# Behavioural Analysis of Dogs' Response to Threatening and Neutral Conspecific Video Stimuli +
## 4 Discussion  
The present study aimed to test the reaction of dogs exposed to a video of conspecifics with either a threatening or neutral attitude; in particular, the analyses focused on the exhibition of displacement behaviours and facial expressions (putative communicative appeasement signals). The underlying hypothesis was that facial expressions and displacement behaviours, previously identified as putative appeasement signals in the dog training literature, would be exhibited more during a conflict-ridden situation (threatening condition) compared to a non-conflict-ridden situation (neutral condition). Contrary to predictions, the results showed that dogs exhibited more displacement behaviours, specifically: sniffing the environment, blinking, lip likicking, lip wiping and yawning, when exposed to the video of dogs exhibiting a neutral behaviour (i.e., standing without staring at the camera and panting with an open mouth), compared to when exposed to videos of dogs \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Behaviour** & **Estimate** & **SE** & **t-Value** & \(p\) & **Lower CI** & **Upper CI** \\ \hline Head turn & \(-\)0.170 & 0.093 & \(-\)1.831 & 0.067 & \(-\)0.348 & 0.022 \\ Blink & \(-\)0.497 & 0.214 & \(-\)2.320 & 0.020 & \(-\)0.907 & \(-\)0.085 \\ Sniffing env. & \(-\)0.227 & 0.072 & \(-\)3.176 & 0.002 & \(-\)0.370 & \(-\)0.085 \\ Yawning & \(-\)2.303 & 1.049 & \(-\)2.196 & 0.028 & 1.451 & 1.989 \\ Lip wipe & \(-\)0.987 & 0.353 & \(-\)2.800 & 0.005 & \(-\)1.907 & \(-\)0.324 \\ Nose lick & \(-\)0.949 & 0.340 & \(-\)2.792 & 0.005 & \(-\)1.796 & \(-\)0.306 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Generalised linear mixed model (GLMM) output for the effect of the factor condition (threatening/neutral) on the exhibition of displacement behaviours. Reference level for the factor stimuli: threatening. Figure 4: Graphical representations of the visual signals expressed with higher duration and/or higher frequency in the neutral condition compared to the threatening condition. with threatening behaviour, (i.e., barking and lunging towards the camera and hence the observing dog). There may be several reasons for this. First, it is possible that the threatening condition was too intense to make a de-escalation/avoidance strategy a possible and efficient choice. This would be in line with previous studies showing that during dog-human interactions, dogs exhibit more displacement behaviours (lip licking and head turning) when a human approaches with a mildly threatening or a friendly attitude compared to with a highly threatening attitude (vocal and physical threat) which instead elicited a defensive/aggressive coping strategy [21]. Considering that the presentation of the video stimuli ly elicited differential responses (see discussion point below), an avenue for future studies would be to use this method to present conditions with varying levels of threat, as well as more overtly friendly conspecific behaviours. This would allow researchers to assess in greater detail whether putative appeasement signals are negatively correlated with the gradient of threatening behaviour observed. A second possibility, closely linked to the first, is that because dogs during the threatening condition were highly attentive and alert towards the threatening unfamiliar conspecific, they were not yet engaging in any other behavioural strategy aimed at coping with the potential threat (avoidance, defensive aggressive, etc.). Indeed, in the present study, no dogs showed aggressive behaviours towards the video stimuli, but dogs were more alert (looking for longer and holding their ears forward more, i.e., showing signs of attention --[17]) in the threatening compared to the neutral condition. This interpretation would suggest that the exhibition of these signals does not have the function of interrupting an ongoing threatening-aggressive encounter but may still be used during ambiguous social encounters when the outcome of the interaction is not easily \"predicted\" by the dogs.