BEHAVIOUR - The Moral Judgement of Dogs

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How often do you help another person?

Whatever the answer is, your dog notices, and has opinions on the subject!

Recent research by psychologists at Kyoto University found that both capuchin monkeys and pet dogs showed a preference for interacting with humans who had demonstrated helpful behaviour towards other humans.

This is similar to the way that human babies show a preference for helpful adults, and may suggest an evolutionary trend among social mammals.

This ability to recognize, and show a preference for, prosocial behaviour among others may even be the origin of morality.

James Anderson, the lead researcher in the Kyoto University study, told New Scientist that, “I think that in humans there may be this basic sensitivity towards antisocial behaviour in others. Then through growing up, inculturation  and teaching, it develops into a full-blown sense of morality.”

Although this recent research focused on capuchins and pet dogs, other research has found similar social awareness in other animals.

Bonobos, for instance, have been found to recognize unfair treatment within their social groups, and react to the unfairness both with indignation if they are the victim and even intervention if they are a bystander.

Even rats have been shown to demonstrate what Frans de Waal refers to as “altruistic impulses,” and will attempt to free a suffering fellow rat before seeking chocolate, when given the choice.

But these altruistic impulses, which include altruism, empathy, and gratitude, are not necessarily the same thing as the recognition and judgement of other group members’ behaviour.

Third party evaluation of social behaviour, which is what human children, pet dogs, and capuchin monkeys have all now been shown to do, is a complex process.

Even more interesting and impressive is the fact that capuchin monkeys demonstrated an ability to, according to the Kyoto University’s study abstract, “monitor the context of failures to help and violations of reciprocity, and that intentionality is one factor underlying their social evaluations of individuals.”

This evaluation of motivations is particularly interesting given Frans de Waal’s assertion that reputation building is a critical part of human morality.

One piece of good news for dog owners now worried about their reputations among the furry set – having a pet dog makes it more likely that you will behave in prosocial ways.

Research published earlier this year found that the presence of a companion dog leads to behaviour that is “more cooperative, comfortable, friendly, active, enthusiastic, and attentive.”

So, while your dog may be judging you, they’re also helping you make choices that will get the wags.

About Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a published academic, an editor with the Editors Association of Canada, an independent scholar and researcher, and a self-care and narrative coach. She is particularly interested in the intersection of technology and identity - how our tools shape our selves and change our stories, and in how the nature of work is changing as we incorporate more technology into our daily lives.

RESEARCH - Sleep Helps Dogs Learn

A recent study shows there may be a new twist to the old adage of letting sleeping dogs lie – with rest proving helpful to the learning process.

It’s scientific findings dog trainers might want to sleep on, too.

The conclusions are the work of researchers in Hungary who wanted to examine so-called “memory consolidation,” in man’s best friend.

While it is extensively studied in humans, memory consolidation – which is where the brain pulls together information and packages it into memories to be used later – has not previously been looked at in depth in dogs.

The question for researchers was – does sleep affect dogs by allowing them to better learn and retain lessons.

The findings showed dogs sleep was affected by learning and that learning was affected by sleep.

How?

Dogs were taught a new English word for a skill they had mastered with a Hungarian command such as ‘sit’ or ‘lie down.’

Those dogs who took part in the study slept deeper after the lesson opposed to dogs who were in the group not taught new skills.

Ana Kis, with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, tells Scientific American this “suggests that the newly acquired information is re-processed and consolidated during sleep.”

The findings of the study, The Interrelated Effect of Sleep and Learning in Dogs, showed that dogs who rested after training sessions as well as those who stayed awake saw impacts on short and long-term effects and retention.

Those who played after learning, however, did not do as well on retention suggesting “interfering with learning experiences impedes learning consolidation,” the study states.

Researchers also noted that sleep proved to be more beneficial if it exceeded an hour in length and it was advantageous if dogs were given time to shake off their sleep before being retested on lessons.

In humans, that time required to shake off sleep/ wake up before being in a better position to learn is referred to as sleep inertia.

“Don’t pretend you’ve never woken up, walked to the bathroom and tried to brush your teeth with your comb,” Kis says, explaining the concept.

