How children and parents interpret dogs’ body language

With bite figures from interview data as high as 47 % (Beck & Jones, 1985; Spiegel, 2000), andNational Health Service statistics in the UK showing a 40 % increase in dog bite figures in 2008and even higher increases, at times of over 100 % in more recent years (NHS, 2008; 2012), we areaddressing a serious and wide-spread – but largely avoidable – problem. When trying to enablesafe interaction between children and dogs, it is vital that children are able to interpret the animal’ssignalling correctly to avoid injury and distress. However, it has been shown that children andadults often do not understand dogs’ body signalling (Reisner & Shofer 2008). Without tuition,children look mainly at the dog’s face. In addition, children often confuse a fearful or angry dogwith a friendly one (Meints, Racca & Hickey, 2010).This study investigated cross-sectionally and longitudinally how 3-, 4- and 5-year-old childreninterpret dogs’ stress signaling (N = 43, 34 and 36 respectively). We tested at Time 1 (before andafter training intervention), Time 2 (after 6 months) and Time 3 (after 1 year) by showing dogvideos according to the escalation steps of appeasement signalling (Shepherd, 2002). Videos hadbeen assessed independently by four experienced dog behaviour experts and were then groupedinto four categories (high, medium, low distress and “happyâ€). We investigated children’s evaluationsof dogs by using a 5-point scale with faces ranging from happy (1) via neutral to unhappy(5). We recorded their looking behaviour using a Tobii Eye-tracker. Parents (N = 33) also tookpart in separate sessions and underwent the same procedure. We collected questionnaire data, e.g.on dog ownership, SES, demographics, bite incidents.First results on correct answers (pre and post) show a main effect of Age – knowledge improvessignificantly with age (F(3,122) = 15.05; p < .0001). We also observed a highly significant main effectof Learning (F(3,122) = 56.61; p < .0001) with risk judgements improving from pre-trainingat time 1 to test at time 1 and 2. Most significant improvements in learning take place in 5 yearoldsand adults (F(3,122) = 6.80; p < .0003). We also found a main effect of Distress Judgement(F(3,366) = 243.90; p < .0001) – participants show some, but not full awareness of risk and leastdistress recognition was shown by 3-year-olds. There were no main effects for Gender or DogOwnership.The error analysis shows that errors are made in all distress categories (high, medium, low). Thelower the distress category, the more errors we find. The younger the participants, the more errorsoccur and the more serious the errors are – again, we find significant misinterpretation errors ofhighly distressed dogs as “happy†– these errors occur before training to 50–65 % in 3–5-yearoldsand 17 % in adults and are reduced after training to 17–28 % in 4–5-year-old children withreduction to no errors in adults.We conclude that successful teaching of dog signalling is possible. Especially children from 4years onwards profit from the intervention and show significant improvements in knowledgestraight after the intervention and also over time. Increased awareness and knowledge can lead tosafer behaviour with dogs, risk reduction and potentially less bite incidents while dogs profit asthey are treated more appropriately.