I keep hearing anecdotal stories that particular dog breeds have particular behaviors. Sheep dogs do better than other breeds at herding. Other varieties are better at learning, or pointing, or protection.
Its the same anecdotes I hear about types of horses or cows, or even types of house cats. Some types are ‘said’ to be better at some behavior. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything other than anecdotes. Is there good solid scientific evidence that shows these animal behaviors are really under at least some control of genetics? If so, can you point me to it?
You might want to start by reading up on ‘instincts’ and what we know about them. From this…
“Instinct is a phenomenon that can be investigated from a multitude of angles: genetics, limbic system, nervous pathways, and environment. There are levels of instincts from molecular to groups of individuals that can be studied as well. Extremely specialized systems have evolved to create individuals who exhibit behaviors without learning them. Innate behavior is an important and interesting aspect of the biological world that people come into contact with every day.”
Instinct is unlearned behavior that species exhibit.
What I can tell you about the dog breed characteristics is that they all stem from some aspect of predatory behavior. Herding behavior is a honed variation of stalking prey. Pointing is the hunter’s freeze reaction to sighting prey. Even greyhound racing is the chase aspect of hunting honed in a specific way. Protection comes from resource guarding, or in other words, protecting your kill.
There is a clear correlation between the breeds known for rapid learning (herding breeds primarily) and collaborative hunting methods, and those who aren’t. An example of a breed not known for learning is greyhound. Their inclination to be solitary hunters like cheetahs means that their mentality isn’t as collaborative with humans, so they tend to think for themselves more. Which means that when you try to train them to do things, you have to convince them why it’s a good thing to do what you ask. In other words, they very much have a “what’s in it for me” mentality. The herding breeds, on the other hand, descend from collaborative hunting methods; their partnership with man is well-honed, so they are naturally eager to please with whatever is asked of them.
Some of the toy breeds are a mystery to me, though. They clearly weren’t designed with any aspect of predator behavior in mind. Their entire purpose seems to be to look cute. I suspect that this is why many of them have nasty little ankle-biter, anxious, or fear-aggressive behaviors.
There is a whole field of behavioral genetics, unraveling the ways in which behavior is influenced by genetics. The links in organisms as complex as dogs or humans are very difficult to tease out, but clear connections are easy to make in simple model organisms. It shouldn’t be all that surprising - behaviors are controlled by brains, and brains are made of cells, and cells are controlled by their genetics.
My personal favorite example is that you can mutate one single gene in fruit flies and cause males to begin attempting to mate with other males, and even other species of fly.
Look into cognitive learning and behavioral psychology as well as the psychology of learning and adaption and animal behavior.
Of course there’s a genetic component. You’re talking about comparing different breeds of dogs to each other, but take it a step further: Why don’t dogs behave like squirrels? Because their genes are different, of course.
So do humans have instincts? I can imagine a baby’s nursing response but beyond that I mostly think of personality types.
Are “leadership skills” our version of herding? 
Language acquisition?
Of course we have instincts, just as many of them as any other animal does. We’re just reluctant to call them that, for some reason.
Example: Why do humans have sex? Because it feels good, of course. But that’s exactly how an instinct works: Something in our makeup makes sex feel good, and so we do it.
So, Labs are retrievers, a hunting behavior of course. But where does the typically Lab loyalty and love come from?
That comes from wolves being pack animals with a strong social structure. Loyalty and love are another instinct that humans, like dogs, have and which we’re reluctant to call an instinct.
I think nest building in birds and web building with spiders are some of the most facinating examples of genetics. The demonstrate clearly the power of genitics over behavior. It mkaes it easier to comprehend how more subtle forms of behavior could easily be attributed to genetics.
I worked with hunting dogs for many years and paid a lot of attention to genetics, it makes a trainers job so much easier. Dogs will basically have behavior associated with hunting, killing, protecting territory, social structure, raising young, Denning or shelters, and even problem solving and logic. Different breeds have been bred to key on and exagerate these natural attributes.
And why does mine spin in circles when she gets excited?
HoneyBadger pretty much nailed it and I agree about the web-spinning behavior of spiders. I don’t know how they make some of the webs they do!
But to answer your question, spinning comes from anxiety and excitement. A normal, sane dog might spin when excited because he wants to RUNRUNRUN, but can’t for various reasons (stuck in a room or on leash), so he ends up just running in a circle. Dogs with neurological and psychological problems spin compulsively for no apparent reason for the same reason humans with obsessive-compulsive disorder wash their hands eighty-three times an hour.
The most amazing instinctual behavior I am aware of is the migration of some butterflies. Monarchs return to the same wintering grounds in Mexico, but the returning generation has never been there, nor their parents, nor their grandparents. The Monarchs that return are the fourth generation from the ones that left. The less famous painted lady butterfly has a migration cycle that spans six generations.
Somehow there is an inherited trait that directs them to a specific location they have never ever been remotely close to. How does that work?
I was at a conference a few years back and heard a presentation on how they figured at least part of this out. For monarchs flying south toward Mexico, there’s a balance of two forces: there’s an instinct to head south, and there’s an instinct to avoid big bright shiny patches, like the ocean. The route each population follows from breeding grounds to Mexico is largely determined by the balance between those two influences.
And then there must also be some sort of controls for the three generations that fly northwards. And some sort of switch mechanism to switch between the northbound set of instincts and the southbound set.
Easy. Puppies and dogs expressing what looks like loves would get extra food and be more likely to reproduce.
Our guide dog is unlike most other dogs. She was bred and trained to not be dog distracted, and is totally uninterested in all dogs except for a few friends. They are trained and bred not to bark. You go to guide dog fun day, with 150 dogs in training under a year and a half, and nary a bark is to be heard. There are many other examples.
And our golden, who was never allowed to fetch in training, knew how to immediately when she became a breeder and was no longer constrained by rules. If that isn’t genetic, I don’t know what is.
Not a scientific study, but they have blood and tissue samples for dogs ranging back over 50 years, with full breeding history. There is a project underway to correlate health issues with genetics, but they can surely go deeper into behavior.
I’ve seen two instances of border collies herding on their own. One herded a couple of small children in a kitchen and the other herded a pet rabbit that was let loose on the lawn for a while. Both dogs were untrained and acted spontaneously without any commands. I find it amazing that they could be bred with the genes responsible for the hunting instinct modified that precisely.
The general direction of genetic research is that genes underpin nearly everything about us. Nurture then overlays. You might say that genes create a maximum potential for something, which is then reached to a variable degree according to environmental influences.
One well-studied behavioral trait is aggression in foxes, initiated by Dmitriy Belyaev, and there has been a lot of specific research relating to finding the exact genes responsible.
Here and here are some sample papers.
“The silver fox provides a rich resource for investigating the genetics of behavior, with strains developed by intensely selective breeding that display markedly different behavioral phenotypes. In particular, one expectation of the silver fox research is that it will be synergistic with studies in other species, including humans, to yield a more comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms and evolution of a wider range of social cognitive behaviors.”