Free-ranging owned dogs

Free-ranging dogs found in most of the developing countries interact constantly with familiar and unfamiliar humans receiving both positive and negative behavior. Thus, understanding human intentions and subsequent behavioral adjustments are crucial for dogs that share habitats with humans.

Here we subjected free-ranging dogs to different human social communicative cues (friendly and threatening—low and high), followed by a food provisioning phase, and tested their responsiveness. Dogs exhibited higher proximity seeking behavior as a reaction to friendly gesture whereas, they were prompted to maintain distance depending on the impact of the threatening cues.

Interestingly, only the high-impact threatening had a persistent effect which also remained during the subsequent food provisioning phase. An elevated approach in the food provisioning phase elicited the dependency of free-ranging dogs on humans for sustenance. Free-ranging dogs demonstrate behavioral plasticity in interactions with humans; which provides significant insights into the establishment of the dog-human relationship on streets.