlen és a más feladatokra képzett családi kutyák. De bármilyen kiképzés kedvezően hat az önállóságra: az ELTE Etológia tanszék kutatói által adott feladatban a képzetlen kutyák egyáltalán nem tudtak jutalmat szerezni, helyette a gazdára nézegettek, a képzettek viszont hozzájutottak néhány falathoz.
A szelíd farkasok kitartóbbak, sikeresebbek a táplálékszerzési feladatokban mint a kutyák, ezért korábban sokan azt gondolták, hogy a kutyák “elbutultak” a háziasítás során. A legtöbb kutya feladathelyzetben nem a feladat megoldásával foglalkozik, hanem a gazdájára nézeget, mintha segítséget várna tőle. Azóta kiderült, hogy a kutyák nem butábbak a farkasoknál, csak másféle stratégiát alkalmaznak. Egy kitartóbb és a feladatmegoldásban tapasztalt kutya hosszabb ideig foglalkozik a számára eddig ismeretlen kihívással, ezért sokkal valószínűbb, hogy végül meg is oldja. Az ELTE etológusai arra voltak kíváncsiak, hogy képzetlen és a különböző feladatokra kiképzett kutyák feladatmegoldása miben tér el. Úgy találták, hogy a segítő munkára kiképzett kutyák önállóbban, a feladatra koncentrálva és jóval sikeresebben dolgoztak, míg a képzetlenebb kutyák szociális taktikát alkalmaztak, a gazdára nézegettek a feladat megoldás helyett. A tanulmányt a Frontiers in Veterinary Sciences lapban publikálták.
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| Fotó: Kubinyi |
Assistance and therapy dogs are better problem solvers than both trained and untrained family dogs
The special training
of assistance and therapy dogs to actively help people favor their independent
and more successful problem-solving performance, but general training of pet
dogs also increases persistence.
Research comparing wolves and dogs often suggested that
domestication made dogs “dumb” for solving physical tasks. While wolves spent
more time manipulating an apparatus and were thus more successful in solving
the problem, dogs used more social strategies such as gazing at the human face,
which could be interpreted as asking for help from their human partner.
However, performance is affected by other factors as well, such as the relationship
with the owner, motivation, and persistence. Dogs with training experience
(i.e., agility, police, search and rescue, and man-trailing) have been found
also more successful in problem-solving tasks and looked less to people than
untrained dogs. But in these studies, the dogs differed in the types of
training they received and their everyday experiences. Thus, to disentangle the
relative effects of training for recreational purposes and specific work,
animal behavior researchers have now compared the performance of dogs trained
for assistance and therapy work with family dogs which had been trained for
recreational purposes and found that working assistance and therapy dogs were
more independent problem solvers compared to both trained and untrained family
dogs, who privileged a more social strategy.
The team, led by scientists from the ELTE Eötvös University,
Hungary, investigated a total of 90 dogs between 1 and 12 years of age, of
different breeds and mixed-breeds, living in all families. 30 untrained dogs
had no certification exams, 30 dogs were trained for recreational purposes, and
30 dogs worked as certified assistance or therapy dogs. Assistance dogs were
trained to aid individuals with disabilities by the Dogs for Human charity
(http://kea-net.hu/). The study was published in Frontiers in Veterinary Sciences.
“Dogs used different behavioral strategies when we gave them
a commercial dog toy with food pellets hidden inside. If they were motivated to
obtain rewards, they either tried to solve the problem on their own or tended
to interact with a human partner. Working assistance and therapy dogs found 3
pellets on average out of 8, while untrained dogs have not found any. Instead,
they looked twice as long at the owner” said Fabricio Carballo, guest
researcher at ELTE from CONICET, Argentina. Márta Gácsi, who is not just a
researcher but a certified assistance dog trainer, added that “Importantly,
training experiences (mainly obedience and agility in this study) also
increased the independent problem-solving tendency in our task, suggesting that
trained family dogs generalize their training experience of facing novel
situations and perseverance for obtaining rewards”.
Nevertheless, training for recreational purposes did not
seem to be enough for dogs to reach the effectiveness of working assistance and
therapy dogs, as the latter were more successful problem solvers. “This result
suggests that dogs’ everyday experience is an uttermost important aspect to
take into account when assessing their skills in a problem-solving situation. Working
dogs were probably more comfortable in the presence of strangers and in novel
situations given that they usually accompany their owners to a variety of
places.” Concludes Enikő Kubinyi, the leading author of the study. “But we also
cannot exclude that working dogs had pre-existing characteristics that
distinguished them from other dogs, for instance, they are innately bolder and
trainable than other dogs. All in all, although assistance and therapy dogs
need to show highly developed social understanding in their interactions with
the owner, their special training and work also increase their persistence and
independent problem-solving skills.”
Press:
https://www.bumm.sk/turmix/2020/03/31/onallobbak-a-segito-munkara-kepzett-kutyak
https://webradio.hu/hirek/it-tudomany/onallobbak-a-segito-munkara-kepzett-kutyak
https://www.origo.hu/tudomany/20200331-elte-onallobbak-a-segito-munkara-kepzett-kutyak.html
https://www.delmagyar.hu/egyperces/konnyebben-oldanak-meg-szinte-minden-feladatot-a-segitokutyak-5717196/