The study is said to be ground-breaking given it offers evidence that dog’s ability to learn from humans might be related to sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

In the study, dogs were given post-learning activities – walking, resting, playing with a Kong or being taught a new lesson.

The results showed dogs who slept (their sleep was monitored by EEG for three hours) and walked were better learners while those who were given play time or asked to learn new lessons did not see any advantage when it came to later acquiring new skills.

“Learning a new command should be followed by an activity that does not interfere with this new memory trace (e.g. sleeping, walking, playing–but not learning other things) in order to achieve the highest subsequent performance in the long run,” Kis told Scientific American.

Of course, the research is of interest to domestic dog owners but even more news-you-can-use for those who put dogs to work in roles doing everything from therapy to policing.

About Nadia Moharib

Nadia 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.

BEHAVIOUR - Discover the Genius of Dogs, Free Webinar

Canine intelligence has been underrated.

Researchers have learned more about how dogs think and reason in the last ten years than in the past century.

Dr. Brian Hare, Director of Duke Canine Cognition Center (DCCC), presents The Genius of Dogs – New Discoveries About the Intelligence of Man’s Best Friend, in an Association of Professional Dog Trainers free webinar.

Hare discusses how canine intelligence has evolved through thousands of years of interaction with humans - how they have developed unique capabilities and strategies that in many cases exceed those of dolphins and chimpanzees, which traditionally have been seen as among the smartest animals.

The presentation introduces you to DCCC, their research and cognitive, rather than traditional, approach to canine intelligence.

The DCCC is a division of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and the only research institution in the US exclusively focused on how dogs think and reason.

Hare is also a co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Dognition.com, a service that aims to help dog owners develop a deeper understanding of and enrich their relationship with their dogs, which he introduces in the webinar.

By playing eye-opening, science-based games and completing an individualized personality questionnaire, you gain access to your dog’s Dognition Profile – a personalized assessment of what makes your dog unique, based on research in the field of canine cognition.

At the individual level, Dognition hopes to give owners a window into their dogs’ minds, creating greater understanding and deeper, more rewarding connections.

On a larger scale, Dognition aims to contribute to the greater good of all canines.

Individual assessment results are collected anonymously, allowing the company and researchers to make further explorations. For example: whether correlations exist between certain breeds and their ability to reason, or whether certain breeds have better memory retention than others.

Hare and Dognition believe dogs are unique in the animal kingdom because of their ability to read human social cues - that no other species can read communicative gestures as well as dogs can.

BEHAVIOUR - Multi-Dog Households: Setting Adopters up for Success

Adding a dog to a household that already has a resident canine can be a challenge.

Whether you work for an animal welfare organization, rescue, bylaw enforcement agency, or pet store that sells or adopts rescue animals, it’s important to

help families create a compatible and peaceful relationship between resident dogs.

The last thing you want is for a dog to be returned because they just don’t get along.

Multi-Dog Households: From First Date to After the Honeymoon, a webinar by Patricia McConnell, talks about:

• How initial dog-dog introductions can set the stage – for better or worse – for the rest of the relationship.
• Whether the shelter is or isn’t the ideal place for new or resident dogs to meet.
• Practical ways to help adopters conduct safe, humane and informative introductions on their own.
• The evolution of a new social structure – milestones, setbacks and how to help adopters navigate through transition periods.
• What potential problem situations adopters need to be aware of, such as high arousal areas like doorways, dinner time and managing resources.
• When to say when – how to determine when a canine relationship isn’t in the best interest of either the dogs or the family.
  
  

Free and 90 minutes long, the webinar is available through the ASPCA Professional website.

Patricia McConnell, Ph.D., a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB), author and radio host, will leave you with an enhanced understanding of how to set dogs and people up for success and how to become an advocate and supporter to your adopters.

This webinar recording has been approved by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT) and International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC) for continuing education credits.

BEHAVIOUR - Educational Podcasts Focus on Breed Specific Legislation

Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) is a hot topic around the world with pit bull bans being repealed or enacted in various jurisdictions.

