Expertise in Trained Dogs

The acquisition of expertise is an area of controversy between those seeing a strong influence from genetics, inherent talent, and those who deny that genetics plays much of a role. Because the genetics and early life experiences of humans are not open to direct manipulation, human studies are of limited utility in this debate. Studies employing non-humans as expert models may prove useful in resolving this dispute. In order for non-humans to be considered proper models of human experts, the methods employed in human studies of expertise need to be demonstrated to be applicable to the study of nonhumans as well. The expert-novice comparison research method was applied to dogs competing in the sport of agility. Differences in performance characteristics between expert, advanced, intermediate and novice dogs were investigated. There were statistically significant differences between dogs of different competitive levels. Highly skilled dogs may prove useful in investigating expertise and its development.