In this study we assessed the effect of sex and gonadectomy on the type of spatial strategy
(allocentric or egocentric) preferentially used by dogs in the acquisition of a navigation task
and their ability to resort to the non-preferred strategy. Fifty-six dogs were involved in the
study, divided in four equally sized groups based on sex and gonadectomy. Dogs initially
underwent a learning phase, where they entered a plus-shaped maze from one arm and
had to learn the position of a food bowl, which was placed in one of the lateral arms. The …