Comparing overimitation between assistance dogs and family dogs at home

Over the past few years, the copying of irrelevant actions (overimitation) has been studied in domestic dogs, with evidence supporting the hypothesis that the dog-human relationship drives this behaviour. To further explore this influence, we compared two distinct groups of dogs with potentially differing relationship qualities to their caregivers in an overimitation (OI) task: assistance dogs and family dogs. Using the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS), we assessed caregiver perceptions of the dog-human bond and found significant differences between these two groups. Unlike previous studies conducted in laboratory settings, we studied overimitation in a naturalistic home environment to better understand its occurrence in everyday life. Surprisingly, our findings revealed that assistance dogs did not copy their caregiver’s irrelevant actions significantly more than family dogs, but family dogs performed the irrelevant actions significantly more than a group without any action-demonstrator. Interestingly, only 34.7% of all dogs in our sample overimitated, highlighting variability in this behaviour across individuals. However, our results suggest that overimitation also occurs within family dogs’ day-to-day environment, but assistance dogs with special training do not show higher OI rates in comparison. • Dogs copy irrelevant actions (overimitation) at home like in the lab. • No significant difference in overimitation between assistance dogs and family dogs. • Stronger caregiver bonds in assistance dogs do not lead to higher overimitation. • Dogs gazing longer at caregivers copy fewer relevant actions during problem-solving.