In response to the debate sparked by the recent pit bull bylaw in Montreal, the Pet Professional Guild’s (PPG) upcoming podcasts will feature animal behaviour experts explaining why breed bans are ineffective in reducing frequency of dog bites.

Experts who will feature in the podcasts include:

• Jean Donaldson, instructor, coach, mentor and founder of The Academy for Dog Trainers
• Victoria Stilwell, television personality and renowned dog trainer
• Janis Bradley, director of communications and publications at National Canine Research Council
• Lori Nanan, founder of Your Pit Bull and You, an educational resource for dog owners of all breeds.

PPG's Position Statement proposes that BSL paints an unjust picture of certain breeds of dogs while punishing responsible dog guardians unnecessarily, and notes that it has been found to be costly and ineffective in its aims to reduce the number of dog bites and improve public safety in any given community.

"Research shows us that all animals learn in the same way and that each animal is an individual regardless of its breed," said PPG founder and president Niki Tudge.

"Many of our professional members interact, either personally or professionally, with many, if not all, of the breeds affected by BSL and will bear witness to the fact that animal learning is not breed specific. BSL does not address this at all. It is intended to improve public safety and reduce the number of dogs bites, yet the practice includes little, if any, assessment of individual behavior or environment, owner knowledge of canine behavior and training, and/or owner suitability as a dog guardian, not to mention the fact that many dogs are inaccurately labeled simply because of the way they look."

The first podcast, with Jean Donaldson, will air on Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at noon EST.

The Pet Professional Guild is an organization founded on the principles of force-free training and pet care. Its membership represents pet industry professionals who are committed to force-free training, pet care philosophies, practices and methods.

BEHAVIOUR - Have Humans Underestimated Animals' Intelligence?

A border collie named Chaser is causing scientists, dog trainers, and just about everyone really, to rethink just how smart dogs are.

Raised and trained by John Pilley, an emeritus professor of psychology at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Chaser knows the names of over 1,000 objects.

She also has the ability to discriminate verbs, such as fetch frisbee, paw frisbee, or nose frisbee, and to understand the syntax in sentences: “to ball take Frisbee” is different from “to Frisbee take ball.”

Pilley is a firm believer in the power of play in successful training - everything Chase has learned is through play.

His research partner since she was two months old and currently 12 years of age, Chase is first and foremost a member of the Pilley family.

Pilley began his work with the remarkable border collie after his retirement and the energetic octogenarian has written a book - Chaser: Unlocking the Genius of the Dog Who Knows a Thousand Words.

The book explores the true potential of animal intelligence and the ways in which any dog lover can achieve similar results.

A major point Pilley focuses on in the book and every interview, is that every dog has significant potential and intelligence, not just Chaser.

“The big thing is that Chaser is not special, and that anybody’s dog is smarter than he or she thinks. I’m hoping people will work with their dogs, of course teaching them words, but also getting to know their dogs. Find out what makes your dog happy, and give your dog opportunities to explore its interests,” Pilley told Scientific American.

Want some visuals? Through a series of videos produced by Hill’s Science Diet and featuring Pilley and his border collie, viewers can get a clear idea of just how to teach a dog 1,000 words.

For Pilley and his pup, it’s all about understanding, play, setting the dog up for success, and the incredible human animal bond.

RESEARCH - Dogs Understand More Human Language Than Previously Thought

Anyone who’s casually mentioned a walk in a conversation and had their dog bound for the door knows that dogs understand human language.

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One hypothesis has been that dogs respond to the intonation of human language, rather than to specific words.

This is the idea that it’s not what the trainer says, but how the trainer says it. And this focus on intonation is certainly valid – verbal praise is a well-established method of rewarding dogs, and in fact may be more effective than food.

However, researchers at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary have confirmed that dogs can process words as well as intonation.

The researchers used fMRI scans to determine that dogs are able to separately process both lexical and intonational information from their trainers’ voice.

The study confirms earlier research at the University of Sussex that suggested dogs and humans have similar specialized brain regions that allow for parallel processing of multiple parts of speech, such as word and tone.

