Leadership and Path Characteristics during Walks Are Linked to Dominance Order and Individual Traits in Dogs

摘要: Movement interactions and the underlying social structure in groups have relevance across many social-living species. Collective motion of could be based on an “egalitarian” decision system, but practice it is often influenced by network structures individual characteristics. We investigated whether dominance rank personality traits are linked to leader follower roles during joint family dogs. obtained high-resolution spatio-temporal GPS trajectory data (823,148 points) from six dogs belonging same household their owner 14 30–40 min unleashed walks. identified several features dogs' paths (e.g., running speed or distance owner) which characteristic a given dog. A directional correlation analysis quantifies between pairs that run loops jointly. found play role about 50–85% time, i.e. pair dynamically interchangable. However, longer timescale tendencies lead differ consistently. The constructed these loose leader–follower relations hierarchical, positions correlates with age, rank, trainability, controllability, aggression measures derived questionnaires. demonstrated possibility determining only its logged movement data. collective characteristics such as differences. Our findings pave way for automated animal human interaction measurements.