Exploring Behaviours Percieved as Important to the Human-Dog Bond and their Translation to a Robotic Platform

— To facilitate long-term engagement with social robots, robots can be modelled on ‘successful’ social animals – specifically, pet dogs. Unfortunately, scientific understanding is limited to qualities of dogs that are ‘liked’, opposed to behaviours that facilitate and maintain the human-dog bond. To better understand dog behaviours that are important for building bonds between owner and pet, we collected open-ended responses from dog owners (n=153). Thematic analysis identified 7 behaviour categories: the importance of 1) attunement, 2) communication, 3) consistency and predictability, 4) physical affection, 5) positivity and enthusiasm, 6) proximity, and 7) shared activities. We consider the feasibility of translating dog behaviours into a robotic platform, and potential barriers moving forward. In addition to providing insight into important behaviours for human-dog bonding, this work provides a springboard for those hoping to implement dog behaviours into animal-like agents, avatars, and robots.