from Part I - Communication and Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2021
The ability to engage in some form of communication is essential for any social species. Communication generally relies on species-specific adaptations that provide animals with a cognitive tool to pass on messages from one conspecific to the other. This means that communication between members of different species is relatively rare and potentially requires qualitatively different cognitive abilities. This form of communication is not only challenging due to the fact that different species may rely on distinct sets of codes to convey messages but also because the primary modality used for this purpose may be different. Dogs represent a special case in the animal kingdom as they have been uniquely adapted to be receptive to the communicative signals of a species relatively distant in terms of their genome: humans. In this chapter, we will first focus on those characteristics of canids’ intraspecific communication that are shared between the dog and their phylogenetically closest relative, the wolf. Similarities in these forms of communication are likely the result of the common ancestry of the two species. Next, we turn to describing those attributes of canine communication that selectively pertain to how dogs communicate with their conspecifics. Finally, we discuss the ubiquitous nature of heterospecific communication between dogs and humans.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.