Playful Dogs

 

The Jovial Ones

Dogs like to have fun and even age won’t stop them.

Recently, though, scientists discovered that some breeds of dogs are more playful than others – and they noted that this trait could determine a canine’s trainability, Cosmos Magazine reported.

Researcher Niclas Kolm and his colleagues realized this after analyzing how human-directed play behavior evolved in modern dog breeds. In their paper, the team compared the playfulness of nearly 90,000 dogs from 132 breeds using data taken from the Swedish Kennel Club. They combined the data with that of the American Kennel Association, which grouped pooches into different breed categories, including herding, hound dogs and working dogs.

The researchers also looked into the shared ancestry and gene flow between breeds and concluded that dog ancestors already exhibited playful behaviors that are found in some modern breeds.

They pointed out that humans often picked the most playful dogs for breeding because they were “easier to work with – or just most fun to have around,” said Kolm.

The results showed herding and sporting breeds were the most playful, which include retrievers, pointers and collies.

Kolm explained that these canines work closely and maintain eye contact with humans, adding that their jovial nature made it easy to form a strong bond between dog and handler.