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Hierarchy-Dependent Behaviour of Dogs in the Strange Situation Test: High-Ranking Dogs Show Less Stress and Behave Less Friendly with a Stranger in the Presence of Their Owner
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Department of Ethology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/c, 1117 Budapest, Hungary
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Animals 2025, 15(13), 1916; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15131916 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 5 May 2025
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Revised: 16 June 2025
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Accepted: 27 June 2025
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Published: 28 June 2025
(This article belongs to the Section Human-Animal Interactions, Animal Behaviour and Emotion)
Simple Summary
The attachment bond between companion dogs and their owners is one of the main synchronizing factors in dog–human coexistence. Attachment is based on the asymmetric dependence of the dog on the human partner. Dogs seek the owner’s proximity when they experience threats, and more readily explore novel stimuli when their owner is present. There can be differences in the finer details of attachment in dogs; however, so far, no main background factors have been described in association with these differences. In this research, we tested whether dogs from multi-dog households would show different attachment behaviour as a function of their relative position in the hierarchy among the other cohabiting dogs. We found that when their owner was present, dogs with higher rank scores were less friendly with the experimenter in the strange situation test and showed, in general, less stress signs than dogs with lower rank scores. Interestingly, the older a dog was, the fewer stress-related behaviours they showed; however, these dogs were friendlier with the stranger. These are the first results showing that dogs’ rank may affect the attachment bond with the owner, potentially influenced by the outcome of cohabiting dogs’ competition for the owner as an undividable resource.
Abstract
Cohabiting family dogs form hierarchies, and there are rank-related differences in certain behaviours even in noncompetitive situations. For companion dogs, the main limited resource could be the owner, but this assumption needs further behavioural testing. We hypothesized that dogs’ hierarchical status within multi-dog household is associated with variations in their attachment and dependency behaviours toward their owner. We tested n = 62 cohabiting companion dogs from 31 multi-dog households. The rank score of each subject was determined with a questionnaire (DRA-Q). We used the strange situation test (SST) to assess the dogs’ attachment complex towards their owner. The results show that higher-ranking dogs showed less signs of stress in the SST when their owner was present, but they also showed fewer friendly behaviours towards the stranger. Older dogs also presented fewer stress behaviours; however, they were friendlier with the stranger. This is the first time that dogs’ hierarchy was taken into consideration regarding dog–owner attachment. We can conclude that dogs’ rank and its stability could play a crucial role in creating differences between cohabiting dogs’ attachment patterns. We propose further research into the functional analysis of these behavioural differences.
