Comfort behavior
As comfort behavior or Autogrooming is called in the Behavioral Biology all activities of the animal, directly to the body care can be assigned. This includes in particular cleaning and scratching movements, licking, shaking, chafing, nibbling, bathing in water, sand bathing and sunbathing , but - for pigs , for example - also rolling or wallowing in the mud and picking the nose in humans. Grooming is particularly common among primates .
Comfort behavior also includes social body care , i.e. alternating cleaning of fur or plumage (allogrooming). In many socially living animal species, it promotes the cohesion of couples or groups and is therefore to be regarded as an element of their social behavior.
Occasionally, in ethological literature, activities that are considered to be "comfort movements" such as yawning , all lolling and stretching movements as well as other behaviors interpreted as an expression of well-being are shown as comfort behavior.
Grooming as a means of shaping behavior in domestic dogs
Actions that imitate social grooming in dogs can be used in dog training as social reinforcers of behavior. Compared to grooming in horses , where grooming actions in preferred areas of the withers cause a lowering of the heart rate as a sign of special reassurance, in dogs there is a very effective area around the ears. With regular, but not excessive, applications, particularly in hyperactive dogs, a noticeable calming effect has been shown, which is beneficial to the dog's balance.
Web links
- Protocol about the comfort behavior of the Ceylon hat monkeys. Example of a behavioral analysis of comfort behavior
Individual evidence
- ^ Non-Human Primate Communication. On: anthro.palomar.edu , accessed September 9, 2015
- ^ "Grooming" in domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) as a social reinforcer according to Hollatz. On: canin.de , accessed September 9, 2015
- ↑ Claudia Feh and Jeanne de Mazières: Grooming at a preferred site reduces heart rate in horses. In: Animal Behavior. Volume 46, No. 6, 1993, pp. 1191-1194, doi: 10.1006 / anbe.1993.1309