Circannual time budget of equally raised wolves and dogs


SOCIETY FOR INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY
2021 VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING (VAM)
January 3 – Febuary 28, 2021

Meeting Abstract


15-7  Sat Jan 2  Circannual time budget of equally raised wolves and dogs Jean-Joseph, HG*; Wacker, K; Kotrschal, K; Dept. of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, Univ. of Vienna & Wolf Science Center, Domestication Lab, Konrad-Lorenz Institute of Ethology, Univ. of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria; Wolf Science Center, Domestication Lab, Konrad-Lorenz Institute of Ethology, Univ. of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria & Faculty of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilian-Univ. of Munich, Germany; Dept. of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology, Univ. of Vienna & Wolf Science Center, Domestication Lab, Konrad-Lorenz Institute of Ethology, Univ. of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria hillary.jean.joseph@wolfscience.at

Due to domestication, dog behavior differs from wolf behavior, influencing the time they engage in different types of behavior. At the Wolf Science Center (WSC), wolves and mongrel dogs are raised and kept in a similar way: living in packs in outside enclosures all year round and receiving a similar amount of human interaction. This makes the WSC a perfect place to compare the daily time-budgets of wolves and dogs. In search for intrinsic behavioral differences between wolves and dogs seven wolf packs and four dog packs were observed over a year (n=1567). We focused on resting, foraging, etc., and calculated the proportion of time they spend on each of their activities. We expected dogs to be more active than wolves due to domestication, which would have relaxed the need to spare energy for essential activities. However, wolves and dogs did not differ much in their time budgets. Moreover, dogs and wolves were more active when humans were present at the enclosure; however, dogs were more active than wolves in this situation. We conclude there is no substantial change in intrinsic behavioral motivation due to domestication in dogs, except for their responses to human presence. This suggests that humans are social Zeitgeber for dogs, but not so much for equally socialized wolves.

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