Forkman, Björn

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Björn Forkman

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Applied Animal Behaviour Science

Book review

Copenhagen University Research Information System

u n i ve r s i t y  o f  co pe n h ag e n  The social dog. Behaviour and cognition, J. Kaminski, S. Marshall-Pescini (Eds.)Academic Press, London (2014), ISBN: 978-0-12-407818-5Forkman, BjörnPublished in:Applied Animal Behaviour ScienceDOI:10.1016/j.applanim.2015.09.008Publication date:2015Document license:OtherCitation for published version (APA):Forkman, B. (2015). The social dog. Behaviour and cognition, J. Kaminski, S. Marshall-Pescini (Eds.): AcademicPress, London (2014), ISBN: 978-0-12-407818-5. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 172, 63.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2015.09.008Download date: 09. okt.. 2020BTM9btdtmoogfiveobaooabiswtasicchClsaiidsiditah0Applied Animal Behaviour Science 172 (2015) 63Contents lists available at ScienceDirectApplied  Animal  Behaviour  Sciencej ourna l h om epage: www.elsev ier .com/ locate /applan imC,  DenmarkE-mail address: bjf@sund.ku.dkook  reviewhe Social Dog. Behaviour and Cognition, J. Kaminski, S.arshall-Pescini (Eds.). Academic Press, London (2014), ISBN:78-0-12-407818-5There has been a recent increase in the number of scientificooks published on dog behaviour. While some of them straddlehe line between scientific and popular, the current book comesown firmly on the side of the scientific. For the serious student,he book gives an excellent introduction into the complexities ofeasuring cognition and behaviour in the dog. However, becausef these complexities, and because the authors have chosen not toversimplify their message, the person who is just looking for aeneral book on dog behaviour risks being disappointed.While the individual chapters are well written by experts in theeld, the book does suffer somewhat from the curse of many editedolumes. There are very few links between the chapters (with thexception of chapter 1), and some studies are mentioned briefly inne chapter and given much more space in another. It would haveeen nice, and would have given a more cohesive impression, if theuthors had made more references to the content and cited workf the other chapters of the book.The first section consists of two chapters, one on the evolutionf the dog and the other comparing the social behaviour of dogsnd wolves. The chapter on evolution is well written and readableut partly covers ground that may  be well known to many readers;t does however serve as a background for the rest of the book. Theecond chapter deals with aggression and cooperation in dogs andolves. This is a very interesting chapter, not least because of thehorough discussion of comparative studies of dogs and wolves. Ilso found the discussion concerning selection for reduced aggres-ion in the dog, and in particular fear-related aggression, especiallynteresting.The second section of the book is about social behaviour withhapters three to five dealing with dog–dog social behaviour, andhapters six to eight with the social interactions between dogs andumans, including dog personality. The chapter by Bonanni andafazzo, deals with a population of free-ranging dogs in Rome. Aarge portion of the chapter discusses the dominance concept in theocial organisation of free-ranging dogs. While this is a “hot topic”nd certainly worthy of discussion I cannot but help wonderingf the current interest and discussion of it obscures other interest-ng dog social behaviours. To be fair to the authors the chapter doeseal with other aspects of social behaviour such as cooperation andpacing. The following chapter on play also has some text on dom-nance. The chapters on intra-species social behaviour ends with aiscussion of auditory communication between dogs including anntriguing section on dogs’ understanding of human vocal signals.The part on dog–human social behaviour starts with a chap-er by Previde and Valsecchi discussing attachment theory and itspplicability to the dog–human bond. It is followed by a chapterttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2015.09.008168-1591/on personality by Miklosi et al. (chapter 7) which contains a briefoverview of the results of various personality tests used on dogs. Itthen goes on to discuss genetic as well as environmental influenceson dog personality. As always when covering a very wide range ofsubjects there is the risk of not doing them all justice, and the chap-ter might have benefited from a reduction of the number of topicsso as to treat each of them in more depth. The final chapter of thesection is on behavioural problems – “when the bond goes wrong”.It is an interesting and well-written chapter by Daniel Mills andco-authors but it has a different emphasis and style than the otherchapters in the book as it, understandably, is much more appliedand therefore does not fit very well with the rest of the book.The third section of the book is on social cognition. It starts withan excellent chapter by Péter Pongrácz who has written a very care-ful and critical review on social learning in dogs. This is followed bya shorter chapter on how and if dogs understand humans, includ-ing a discussion on theory of mind experiments. The third chapterof the section, chapter 11, introduces a much more narrow topic– the reaction to human cues that serve to identify the sender’scommunicative intention. The approach taken in the chapter is acomparative one in which the authors argue that human infantsand dogs face similar challenges in communication, and that thereare strong similarities in the way  they have solved these.Ever since cognitive bias was  first introduced to the field ofapplied ethology there has been a high level of interest in it and itsability to assess the affective state of domestic animals. The chap-ter by Oliver Burman carefully describes six different studies usingcognitive bias tests in dogs. As with the chapter by Mills et al. men-tioned earlier, this chapter is well written and contains valuableadvice on what to do and what not to do when carrying out cogni-tive bias studies in dogs. However, like the chapter by Mills et al.this chapter does not really fit well in the book, as the emphasis ison the methods rather than results. The final chapter in the bookis by Siniscalchi and Quaranta, and it is on lateralisation in the dog.The study of laterality as a method for investigating cognitive pro-cesses has become increasingly popular and the chapter gives a niceoverview of relevant studies of dogs.Overall anyone who  purchases this volume will acquire a goodbook on dog behaviour that provides a valuable and comprehen-sive summary of hot topics in the field of dog social behaviour andcognition.Björn ForkmanDepartment of Large Animal Sciences, University ofCopenhagen, Groennegaardsvej 8, 1870 FrederiksbergAvailable online 23 October 2015

The social dog. Behaviour and cognition, J. Kaminski, S. Marshall-Pescini (Eds.):Academic Press, London (2014), ISBN: 978-0-12-407818-5

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The social dog. Behaviour and cognition, J. Kaminski, S. Marshall-Pescini (Eds.):Academic Press, London (2014), ISBN: 978-0-12-407818-5

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