Over the last 3 decades, the use and popularity of canid models for basic and applied behavioral research has grown dramatically, and for good reasons. Dogs are uniquely among the human world, living and working in our homes and places of employment while an even greater population lives on the outskirts of human life, scavenging and navigating the city life. This provides a rich continuum of environmental contexts for the canine experience, leading to some unique and even human-like behaviors in animals. The articles in this special issue provide additional insight into factors that influence canine welfare, methods for evaluating dogs' preferences and the reinforcing effectiveness of stimuli, trick learning and retention, concept learning, and scent detection performance under sparse reinforcement conditions. Here we provide an overview of these articles and their contribution to our understanding of canine behavior.

中文翻译：

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犬类行为和认知的实验分析：特刊简介

在过去的三十年里，犬科动物模型在基础和应用行为研究中的使用和普及程度急剧增长，这是有充分理由的。狗在人类世界中是独一无二的，它们在我们的家中和工作场所生活和工作，而更多的狗则生活在人类生活的郊区，在城市生活中拾荒和航行。这为犬类的体验提供了丰富的连续环境背景，导致动物出现一些独特的甚至类似人类的行为。本期特刊中的文章提供了对影响犬类福利的因素、评估犬类偏好的方法以及刺激的强化效果、技巧学习和保留、概念学习以及稀疏强化条件下的气味检测性能的更多见解。