“The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.”
Jack London, White Fang
Dogs and Humans
Believed to have been domesticated over 15.000 years ago from a population of grey wolves (Canis lupus) in the Eurasian continent, the dog (Canis lupus familiaris) has since become one of the most popular pets in the world. In Portugal alone, there are more than 2.3 million dogs officially registered as pets, making it an average of one dog for every five humans in the country.
Over this long process of domestication, both dogs and humans developed special ways to communicate with each other. In humans, this can be seen in the utilization of pet-directed speech, a method of talking similar to the one we use when talking with children: slow-paced and high-pitched.
In dogs, this communication skill development can be seen in vocalizations and other contact-seeking behaviors. As these behaviors aren’t found in human-raised wolves, we can determine that they originated during the process of domestication.
The original aim
Originally, my aim was to record interactions between dogs and their owners, focusing on their vocalizations, to see how these interactions influenced the pitch, volume and turn-taking behavior of their conversations.
Improvise, adapt, overcome
Halfway through data collection, we realized that dogs were not vocalizing nearly as much as we had originally expected, so the aims of the study had to be re-adjusted. Utilizing the videos we had already recorded in each visit to the subjects, we changed the aim to evaluate how the contact-seeking behaviors of the dogs changed during interactions with their owners.