RESEARCH - Is the Goat the New Dog?

(Dr. Christian Nawroth)

Researchers suggest the domesticated dog could be trumped by the capra aegagrus hircus (the domesticated goat) which is said to be brighter than its reputation might suggest and capable of creating deep emotional bonds with owners.
 

The findings done by Queen Mary University of London researchers, documented in the Biology Letters journal, show goats being impressive in finding solutions to treat-earning tasks and displaying that 'look of love,' dog owners know so well when they need help figuring something out.

For the Canis familiaris (the domestic dog) that gaze has long been considered to be a form of communication.

“Our results provide strong evidence for complex communication directed at humans in a species that was domesticated primarily for agricultural production and show similarities with animals bred to become pets or working animals, such as dogs and horses,” Dr. Christian Nawroth, one of the study’s authors told The Telegraph.

While the study looks into the bond-forging possibilities between a goat and its owner, it also takes a stab at stereotypes which suggest the quintessential farm animals are not so bright.

Researchers claim the animals studied at Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats in Kent, England demonstrated the ability to learn how to break into a sealed box - for treats, of course.

In another experiment, goats were given a box impossible to open and what they did in those scenarios, researchers attest, speaks to their intelligence and bond with human handlers.

“Goats gaze at humans in the same way as dogs do when asking for a treat that is out of reach,” Nawroth, told The Telegraph.

Study co-author, Dr Alan McElligott, says the curious creatures are often misunderstood.

“From our earlier research, we already know that goats are smarter than their reputation suggests, but these results show how they can communicate and interact with their human handlers even though they were not domesticated as pets or working animals,” he says.

“We know that in some areas goats are as intelligent as dogs, but there has been a lot more work done on dog behaviour and we are really just scratching the surface with goats.”

While dogs have long been companions to humans, goats have been domesticated for some 10,000 years.

There are a billion goats worldwide.

More than a source of milk, meat and cheese – researchers hope to highlight the pet potential of the goat, but more importantly the goal of their work is to improve the plight of the animals.

“If we can show that they are more intelligent, then hopefully we can bring in better guidelines for their care,” McElligott says.

Got your goat?

First-time owners of goats as pets need to do their research according to various organizations familiar with the practice.

For starters, goats are known for being curious creatures with a penchant to roam which means they must be kept confined with good fencing and given shelter from the elements.

The friendly farm animals can be destructive and, just like dogs, need regular vet visits to stay healthy. Because they are social creatures and typically like the company of other goats, they may fare better in pairs.

As well, the ruminants are incessant chewers who can be annoyingly loud and like to head-butt.

Although Queen Mary researchers say goats may well rival dogs as pets, but people will be disappointed if they expect to see a pet goat be anything like canine companionship.

“They won't purr or roll over; they also won't climb on to you to ask for food or a pat. Goats, actually, are more of a rebellious type of animal. They are wanderers and prefer to explore different things,” according to Ted Allen's How to Raise Goats webpage.

“They may eat your notes, memos, or upholstery. Putting it on a lap for a pat may not be possible because it wants to be kept free. Training goats the way similar to dogs may be possible, but its wandering nature will always take the better of it. Behind all these hardships in taking care of a goat also comes as its own rewards. Keeping goats for pets can be very rewarding once the owner has been successful in finding the personality of the goat.”

The average lifespan of a goat is about 12 years.

Ted Allen's How to Raise Goats might be a place to get some starter tips.

Keep in mind however, many jurisdictions (like Calgary, Alberta, for instance) consider goats livestock and not appropriate as pets.

By Nadia Moharib

Nadia Moharib is an animal lover who has adopted everything from birds to hamsters, salamanders, rabbits, fish and felines. She has written about all-things-pets for years and was a long-time editor of a pet magazine in a daily newspaper which featured a Q & A column, Ask Whit, penned by her pooch (ghost written, of course.) The serial dog owner lives in Calgary, Alberta and most days can be found at a dog park picking up after her rescue pooch, Scoots.

RESEARCH - Dogs May Have Been Domesticated Twice

(scienceagogo.com)

Scientists have theorized for years about when and where and how dogs were domesticated, without ever reaching a consensus.

Were they domesticated in East Eurasia and traveled west? In West Eurasia and traveled east? Where did they first become our companions, and how did our relationship with them develop?

These questions hold a lot of interest for scientists and for dog lovers, because our relationship with dogs is unique.

Not only are dogs an integral part of many people’s lives and critical in industries from farming to health care, they are also the only animal domesticated before the development of agriculture.

