Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, United States
Abstract
Play bows are a
common, highly stereotyped canine behavior widely considered to be a
'play signal,' but only one study has researched their function. Bekoff
(1995) found that play bows function as behavioral modifiers to help
clarify playful intent before or after easily misinterpretable
behaviors, such as bite-shakes. To further examine the function of play
bows, the current study analyzed five types of behaviors displayed by
the bower and the partner immediately before and after a play bow during
dyadic play. We found that play bows most often occurred after a brief
pause in play. Synchronous behaviors by the bower and the partner, or
vulnerable/escape behaviors by the bower (such as running away) and
complementary offensive behaviors by the partner (such as chasing)
occurred most often after the play bow. These results indicate that
during adult dog dyadic play, play bows function to reinitiate play
after a pause rather than to mediate offensive or ambiguous actions. ©
2016 Elsevier B.V.
Author keywords
Domestic dog; Initiate; Play bow; Social play; Synchrony; Visual signal
Indexed keywords
EMTREE medical terms: adult; animal experiment; dog; escape behavior; nonhuman; running
Species Index: Canis familiaris
