A dog's behavior can indicate the location of hidden food to a human who is unaware of its position. These behavioral patterns are known as showing behavior, which comprise gazing towards the target location and gaze alternation between the human and the target (i.e., hidden food). Although this ability has been extensively studied in pet dogs, research has not yet focused on dogs with other kinds of life experiences, such as dogs working in Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI). These dogs are exposed to novel environments under the guidance of their handlers and previous studies have highlighted the importance of gazing behavior in this population. Therefore, we evaluated AAI and pet dogs on a showing task. Results indicate that dogs overall engaged in showing behavior as they gazed more towards the baited pot and alternated their gaze more on showing trials than control ones. Contrary to our expectations, differences between AAI and pet dogs were minimal. However, owners of AAI dogs were more successful than owners of pet dogs in finding the hidden food in showing trials. This suggests they may be more skillful in reading their dogs' behavior, which can be crucial to ensure their welfare during AAI sessions.

中文翻译：

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动物辅助干预和宠物狗的表现

狗的行为可以向不知道其位置的人指示隐藏食物的位置。这些行为模式被称为表现行为，包括注视目标位置和人与目标（即隐藏的食物）之间的视线交替。尽管这种能力已在宠物狗中得到广泛研究，但研究尚未集中在具有其他生活经历的狗身上，例如在动物辅助干预 (AAI) 中工作的狗。这些狗在其饲养员的指导下暴露于新环境中，之前的研究强调了凝视行为在该人群中的重要性。因此，我们在展示任务中评估了 AAI 和宠物狗。结果表明，与对照组相比，狗在更多地注视着诱饵锅时更倾向于表现出行为，并且在表现试验时更多地交替凝视。与我们的预期相反，AAI 和宠物狗之间的差异很小。然而，AAI 狗的主人比宠物狗的主人更能在展示试验中找到隐藏的食物。这表明他们可能更擅长解读狗的行为，这对于确保他们在 AAI 会议期间的福利至关重要。