In the project, we performed a behavioural test, targeting the communicative skills of dogs, on a large, well defined population of laboratory beagles, bred and housed under highly standardized conditions. The test utilized the so-called ‘unsolvable problem’ paradigm (Topal et al. 1997). In this, dogs are allowed to explore an unsolvable food-search problem and the propensity of the dog to seek human con- tact and cooperation is measured. The aims were to evaluate within-breed variation and heritability in human-directed con- tact seeking behaviour.
This experiment was designed to measure the heritability of human seeking behaviour in a specially bred dog population. This dog population was a pedigree of beagles that were specifically bred under controlled conditions with a known pedigree. This pedigree then allows us to assess the heritability of this behaviour. The task will be to take this data and then finish the experiment! analyse the data in any way you see fit and assess the heritability of the behaviour you have measured