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Article In:
Interaction Studies
Vol. 25:2 (2024) ► pp.146–166

Play bows by dogs in dog-human play

ORCID logo | Eastern Kentucky University
Dog play bows are recognized as indicating play motivation in dog-dog play, but have never been examined in dog-human play. Twenty-seven dogs and 26 humans engaged in interspecific interactions with familiar and unfamiliar cross-species partners to play; videotapes of the resulting 50 play interactions were examined for play bows. Fifty play bows were detected, enacted by 10 dogs playing with their owner, 6 of whom also enacted play bows with an unfamiliar player. Play bows occurred only infrequently before or after pauses (or non-play activities) by the dog or the human, or before escape during play. Play bows appeared to be integral to dogs’ play activities, usually when the dog was playing object-keepaway and tug o’ war, or the dog was reacting to the human engaging in frustration games like object-keepaway or fakeout. Play bows appear to be multi-purpose actions indicating play motivation within dog-human play.
Article outline
  • Methods
    • Participants, subjects, and materials
    • Set up: Who interacted with whom
    • Procedure
    • Procedure and coding
  • Results
    • Hypothesis 1
    • Hypothesis 2
    • Contexts in which play bows occurred
    • Hypothesis 3
      • Pauses by dogs
      • Pauses by humans
    • Hypothesis 4
    • Hypothesis 5
    • Global contexts of play bows
    • Dogs who played with their owner more than once
  • Discussion
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Author query
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