Dog breed behavior, dependence and reliance dimensions

We focused on behaviour-based analysis of the characteristic reliance of dog breeds on human behaviour. We utilized N=187 adult purebred dogs’ performance in a social learning task. Dogs observed a human demonstrator performing a detour around a transparent obstacle. With Principal Component Analysis, we established two behavioural dimensions: detour latency improvement and watching the demonstrator. Then, with K-means cluster analysis, we found six easily distinguishable clusters along these dimensions. The clusters showed significant differences in both behavioural dimensions, highlighting reliance-dependence types among purebred working dogs.