Free-ranging dogs do not distinguish between barks without context

Abstract: Canids display a vast diversity of social organizations, from solitary-living to pairs to packs. Domestic dogs have descended from pack-living gray wolf-like ancestors. Unlike their group living ancestors, free-ranging dogs are facultatively social, preferring to forage solitarily. They are scavengers by nature, mostly dependent on human garbage and generosity for their sustenance. Free-ranging dogs are highly territorial, often defending their territories using vocalizations. Vocal communication plays a critical role between inter and intraspecies and group interaction and maintaining their social dynamics. Barking is the most common among the different types of vocalizations of dogs. Dogs have a broad hearing range and can respond to sounds over long distances. Domestic dogs have been shown to have the ability to distinguish between barking in different contexts. Since free-ranging dogs regularly engage in various kinds of interactions with each other, it is interesting to know whether they are capable of distinguishing between vocalizations of their own and other groups. In this study, a playback experiment was used to test if dogs can distinguish between barking of their own group member from a non-group member. Though dogs respond to barking from other groups in territorial exchanges, they did not respond differently to the self and other group barking in the playback experiments. This suggests a role of context in the interactions between dogs and opens up possibilities for future studies on the comparison of the responses of dogs in playback experiments with their natural behavior through long-term observations.