Both ontogenetic and phylogenetic factors have shaped dogs’ cognitive capabilities, resulting in a heightened social sensitivity at the apparent cost of non-social problem-solving abilities. Research has suggested that training history and life experience can influence problem-solving abilities in dogs. However, the ontogenetic development of problem-solving abilities in dogs has been less explored. We tested a population of candidate detection dogs of various ages across the first year of development on four well-established problem-solving tasks targeting different cognitive domains (i.e., cylinder, A-not-B barrier, delayed search, and spatial transposition tasks). We examined developmental effects by comparing cognitive task performance across three age groups. Age-related improvements for all four cognitive measures indicate developmental increases in processes related to inhibitory control, attention, and spatial cognition between 3 and 12 months of age. Additionally, we found some relationships between cognitive measures and detection dog performance measures, though effects were not as robust. We discuss the results in the context of canine cognitive development and corresponding effects of phylogeny and ontogeny, as well as potential applications to working dog training and selection.

中文翻译：

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解决候选狗的能力的发展（犬似犬）。

遗传因素和系统发育因素都影响了狗的认知能力，从而以非社会问题解决能力的表观代价提高了社会敏感性。研究表明，训练历史和生活经历会影响狗的解决问题能力。然而，很少解决犬的问题解决能力的本体发育。在开发的第一年中，我们针对四种针对不同认知领域的成熟解决问题任务（即圆柱体，A-not-B障碍，延迟搜索和空间置换任务）对一群不同年龄的候选检测狗进行了测试。 。我们通过比较三个年龄段的认知任务表现来检查发育影响。所有四种认知测量的年龄相关性改善表明与抑制控制，注意力和3到12个月大之间的空间认知有关的过程的发育性增加。此外，我们发现认知措施和检测狗的表现措施之间存在一些关系，尽管效果并不那么强。我们讨论了犬认知发展，系统发育和个体发育的相应影响以及在工作犬训练和选择方面的潜在应用的结果。