She and other colleagues who observe wild-dog rallies have not seen high levels of sneezing, so perhaps sneezing is only used by Botswana dogs, she says. The study’s description is “fascinating,” says Harriet Davies-Mostert, head of conservation for the Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa. … This is a really huge finding!” He hopes to see whether the packs he studies also sneeze to make decisions. “I frankly never thought that sneezing was an important factor. The research looks solid, says National Geographic Young Explorer Dedan Ngatia, a carnivore researcher at Mpala Research Center in Kenya. “There is indeed a more democratic process for daily activities and group decisions.” The new results show a dog pack “is not really despotic,” Walker says. If a low-ranking pack member initiated the rally, it took 10 sneezes to guarantee a hunt. If one of the pack’s top dogs kicked off the rally, it took three sneezes to send the pack in pursuit of a meal, usually antelope. The researchers noticed a pattern: the more sneezing at a rally, the more likely the dogs were to set out on a hunt. Then the dogs went back to sleep in the shade, often in a pile of furry bodies. Some rallies ended with the dogs trotting off to hunt. Walker and her colleague watched five packs, each including four to 15 grown or nearly grown dogs, engage in these big canine parties. For a few minutes, the dogs in a pack frenetically touch heads, wag their tails and dash side-by-side, activity thought to reinforce social bonds. Think of your dog’s excitement when you arrive home from work, Walker says, and you’ll have a good idea of the scene at a wild-dog rally. But most sneezes occur during the pre-hunting ritual known as a rally. Like humans, a wild dogs sneeze with a short, sharp burst of air from the nose. ![]() “We all started questioning, ‘Why are these dogs sneezing so much?’” Walker says. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īt first Walker and her colleagues aimed to understand how dogs in Botswana mark their territories, but the researchers were intrigued by an odd habit of their study subjects.
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