Dogs’ willingness to play with us may have been a key factor in their domestication
To dig deeper into the roots of playful pups, Kolm and his colleagues investigated how human-directed play behavior evolved in 132 modern American Kennel Club breeds. These breeds are grouped by their various functions, such as herding, hunting, guarding, companionship, working , and sporting . The researchers entered genetic data from the breeds into an evolutionary computer model that predicted which breed had playful traits.
While the results revealed herding and sporting breeds were most likely to play, toy breeds, such as pugs and papillonswere least likely. “They’re designed to be small and carried around,” Kolm says. “Playing with you isn’t important to them.”Kolm was more surprised to find that terrier breeds, such as the Staffordshire—originally bred to be fighting dogs—are very playful, perhaps, he speculates, because they’re bred to respond to human instruction—including invitations to play.
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