Evaluation of body postures of Belgian Malinois dogs during a police dog training in Germany

Abstract

Police dog training is a strict training with high level of arousal and stress. In the present study, it was aimed to investigate behavioral tendency to exhibit submissive body posture in Belgian Malinois dogs while performing routine obedience exercises in police dog training. Furthermore, factors causing different body postures in those dogs were evaluated. Accordingly, 6 of the 42 dogs (14, 3 %) were assessed as dogs having neutral - confident body postures during the obedience exercises. Rest of the dogs (85, 7 %), however, exhibited at least one behavioral element of submission. No statistically significant correlations were found between age and submissive body posture, gender and submissive body posture as well as between real criminal contact and submissive body posture. The results obtained in this study show that dogs of the breed, Belgian Malinois are more likely to show submissive behavior than other behaviors such as neutral or attentive behavior in a training condition with high level of arousal and stress

Keywords

• Police dog
• body posture
• submission
• Belgian Malinois

Belçika Malinois köpeklerinin vücut pozisyonlarının Almanya’daki polis köpeği eğitimi sırasındadeğerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Polis köpeği eğitimi, yüksek uyarılma ve stres seviyesi içeren katı bir eğitimdir. Bu çalışmada, Belçika Malinois köpeklerinin polis köpeği eğitiminde, itaat egzersizleri sırasında teslimiyetçi vücut dili sergileme yönündeki davranışsal eğilimlerinin incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Ayrıca, bu köpeklerde değişik vücut pozisyonlarına neden olan faktörler de değerlendirilmiştir. Sonuç olarak itaat egzersizleri sırasında, 42 köpeğin 6’sı (%14,3) normal - kendine güvenli vücut pozisyonuna sahip olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Bununla birlikte, diğer köpekler (% 85,7) teslimiyet davranışına ait en az bir davranış unsurunu sergilemişlerdir. Yaş ve teslimiyetçi vücut dili, cinsiyet ve teslimiyetçi vücut dili ve gerçek bir suçluyla karşılaşmış olma ve teslimiyetçi vücut dili arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir korelasyon bulunmamıştır. Bu araştırmadan elde edilen sonuçlar Belçika Malinois ırkına ait köpeklerin uyarılma ve stres seviyesi yüksek eğitim koşullarında nötral davranış veya dikkat davranışından ziyade teslimiyetçi davranış göstermeye daha yatkın olduklarını göstermiştir

Keywords

• Polis köpeği
• vücut pozisyonu
• teslimiyet
• Belçika Malinois

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