It’s possible that the reason scientists could never come to an agreement on the origin of domestic dogs is because they were each contributing a piece to a puzzle that is much bigger and covers much more geographical area than anyone anticipated.

Although domesticated animals are all around us – dogs, of course, but also horses, chickens, pigs, and others – the process of domestication is rare and complex. It doesn’t happen often, and no one understands exactly how it happens even though there are clues as to the when and where of it happening.

Now there is a better understanding of when and where it happened with dogs, and the answer isn’t East Eurasia or West Eurasia, the answer is both.

New research suggests that dogs were domesticated twice, at separate times and in separate locations, from two distinct wolf populations - once in Eastern Eurasia, and once in Western Eurasia.

The scientists combined ancient genetic material from 59 dog DNA fragments found across the European continent with 167 sequences of modern dog DNA.

They were able to sort these sequences, and determine that there was “clear turnover in the mitochondrial ancestry of European dogs,” meaning that at some point there was an introduction of new DNA in the European dog population. This new DNA came from East Asian dogs, dogs that had been domesticated from a separate wolf population.

In addition to the DNA evidence, the archaeological evidence also supports the idea of two distinct domestication events.

Dog remains have been found in Eastern Eurasian sites as old as 12,500 years, and in Western Eurasian sites as old as 15,000 years. But the oldest dog remains found in Central Eurasia are approximately 8000 years old.

This suggests that there was not a single cross-continental dog population, but rather two separate populations that eventually made their way into Central Eurasia.

The archaeological evidence has presented a challenge to the understanding of dog domestication for years, because although it had been theorized that dogs had been domesticated twice, there wasn’t supporting DNA evidence.

And, as Professor Greger Larson told Science Daily, “Animal domestication is a rare thing and a lot of evidence is required to overturn the assumption that it happened just once in any species.”

This finding provides the evidence to overturn that assumption, and offers insight into humans’ long relationship with dogs. 

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.

RESEARCH - Fish Can Recognize Human Faces

(newscientist.com)

A recent study conducted by scientists at University of Oxford in the U.K. and the University of Queensland in Australia on archerfish reveals that fish are capable of facial recognition.

The study was printed in the journal Scientific Reports and is the first of its kind.

It would likely lead scientists to research other types of recognition capabilities by fish. Most notably, it’s an exciting possibility for fish owners to know that their aquarium pets may actually be able to recognize them.

According to Dr. Cait Newport, study co-author and member of the University of Oxford’s zoology department, scientists began their research with the intention to learn about how animals with simple brains (like fish) are capable of facial recognition.

The archerfish, a tropical reef fish dubbed as ‘the sharpshooter of the animal kingdom,’ was chosen because of its ability to indicate a clear choice – as in through its ability to spit jets of water at insects.

Scientists conducted the study by training the fish through a reward system to select between two pictures of human faces; through trials lasting anywhere from a few days to weeks, the fish demonstrated their ability to recognize a familiar face a surprising 81% of the time.

This accuracy was increased to 86% when the scientists tried to make the experiment more difficult – by changing the pictures to black and white and evening out head shapes; the study revealed that archerfish have a strong ability to recognize patterns.

The study will open the doors to further investigation, but it lends credence to the theory that it is not just big-brained organisms (primates) who possess the ability to differentiate between faces.

Although fish lack the sophisticated visual cortex of primates, the researchers found the archerfish capable of distinguishing one (familiar) face from 44 new faces.

‘Finding Nemo’ may have a whole new meaning.

By Lindsay Seewalt

Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.

INTERVIEW - Deb Davis, Paws With a Cause - A Leader in the Assistance Dog Industry

(LinkedIn)

Service dogs have historically been a great asset to persons living with vision impairment. In more recent years, the roles of service dogs have expanded to include assisting persons living with a range of disabilities or conditions, such as autism, asthma, seizures, brain injuries, PTSD and Lupus.

InfoStream caught up with Deb Davis, Community Outreach Manager with Paws With A Cause – a service dog training centre based out of Wayland, MI. The centre does custom training of service dogs, hearing dogs, service dogs for children with autism and seizure response dogs.

Davis shares some insights about the benefits of the relationship between service dogs and their humans, as well as some perspective on the growth of their segment of service dogs for children with autism.

InfoStream (IS): What makes working with service dogs special or unique for you?

Deb Davis (DD): What makes this work unique and special for me is our clients – people with disabilities who are able to change their life because of their assistance dog. They are some of the most amazing people I will ever know in my life, and my life has changed because of them.

