Donald McCaig Posted July 20, 2017 Report Share Posted July 20, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/science/dogs-genes-sociability.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=8&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F07%2F19%2Fscience%2Fdogs-genes-sociability.html&eventName=Watching-article-click Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartful Posted July 20, 2017 Report Share Posted July 20, 2017 There must also be a gene for the opposite behavior. One that makes people (or dogs), well...unfriendly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simba Posted July 20, 2017 Report Share Posted July 20, 2017 There is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GentleLake Posted July 20, 2017 Report Share Posted July 20, 2017 ^^ That looks more like fear than straightforward aggression to me. Interesting article, Donald. Thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloria Atwater Posted July 21, 2017 Report Share Posted July 21, 2017 I don't think much of that fox video by itself, either. It's trapped in a cage - any number of scared or anxious canids would react the same, including dogs found in animal shelters. I'd say there needs to be greater context, there.As for a corresponding genetic factor to un-sociability, I absolutely believe that must be so. My Aussie's mother was very standoffish with both dogs and humans. My Aussie herself simply has no interest in befriending people, despite all our efforts in her youth, and only mild interest in meeting other dogs. She has maybe half a dozen human friends and perhaps twice that many dogs she tolerate easily, and that's it. She's not aggressive, she's just suspicious and anti-social. ~ Gloria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simba Posted July 21, 2017 Report Share Posted July 21, 2017 They bred two lots of foxes and of rats- one for for expressed aggression of any kind towards humans, one for calmness/tameness. The increased flight distance ones look like that. The decreased ones look like this, with similar raising protocols for both (minimal handling- it's not a nice experiment, I have a lot of problems with the minimal handling and the environments from what I have seen). They started off breeding purely for flight distance. One of the things they wanted to do was isolate nature vs nurture, so for example the fearful or aggressive foxes would be put in litters of tame foxes, and vice versa, so that others around them modelled a behaviour they were not bred for, and to look at animals of different breeding in similar environments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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