Deliberate practice in dogs: a canine model of expertise

The acquisition of expertise is an area of controversy between those who lean more toward learning and those who lean more toward talent. Because the genetics and early life experiences of humans are not open to direct manipulation, human studies are of limited use in this debate. Studies using nonhumans as expert models may prove useful in resolving this dispute. For nonhumans to be considered proper models of human experts, there must be evidence supporting a shared acquisition mechanism. A candidate mechanism is deliberate practice. The author tested the deliberate practice theory of expertise acquisition on dogs competing in the sport of agility. The author examined the relationships between amounts of accumulated deliberate practice and agility performance measures. The author found there was a statistically significant relationship between the amount of deliberate practice and measured performance in agility dogs, even when controlling for sex, breed group, age, and height.