Dogs have lived alongside humans for over 15,000 years, and unsurprisingly, they contribute to increased welfare and better health for us. Many have likely heard the saying "like owner, like dog" which humorously reflects how we can resemble our dogs. However, the fact is that dogs and humans living together can also develop similar health problems. Recently, we demonstrated that dogs mirror their owners in long-term stress, but we observed this connection primarily with herding dogs, which have long been selected for collaboration with humans. Hunting dogs and primitive breeds did not show this as clearly (Sundman et al. 2019; Höglin et al. 2021). Recently, I have also become interested in dogs that have to change owners, something that has increased significantly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, in collaboration with Hundstallet, we have shown that rehomed dogs can recover from the stressful rehoming procedure and form very strong bonds with their new owners (Sulonen et al. 2024).
Horses have also lived with us for thousands of years, and their importance is reflected in the fact that equestrian sports are one of the largest leisure activities in Sweden. Horses live under different conditions than dogs, and here we are investigating how their daily lives, training, and stabling affect their behaviour, their relationship with their owners, and their stress levels. We have recently shown how this horse-human relationship differs from the dog's relationship with its owner. For horses, even a stranger can serve as support in stressful situations (Lundberg et al. 2020), and if given the choice, the horse does not significantly differentiate between its owner and a stranger. This contrasts with dogs, who prefer their owners and reminds us to be cautious in generalising research results from dogs to horses. We need to learn more about the horse’s perspective on its relationship with humans.
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- Roth, L.S.V. 2008. Diversity and limits of colour vision in terrestrial vertebrates.