IS: Your organization trains dogs to assist people in a variety of capacities, including seizure response, vision and hearing impairment and autism - could you please share with us how some of these newer areas have grown in popularity over the last few years?

DD: Training service dogs for children with autism has really caught on in the past five years. Our organization did a two-year study with an organization in Canada, prior to launching our own three-year pilot program for this discipline. At PAWS, we don't just train a dog and then hand over the leash and say 'have a nice life'. We work with the clients for 4 - 6 months, after their dog has already been trained specially for them for 4-6 months. That's a lot of time and a huge commitment on the client's part. So, when families who are living with autism reach out to apply for a dog, we feel honored to be able to provide them with another 'tool' in their autism toolbox.

Families who live with children with autism already have a lot of things to handle in their lives: the child, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, play dates, school, etc. For them to accept a service dog into their lives is a great indication of their commitment to making their child's world one step easier.

Our Seizure Response Dog Program's popularity is another testament to our clients - people who want to live independently, yet live in constant fear that a seizure could severely hurt them or worse, kill them. We have clients who have a seizure response dog because they want to live alone, yet are fearful of suffocating in their pillow if they have a seizure during the night. That's pretty intense. Yet, they feel completely relieved of that fear by living with their seizure response dog. We have one client whose parents would not let him go off to college and live in the dorms until he could prove to them that he would work with his seizure response dog. I'm happy to say, they graduated.

IS: What does PAWS want people to know about what it is that makes an assistance dog more effective compared to human assistance options in some regards?

DD: The dog/human bond is an incredible thing to witness...for the human to be able to put their 100% trust in their dog is really a miracle before our eyes. The dog is a constant in their lives, 24 hours per day, day and night. Dogs don't have bad days, like aides do; dogs don't need batteries, like technology and machines do; medications reach a plateau of effectiveness and can change a person's behavior and reaction to stimuli; dogs don't. People who are hearing impaired/deaf who have a cochlear implant are still hearing impaired/deaf when they take off that cochlear implant; that's when they are most vulnerable. The dog is there as a constant reminder that they have someone to trust, and someone or something that is reliable and will take care of them.

(Paws With a Cause)

IS: What would you say to a parent with a child on the autism spectrum who is contemplating a service dog?

DD: After placing more than two dozen service dogs with children with autism, we've asked those parents what would they tell someone in this situation. Their overwhelming response has been "Do it!" Their fears were about having enough time to dedicate to the dog and when they realize that the dog folds into their already-established lifestyles, that fear is gone!

By Lindsay Seewalt
Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four­-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-­in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.

Hospitals Let Pets Visit Sick Owners

(purina.com)

Studies have shown that spending time with pets can reduce pain, anxiety, depression and fatigue in people with a wide range of health issues, and those staying in long-term care facilities.

Many hospitals have pet therapy programs, where specially trained pets come to a hospital or other health care facility and visit. But when it's the patient’s own pet visiting, it can be even more special.

With this in mind, Jill Malan, manager of Child Life Services at St. Louis Children's Hospital proposed a room at the hospital which could facilitate visits between patients and their cats and dogs.

"Our doctors see every day the importance of medicine and world class technology," said Malan. "We see every day the impact a child's emotional well-being has on their overall recovery."

Purina provided a $450,000 donation for construction and staffing of the Purina Family Pet Center which opened this month.

The Center gives patients the opportunity to see their pets without leaving the building, their doctors or the technology on which so many of them rely.

The 300-square-foot room, adjacent to the hospital's second-floor entrance, features washable surfaces and windows to provide natural light. It can accommodate a child in a wheelchair or hospital bed, and provides a comfortable, private visiting space for the child, pet and family. It will also include toys for the pets and Purina treats.

The Juravinski Hospital, a small health-care facility in Hamilton, Ontario allows a patient’s pet to visit in their hospital room. Each pet who comes to visit must be bathed first, healthy and well-tempered. The animals are also not allowed to have any contact with other patients.

That program was launched by Donna Jenkins in 2015 after her 25-year-old nephew, Zachary, begged her to let him see his dogs one last time before he died.

"Before he died, he made me promise that we would have an organization available that if any patient at Juravinski wanted to see their pet, they had that opportunity," Jenkins told CTV.

The Faithful Friends program at the University of Maryland Medical Centre, which has been running since 2008, allows both cats and dogs to visit their owners for the entire day.

