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To describe the extent of age-related cognitive decline in dogs, information regarding the baseline occurrence of associated behaviours in the general population is necessary. With a seven-item, data driven Age-Related Changes scale, we evaluated the relationship between sensory functions, training, sex, and the occurrence of behavioural signs associated with cognitive decline across the whole adult lifespan. The twofold difference in lifespan between small and large dogs presents challenges for ageing studies, with no widely accepted method to control for body size as it relates to chronological age and longevity, when comparing behavioural signs of cognitive decline. To address this issue, we utilized relative age, calculated using the estimated expected lifespan of the individuals in our questionnaire study. Signs of cognitive decline were already detectable in' Mature' dogs (at 50-75% of the expected lifespan). Visual, auditory and olfactory impairments all resulted in significantly higher scores on the Age-Related Changes scale. Participating in dog training activities was revealed to be protective against behavioural signs of cognitive decline in aged dogs as perceived by the owners. These results revealed possible beneficial effects of training on cognitive ageing and emphasize the importance of routinely screening the sensory capacities of ageing dogs.

The behavioural analysis of human-robot interactions can help in developing socially interactive robots. The current study analyzes human-robot interaction with Theme software and the corresponding pattern detection algorithm. The method is based on the analysis of the temporal structure of the interactions by detecting T-patterns in the behaviour. We have compared humans' (children and adults) play behaviour interacting either with an AIBO or a living dog puppy. The analysis based on measuring latencies and frequencies of behavioural units suggested limited differences, e.g. the latency of humans touching the dog/AIBO was similar. In addition other differences could be accounted for by the limited abilities of the robot to interact with objects. Although the number of interactive T-patterns did not significantly differ among the groups but the partner's type (whether humans were playing with dog or AIBO) had a significant effect on the structure of the patterns. Both children and adults terminated T-patterns more frequently when playing with AIBO than when playing with the dog puppy, which suggest that the robot has a limited ability to engage in temporally structured behavioural interactions with humans. As other human studies suggest that the temporal complexity of the interaction is good measure of the partner's attitude, we suggest that more attention should be paid in the future to the robots' ability to engage in cooperative interaction with humans.

The use of animal-like autonomous robots might offer new possibilities in the study of animal interactions, if the subject recognises it as a social partner. In this paper we investigate whether AIBO, a dog-like robot of the Sony Corp. can be used for this purpose. Twenty-four adult and sixteen 4-5 months old pet dogs were tested in two situations where subjects encountered one of four different test-partners: (1) a remote controlled car; (2) an AIBO robot; (3) AIBO with a puppy-scented furry cover; and (4) a 2-month-old puppy. In the neutral situation the dog could interact freely with one of the partners for 1 min in a closed arena in the presence of its owner. In the feeding situation the encounters were started while the dog was eating food. Our results show that age and context influence the social behaviour of dogs. Further, we have found that although both age groups differentiated the living and non-living test-partners for some extent, the furry AIBO evoked significantly increased responses in comparison to the car. These experiments show the first steps towards the application of robots in behavioural studies, notwithstanding that at present AIBO's limited ability to move constrains its effectiveness as social partner for dogs.