Observational learning of an acquired maternal behavior pattern by working dog pups

Abstract

Working dog pups that are allowed to observe their mother working at the task the pups are destined to perform learn important aspects of their desired behavior from their mother. In the case of the South African Police, the pups were being raised to become narcotics detection dogs. The report presented in this paper shows the results of a designed experiment that tested the hypothesis that pups allowed to observe their mother working would also learn important aspects of doing the job.