The Faithful Friends program is generally used by patients who are hospitalized for longer periods, those potentially approaching end of life or patients whose pet is suffering from duress by being separated from his owner.

The Wolfston Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville Florida has a Healing Paws program that allows patient’s dogs to visit for up to an hour.

"The dogs get so excited to see their human again, and the kids really perk up when they know their pet is going to visit," Pat Kirkland, manager of Family Support Services and head of the Healing Paws program says. "If we can make their day a little bit brighter by bringing in their best friend, we consider that an accomplishment."

Don't Hug the Dog

Dr. Stanley Coren, author of “How to Speak Dog,” recently examined 250 photos from the internet of dogs being hugged, looking for signs of stress and relaxation.

His thoughts, published in Psychology Today, indicate hugging the family dog is not a good idea.

81.6% of the photographs showed dogs who were giving off at least one sign of discomfort, stress, or anxiety. Only 7.6% of the photographs could rate as showing dogs that were comfortable with being hugged. The remaining 10.8% of the dogs were either showing neutral or ambiguous responses to being hugged.

(Psychology Today)

“This data clearly shows that while a few dogs may like being hugged, more than four out of five dogs find this human expression of affection to be unpleasant and/or anxiety arousing,” Coren wrote.

Coren's results support the long-held belief by animal behaviour experts and dog bite prevention organizations who encourage not hugging or kissing dogs.

In fact, Doggone Safe, dedicated to dog bite prevention through education and awareness, lists "Dogs Don't Like Hugs and Kisses" as number one of the three most important things to teach your kids.

Read the full story here.

Animal History Museum to Open in Burbank, California

Opening in April, the Animal History Museum’s mission is dedicated to understanding and celebrating the human-animal bond.

The human-animal Bond is the dynamic relationship between people and animals in that each influences the psychological and physiological state of the other. 

“Like the way natural history museums explore fossils and science, we’ll explore interactions and relationships,” says museum founder and Executive Director, Amy Breyer. “People throughout all civilizations have long understood that humans can and do form deep, meaningful relationships across species. For most of recorded history, that relationship has been marginalized. But that’s changing. More and more, cultural norms are acknowledging – and laws are starting to catch up to – what many people have known intuitively.”

Permanent exhibit plans include:

• The human-animal bond
• Animals and intelligence
• The history of animals throughout society
• Animals in art, literature, TV, film and pop culture
• The development of animal welfare, rights and law
• Plant-based food trends
• Animals and religion.

Exhibit categories are structured to recognize that human and (non-human) animal lives are intertwined, rather than how animals are traditionally categorized - by their usefulness (ie: farm, wildlife, research, companion) to humans.

The Animal History Museum will occupy 5,300 square feet of space in the Burbank Town Center, a shopping and dining destination in the Los Angeles area.

RESEARCH - Cats are More Like People Than you Think

If you think you and your cat share some personality traits, you might be right.

A study by UniSA Discovery Circle identifies five feline personality traits in cats which are somewhat in sync with ones displayed by people.

Skittishness, outgoingness, dominance, spontaneity and friendliness are dubbed the 'Feline Five' in the Cat Tracker Project.

Have a cat who likes to bully other cats? They might be high on the dominance trait.

Is your cat a bit of a loner? It is likely they are low on the friendliness front.

Research leader, Dr. Philip Roetman, says the findings are “really interesting” given those cat qualities are not dissimilar to the 'Big Five' in humans.

“Skittishness is similar to neuroticism in people, outgoingness is similar to extroversion and friendliness is akin to agreeableness,” he states in the Advertiser. “The big difference in cats is dominance and spontaneity.”

The results can offer a way owners can better bond with their pet by doing “things differently based on that cat and what it likes.”

“People are fascinated by cats, they have really intriguing personalities,” Roetman says. “From a research perspective, it’s really interesting to understand and look at the personalities of different animals, especially when we are talking about management.”

The results are gleaned from nearly 3,000 cat personality tests in a study which also found a distinction between indoor and outdoor cats.

“It was only extremely slight but the only difference we found was indoor cats tended to be slightly more friendly,” Roetman says. “I think that’s really good news because people are often concerned about keeping cats indoors too much because it might have a negative impact on them, but this suggests there isn’t a negative impact on cat personality by keeping them indoors. If people want to keep their cats indoors, they can feel a bit more confident about it.”

You let your cat out in the morning and it comes back in the evening – but have you ever wondered where it went all day?

The personality test is part of the Cat Tracker project where feline owners in Australia get pets fitted with GPS technology to track where they go when they are out and about.

So far, 350 cats have been recruited to the study.

GPS images are posted on-line (www.discoverycircle.org.au) and rather interesting, showing some cats stick close to home and others venture quite far.

The Advertiser also posted a video sharing some interesting commentary on cats, including a belief humans are “biologically hardwired” to love them because their “smallish noses, big eyes and dome-shaped heads” - not unlike human babies - trigger the nurturing instinct.

It cites some psychology studies which say cat owners tend to be introverted, sensitive and non-conformist and that those downright aloof felines wiggle their way into human hearts based on the “scarcity principle,” which purports that people place higher value on an object that is scarce rather than in abundance.

Maybe cats are smarter than you think.

By Nadia Moharib

Nadia Moharib is an animal lover who has adopted everything from birds to hamsters, salamanders, rabbits, fish and felines. She has written about all-things-pets for years and was a long-time editor of a pet magazine in a daily newspaper which featured a Q & A column, Ask Whit, penned by her pooch (ghost written, of course.) The serial dog owner lives in Calgary, Alberta and most days can be found at a dog park picking up after her rescue pooch, Scoots.

RESEARCH - Study Shows Horses can Read Human Emotions

For the first time horses have been shown to be able to distinguish between angry and happy human facial expressions.

Researchers at the University of Sussex examined the reactions of 28 horses to photographs of people making positive and negative expressions, noting stronger reactions to anger. 

Amy Smith, a doctoral student in the Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group at Sussex, co-led the research. She said: “The reaction to the angry facial expressions was particularly clear – there was a quicker increase in their heart rate, and the horses moved their heads to look at the angry faces with their left eye.”

Research shows that many species view negative events with their left eye due to the right brain hemisphere’s specialisation for processing threatening stimuli (information from the left eye is processed in the right hemisphere). The effect of facial expressions on heart rate has not been seen before in interactions between animals and humans.

Amy continued: “It’s interesting to note that the horses had a strong reaction to the negative expressions but less so to the positive. This may be because it is particularly important for animals to recognise threats in their environment. In this context, recognising angry faces may act as a warning system, allowing horses to anticipate negative human behaviour such as rough handling.”

A tendency for viewing negative human facial expressions with the left eye specifically has also been documented in dogs.

Professor Karen McComb, a co-lead author of the research, said: “Emotional awareness is likely to be very important in highly social species like horses – and our ongoing research is examining the relationship between a range of emotional skills and social behaviour.”

The details of the study are published in Biology Letters.

New HAIB now available

The latest edition of Human Animal Interaction Bulletin’s (HAIB), Volume 2, No. 2, is now available online. This newly released HAIB illustrates the rich variety of topics within the field of human-animal interaction.

There are four articles ranging in topic from chimpanzees’ capacity to demonstrate empathy, to assessing the effect of animals on children’s reading, attention, concentration, and social behaviors. HAIB has also added a special book review that discusses how fictional literature can generate discourse about the human animal interaction.

READ THE EDITION NOW! 

Pets help create healthy communities

Photo Credit: Alonso Nichols/Tufts University

Caring for an animal may have a positive effect on youth development and their community and social interactions, according to a paper published online last week in Applied Developmental Science. 

"Our findings suggest that it may not be whether an animal is present in an individual's life that is most significant but rather the quality of that relationship," said the paper's author, Megan Mueller, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist and research assistant professor at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. "The young adults in the study who had strong attachment to pets reported feeling more connected to their communities and relationships." 

More than 500 participants aged 18-26 were surveyed with the results demonstrating that people who reported greater care for animals were also more likely to be involved in their communities and serve in leadership roles. Higher levels of attachment to an animal in late adolescence and young adulthood were also associated with feelings of connectivity, empathy and confidence. 

AVMA Annual Convention begins today in Chicago

The Veterinary profession and those associated with it are gathering in Chicago today for the 2013 AVMA Annual Convention. Since 1863 the American Veterinary Medical Association has represented the interests of America's Veterinarians and has provided medical services to animals and the people who own them. The International Association of Human Animal Interaction Organizations (IAHAIO) will hold its annual conference in conjunction with the AVMA event. IAHAIO was founded in 1990 to gather and support organizations interested in advancing understanding and the appreciation of human-animal interaction (HAI).

The global Urban Animal Industry is fortunate to enjoy AVMA contributions in the areas of Veterinary Medicine, animal science, statistical information and education.

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