Both dogs and humans process words with the left hemisphere of their brains, and intonation with the right.

These parallels in human and dog brains may be an example of convergent evolution. They may indicate that humans artificially selected dogs over thousands of years based on their responsiveness to human language.

Though Dr. Brian Hare, who studies both dogs and primates at Duke University, told The New York Times that “it’s possible that dogs had independently evolved a similar brain organization.”

The finding that dogs can understand words as well as tone also indicates that parallel processing began to evolve in non-primates even before humans developed language.

Attila Andics, the lead researcher in the Hungarian study, accomplished something new by training the dogs in the study to voluntarily lay motionless in the MRI machine for the seven-minute test. The dogs were unrestrained, and had the ability to leave the test at any point.

This has not been possible with non-human primates, because according to Dr. Hare, non-human primates will not willingly undergo MRI scans.

Despite the fascinating implications of the study, it does not mean that dogs understand human language in any comprehensive sense.

The study was small, and interpreting fMRI results is notoriously challenging.

Left hemisphere activation could be associated with positive emotions, as it often is in humans, without necessarily also involving lexical processing. Since all of the words used in the study were neutral or positive, and all of the intonations were also neutral or positive, teasing out what the dogs were actually responding to is a challenge.

However, regardless of where the research goes from here, this study has opened up new avenues to explore in both the domestication of dogs and human understanding of the evolution of language.

And, for dog owners and trainers, it confirms what many have suspected for a long time – it matters how you talk to your dog, and it matters what you say.

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.

BEHAVIOUR - Building Resilience in Dogs

(Patricia McConnell, photo by Jeff Miller)

People who adapt well when facing trauma and adversity are considered resilient - and resiliency is a hot topic in human psychology right now.

But have you ever wondered about resilience in dogs?

Dogs are also impacted by trauma and stress and there are science-based methods to help them develop resilience.

The ASPCA Professional is offering a webinar - Building Resilience in Dogs - on Thursday September 15th.

The webinar will provide tools to help dogs who are stressed or traumatized, who have lost their families or homes, or been victims of abuse or neglect.

Patricia McConnell, Ph.D., a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB), author and radio host, will offer practical and science-based ways to help dogs develop resilience, no matter what they have been through in the past.

Professionals, including behaviourists and trainers, and volunteers who work with dogs will benefit from this 60-minute webinar, which has been approved for continuing education credits by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT) and International Association of Animal Behaviour Consultants (IAABC).

For more information and to register, visit the ASPCA website.

RESEARCH - Dogs Like Food but Prefer Praise

A recent study offers hope for those pet owners who fear their dogs are freeloaders befriending them for food and place to live.

Although kibble is clearly very appetizing, it would appear many dogs don't view their people as de facto food factories according to the study highlighted in the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Journal.

Instead, the findings show most dogs put through extensive testing - and when given the choice - prefer praise from their owners over food.

“We are trying to understand the basis of the dog-human bond and whether it’s mainly about food or about the relationship itself,” Gregory Berns, an Emory University neuroscientist and lead author of the research told the journal.

“Out of the 13 dogs that completed the study, we found that most either preferred praise from their owners over food or they appeared to like both equally. Only two of the dogs were real chow hounds, showing a strong preference for the food.”

The study combined brain-imaging data with behavioural experiments to try to analyze canine reward preferences.

Dogs were trained to correlate three different objects with particular outcomes; A pink toy truck signalled a food reward, a blue toy knight signalled verbal praise from the owner and a hairbrush was added as a control garnering no reward.

The dogs underwent 32 trials to see how they reacted to the objects while in an MRI machine so their neural activity could be recorded.

The results showed all the dogs had a “stronger neural activation for the reward stimuli compared to the stimulus that signalled no reward.”

Four dogs showed a particularly strong activation for the stimulus that signalled praise from their owners while nine showed similar neural activation for both the praise stimulus and food stimulus.

A minority, two dogs, consistently showed more activation when shown the stimulus for food.

Research subject Ozzie

Ozzie, a terrier mix, was the only dog who chose food over his owner’s praise 100 percent of the time.

