Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Wolf-Dog Hybrids Are More Fearful but as Social and Playful as Dogs
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Zoology, Ethology.
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Zoology, Ethology.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0905-8455
Number of Authors: 22025 (English)In: Ethology, ISSN 0179-1613, E-ISSN 1439-0310, Vol. 131, no 10, p. 187-197Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Domestication is a selection process where animals become more docile and easier to handle than their wild counterparts. This selection for ‘tameness’ has been suggested to lead to several behavioral modifications in domesticated animals, such as becoming more social and more playful towards humans, and also less aggressive and less fearful than their wild counterparts. The first animal to be domesticated was the dog, which is well-known for their pro-social relationship with humans. In an attempt to understand which behavioral changes occurred when the dog was domesticated, we used wolf-dog hybrids as a proxy for wolves and compared their behavior with the behavior of German shepherds, Siberian huskies, and Alaskan malamutes, which were the main dog breeds they were mixed with. We found that wolf-dog hybrids were as social as the dogs and that they did not show any signs of aggression. While the wolf-dog hybrids were less playful than German shepherds, they had the same levels of human-directed playfulness as Siberian huskies and Alaskan malamutes. The long-lasting fear reactions of the wolf-dog hybrids in this study, while almost absent in the three dog breeds, suggest that this fearfulness is a heritage from wolves, while dogs have adapted during domestication to have less fearful reactions in human environments.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. Vol. 131, no 10, p. 187-197
Keywords [en]
dogs, domestication, fearfulness, social behavior, wolf-dog hybrids
National Category
Behavioral Sciences Biology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-246094DOI: 10.1111/eth.70010ISI: 001531951900001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105011356848OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-246094DiVA, id: diva2:1992769
Available from: 2025-08-28 Created: 2025-08-28 Last updated: 2025-11-20Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Temrin, Hans

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Temrin, Hans
By organisation
Ethology
In the same journal
Ethology
Behavioral Sciences Biology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 124 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf