Human socialization influences point following behaviour of free-ranging dogs

Animals of different taxa can read and respond to various human communicative signals. Such a socio-cognitive mechanism facilitates animals to acquire information and helps them react in a context-dependent manner. Of particular interest are the socio-cognitive skills of dogs and their remarkable sensitivity to human social cues. Recent developments have highlighted human socialization as one of the critical factors enabling dogs to respond to human communicative cues. However, not all dog populations have the same degree of socialization; this raises the question of whether “less” socialized dogs can read and use information from human cues. Free-ranging dogs are arguably the least socialized dog population, found primarily in developing countries. Unlike pets, free-ranging dogs engage in complex and multidimensional relationships with humans, which directly or indirectly impact their survival. In order to avoid potential adversities, contextual recognition of human actions is of paramount importance for these dogs, especially while interacting with an unfamiliar human being. Here, we investigated adult free-ranging dogs' behaviour in the context of communication with humans, using a point-following experiment. Our findings suggest that socialization has a strong positive effect on the likelihood of free-ranging dogs’ point-following tendencies. Additionally, positively socialized dogs relied on humans ignoring deception as opposed to dogs without socialization. Finally, we emphasized the implications of such different behavioural strategies in light of their socio-ecology.