“Ozzie was a bit of an outlier but Ozzie’s owner understands him and still loves him,” Berns told the journal.

In another experiment, dogs were faced with a Y-shaped maze and had a choice to take the path to a bowl of food or one to their owner who would offer praise.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the dogs stayed in character, so to speak, and demonstrated responses similar to those in the first experiment.

“Most dogs alternated between food and owner, but dogs with the strongest neural response to praise chose to go to their owners 80 to 90 percent of the time,” Berns told the journal.

“It shows the importance of social reward and praise to dogs. It may be analogous to how we humans feel when someone praises us.”

The findings are in stark contrast to famous studies done by Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s which showed dogs can be trained to associate a particular stimulus with food and will salivate in the mere presence of the stimulus in anticipation of the treat.

While the so-called Pavlovian response is certainly compelling, Berns says there is increasing evidence dogs might be motivated by more than kibbles.

“One theory about dogs is that they are primarily Pavlovian machines: They just want food and their owners are simply the means to get it,” he says.

“Another, more current, view of their behaviour is that dogs value human contact in and of itself.”

The Berns’ lab is currently exploring the ability of dogs, which are “hypersocial with humans,” to process and understand human language.

“Their integration into human ecology makes dogs a unique model for studying cross-species social bonding,” Berns explains.

By Nadia Moharib

Nadia 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.

BEHAVIOUR - Alternatives to Dominance-Based Dog Training

In 2009, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine conducted a year-long study on the results of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in pet dogs.

The researchers found that dogs responded more positively to non-aversion, non-confrontational, reward-based training methods. And owners were much more likely to be injured if they used Alpha Rolls or yelled “no” as a correction method.

Confrontational training methods often go hand-in-hand with a focus on dominance in the dog-human relationship. Training methods designed to establish owners as “the alpha” tend to be confrontational, and the more physical of these methods are the most likely to result in injury to the owner.

Not only are confrontational training methods more likely to result in injury to the owner and fearful behaviour in dogs, they are being shown to be less effective than reward-based, positive-reinforcement training.

What is the appeal of dominance-based training, since academics and many professionals believe it isn’t effective?

(Jean Donaldson)

Jean Donaldson, founder of the Academy for Dog Trainers, says, “I don’t know. My hunch is that we are big projectors.”

Humans are animals with a strong tendency towards social hierarchies, and Donaldson told InfoStream, “It’s hard for us to imagine that a species that lives so close to us could possibly not be motivated by this, how could they not be interested in who’s the top dog in the room?”

A more useful and effective model for training dogs is one that allows dogs to be dogs, and humans to be humans. It’s a lot of work trying to mimic wolves or dogs, or trying to enforce social hierarchies that may actually be more about projecting human tendencies onto interpretations of dog behaviour (what a murky mess!).

Working with dogs’ natural tendencies and creating a more positive, mutually enjoyable arrangement may better serve the human-dog relationship.

Every dog is unique, but they all want access to food, water, and social enrichment in the form of toys, attention, and activities. Owners also have unique desires for their relationship with their pets, but they want dogs who are safe, social, and respect the boundaries that are important to the owner.

Donaldson notes, “Dogs do come with some ‘installed software’ – the tendency to bark, the tendency to bury things, and so on. Human society tends to consider all of these behaviours to be problematic. It’s not okay to just train all of these behaviours out of existence, because now there’s the idea of behavioural wellness and enrichment. There need to be spaces where they can be dogs.”

Positive-reinforcement training, or training that rewards the behaviour humans want more of, allows more space for letting dogs be dogs while still allowing owners to have the type of relationship they’re looking for. Using playing, running, digging, and barking as rewards for good behaviour is one way to keep those behaviours under control while still allowing the dog space to just be a dog.

Rather than approaching behaviour from the view that every interaction is about social dominance – a view that can lead to confrontational and exhausting training protocols and that often tries to force dogs to behave too much like humans and humans to behave too much like dogs – the new wave of trainers believe it is safer, more effective, and more enjoyable to approach the relationship more collaboratively.

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.