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Food quantity discrimination in puppies (Canis lupus familiaris)

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Abstract

There is considerable evidence that animals are able to discriminate between quantities. Despite the fact that quantitative skills have been extensively studied in adult individuals, research on their development in early life is restricted to a limited number of species. We, therefore, investigated whether 2-month-old puppies could spontaneously discriminate between different quantities of food items. We used a simultaneous two-choice task in which puppies were presented with three numerical combinations of pieces of food (1 vs. 8, 1 vs. 6 and 1 vs. 4), and they were allowed to select only one option. The subjects chose the larger of the two quantities in the 1 vs. 8 and the 1 vs. 6 combinations but not in the 1 vs. 4 combination. Furthermore, the last quantity the puppies looked at before making their choice and the time spent looking at the larger/smaller amounts of food were predictive of the choices they made. Since adult dogs are capable of discriminating between more difficult numerical contrasts when tested with similar tasks, our findings suggest that the capacity to discriminate between quantities is already present at an early age, but that it is limited to very easy discriminations.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the breeders and the puppies that participated in the study. We are grateful to Sofia Fusar Poli for her precious help in coding the randomly selected trials for interobserver reliability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini

  2. Department of Animal and Human Biology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Fabio Mantese

  3. Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Emanuela Prato-Previde

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  1. Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini
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  2. Fabio Mantese
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  3. Emanuela Prato-Previde
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Correspondence to Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini.

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Ethical approval

All procedures were performed in full accordance with Italian legal regulations and the guidelines for the treatment of animals in behavioural research and teaching of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB). In Italy, observational studies of animal behaviour are not considered procedures that are subject to the National Directive n. 26/14 (transposition of the 2010/63/UE directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, article 1, comma 5), and further ethical approval is not requested for these studies. Hence, no special permission was needed to carry out this study. All dog breeders participated voluntarily and received an in-depth description of the study and its rationale, and their permission to video-record and use data in an anonymous form was obtained prior to testing. All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

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Miletto Petrazzini, M.E., Mantese, F. & Prato-Previde, E. Food quantity discrimination in puppies (Canis lupus familiaris). Anim Cogn 23, 703–710 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01378-z

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