Variation in executive function and age-related cognitive decline may underlie the emergence of behaviour and welfare problems in dogs. A better understanding of such links, and of dog cognition in general, will be facilitated by the development of cognitive tasks that can be readily implemented, including with publicly-owned dogs that are available for relatively short testing periods. Working memory is a key component of cognitive and executive function that is often measured using tests such as delayed-non-match-to-sample or radial-arm maze which require extensive training and testing. Here we successfully adapt the Holeboard Task to measure working and reference memory in dogs, and show that another test of working memory, the Disappearing Object Task, can be performed in a single day. Working memory (p = 0.002) and reference memory (p < 0.001) scores in a 16-hole Holeboard Task (four holes baited) increased across sessions, with reference memory scores falling steeply as expected when the configuration of baited buckets changed. In the Disappearing Object Task dogs were able to successfully locate an object displaced behind one of four visual barriers, and their ability to do this fell as the memory retention interval (0 s, 30 s, 60 s, 120 s, 240 s) between hiding and locating the object increased (p < 0.001). Holeboard and Disappearing Object working memory measures were not correlated, possibly due to differences in the motivational context and exact learning demands of the tasks. In summary we show that the Holeboard Task can be adapted for use in dogs and that the Disappearing Object Task can be implemented in a single day. The latter task may be particularly useful for working memory studies of dogs owned by the public where prolonged access is often infeasible, and the three-day Holeboard Task is faster to implement than other commonly used laboratory-based tasks.

执行功能的变化和与年龄有关的认知能力下降可能是狗行为和福利问题出现的基础。通过易于实施的认知任务的发展，包括使用相对较短的测试时间的公有犬种，将有助于人们更好地理解这种联系以及对狗的认知。工作记忆是认知和执行功能的关键组成部分，通常使用诸如延迟采样不匹配或radial臂迷宫这样的测试来测量，这些测试需要大量的培训和测试。在这里，我们成功地适应了“孔板任务”以测量狗的工作记忆和参考记忆，并表明可以在一天之内执行另一项工作记忆测试，即“消失的对象任务”。工作内存（p = 0.002）和参考内存（p <0。001）在16洞洞洞任务中的分数（四个洞被诱饵）在整个会话中都有所增加，当诱饵桶的配置发生更改时，参考记忆分数急剧下降。在“消失的物体任务”中，狗能够成功地将物体放置在四个视觉障碍之一的后面，并且它们的能力随着记忆保持时间间隔（0 s，30 s，60 s，120 s，240 s）而下降。隐藏和定位对象的位置增加（p <0.001）。洞洞板和消失的对象的工作记忆措施不相关，可能是由于动机和任务的确切学习要求方面的差异。总而言之，我们显示了Holeboard Task可以适应在狗中使用，而Dis消失的Object Task可以在一天之内完成。