The influence of oxytocin on dogs’ attentiveness to human communicative cues

Oxytocin, a neuropeptide known for its role in social bonding and communication, has been shown to enhance dogs’ responsiveness to human social cues. Previous research demonstrates a significantly enhanced performance in object choice tasks in dogs after intranasal Oxytocin administration. This study investigated whether a novel nebulized Oxytocin administration method, that requires no prior training and is delivered with food rewards, would improve dogs’ pointing comprehension. Twenty-six pet dogs (ages one to twelve years, 10–40kg) participated in a within-subject, double-blind crossover design, receiving either nebulized Oxytocin or placebo in two sessions separated by at least ten days. Urinary Oxytocin concentrations confirmed systemic absorption. Dogs completed an object-choice task in which the experimenter indicated hidden food using momentary, proximal, ipsilateral pointing with ostensive cues. Performance was measured by proportion of correct choices and odor control trials were included to ensure dogs were using the pointing cue rather than olfactory information and olfactory perception would not be influenced by the administration of Oxytocin. Contrary to our hypothesis, generalized linear mixed models revealed no significant effect of post-treatment urinary Oxytocin concentrations on pointing test performance (β = 0.15, SE = 0.18, z = 0.83, p = 0.409). Dogs performed significantly above chance in both Oxytocin and placebo conditions, demonstrating robust pointing comprehension regardless of treatment. Performance in odor control trials did not differ from chance, confirming that dogs were utilizing the pointing gesture rather than olfactory cues. We interpret these null finding as resulting from a ceiling effect: our pointing gesture was sufficiently easy, resulting in nearly optimal performance even under placebo condition, leaving minimal room for Oxytocin-induced improvement. Our findings highlight the importance of task difficulty in Oxytocin research, suggesting Oxytocin’s effects on canine social cognition are most efficient in moderately challenging tasks. This study successfully demonstrates the feasibility of the novel nebulized administration method, which may prove valuable for future stress-free Oxytocin delivery in research and clinical applications.