Diurnal activity patterns of equally socialized and kept wolves, Canis lupus, and dogs, Canis lupus familiaris

• Published in: Animal Behaviour
• Main Authors: Jean-Joseph, H, Dooey, G, Kotrschal, K
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2022
• Subjects: Canis lupus
• Online Access: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/64178/; http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/64178/1/1-s2.0-S0003347222001427-main.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.05.009

Owing to domestication, dog behaviour differs from wolf behaviour, which should also affect time budgets. At the Wolf Science Center, wolves and mongrel dogs are raised and kept in a similar way; thus, it is an ideal place to compare the time budgets of wolves and dogs in search of potential domestication-related shifts. Seven wolf packs and four dog packs were observed over a full year. We focused on major behavioural categories, such as resting and foraging, and calculated the proportion of time they spent on each of these activities. Based on mainstream domestication hypotheses we predicted dogs to be generally more active than wolves because domestication would have relaxed the need for behavioural efficiency. As expected, wolves and dogs differed in their time budgets. Wolves slept, walked and vocalized more than dogs, whereas dogs foraged, sat and manipulated objects more. Human presence around the enclosure increased the activity of both, but dogs were more active than wolves in this situation. Season and time of day had the same effect on dogs and wolves. We conclude that dogs are not too different from wolves in intrinsic motivation affecting their time budgets, except for the increased responses of dogs to humans. This suggests that humans are more important as social Zeitgeber for dogs than for equally socialized wolves.