Dog Sense (50 page)

7
. Specifically by Ádám Miklósi, in his book
Dog Behaviour, Evolution and Cognition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

8
. For an example of this approach and how it was initially adopted even by specialist veterinarians, see Amy and Laura Marder's article “Human-companion animal relationships and animal behavior problems,” published in
Veterinary Clinics of North America—Small Animal Practice
15 (1985): 411–421.

9
. Summarized from the entry headed “Understanding Your Dog” in the British Broadcasting Corporation's online encyclopedia
h2g2
at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4889712
(accessed August 20, 2010).

10
. Taken from
http://www.acorndogtraining.co.uk/dominance.htm
(accessed on March 18, 2010). The author of this site, Fran Griffin, is not herself a supporter of these “commandments.”

11
. Both these studies were conducted by a colleague of mine at Bristol University, Dr. Nicola Rooney.

Chapter 4

1
. Cesar Millan with Melissa Jo Peltier,
Be the Pack Leader
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2007), p. 11.

2
. Colin Tennant,
Breaking Bad Habits in Dogs
(Dorking, UK: Interpet Publishing, 2002), p. 18. The “Expert Dog Trainer and Canine Behaviourist” tag is from the cover of the same book.

3
. Quoted from an article by Louise Rafkin in the
San Francisco Chronicle
, October 15, 2006, titled “The Anti-Cesar Millan: Ian Dunbar's been succeeding for 25 years with lure-reward dog training; how come he's been usurped by
the flashy, aggressive TV host?” See
http://articles.sfgate.com/keyword/puppy
(accessed November 15, 2010).

4
. In fact, Konrad Most also promoted the idea of shaping dogs' “instinctive” behavior using rewards and discussed the benefits of allowing dogs to make their own decisions; indeed, he went on to become a pioneering guide-dog trainer. But it's his philosophy of the dog-human relationship that is perhaps his biggest and most unfortunate legacy.

5
. The Monks of New Skete,
How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend: A Training Manual for Dog Owners
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1978), p. 13.

6
. Ibid., pp. 11–12.

7
. Ibid., pp. 46–47.

8
. The Monks of New Skete,
The Art of Raising a Puppy
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1991), pp. 202–203.

9
. Veterinary behavior specialist Sophia Yin explains this in detail on her website; see
http://drsophiayin.com/philosophy/dominance
(accessed December 16, 2009).

10
. David Appleby, one of the founders of the UK's Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors, writes on the APBC's website: “There seems to be little doubt that programmes introduced to cure a dominance problem can result in depression and withdrawn behaviour.” See
http://www.apbc.org.uk/articles/caninedominance
(accessed March 18, 2010).

11
. Fran Griffin, one of the founders of the UK Association of Pet Dog Trainers, writes: “Over the years I have heard far too many stories from owners who have followed the ‘dominance reduction schedule' after taking advice from trainers/behaviourists, only to become very disappointed. Once it has become established that the dog has failed to respond to the regime, the owners became more and more aggressive in their attitude, in the belief that they were ‘asserting their alpha position over the dog.' Eventually the dog bit them ‘unprovoked.' For many this resulted in the dog's demise, whilst others were thrown into the local rescue kennels.” See
http://www.acorndogtraining.co.uk/dominance.htm
(accessed March 18, 2010).

12
. Another reason for horses' trainability in this context has to do with the sensitivity of their mouths. Dogs have plenty of teeth and are happy to carry things clenched between them; horses have a gap between their grazing and chewing teeth, which allows the bit to sit right on their sensitive gums.

13
. According to a former graduate student of mine, Sarah Hall, this is the most likely explanation for why cats get bored with toys so quickly—so it's reasonable that the same principle might apply to dogs.

14
. “Puppy parties” are structured socialization sessions for puppies in their juvenile period.

15
. Karen Prior has written various books on this topic, including
Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training
(revised edition), published in 1999 by Bantam in the United States and in 2002 by Ringpress Books in the United Kingdom.

16
. This study was performed by Dr. Deborah Wells at The Queens University–Belfast; see “The effectiveness of a citronella spray collar in reducing certain forms of barking in dogs,”
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
73 (2001): 299–309.

17
. Matthijs Schilder and Joanne van der Borg, “Training dogs with help of the shock collar: Short and long term behavioural effects,”
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
85 (2004): 319–334.

18
. Richard Polsky, “Can aggression in dogs be elicited through the use of electronic pet containment systems?”
Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science
3 (2000): 345–357.

19
. Elly Hiby, Nicola Rooney, and John Bradshaw, “Dog training methods: Their use, effectiveness and interaction with behaviour and welfare,”
Animal Welfare
13 (2004): 63–69.

20
. Christine Arhant, Hermann Bubna-Littitz, Angela Bartels, Andreas Futschik, and Josef Troxler, “Behaviour of smaller and larger dogs: Effects of training methods, inconsistency of owner behaviour and level of engagement in activities with the dog,”
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
123 (2010): 131–142.

21
. The training disc should not be confused with the “distractor,” usually a tin can filled with pebbles thrown on the ground in front of the dog, which some dog trainers recommend. This method is one way of getting the dog to stop doing something undesirable; it gives the owner an opportunity to reward the dog for doing something else. However, in practice it is of limited usefulness, because most dogs quickly habituate to such noises. Among those who don't, the very lack of habituation is evidence that the “distractor” is actually a punishment, inducing fear in those particular dogs.

22
. In this connection, see the blog entry written by David Ryan, chairman of the UK's Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors, at
http://www.apbc.org.uk/blog/positive_reinforcement
(accessed August 16, 2010).

23
. Published by Meghan Herron, Frances Shofer, and Ilana Reisner, of the University of Pennsylvania's Ryan Hospital, in an article titled “Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviours,”
Applied Animal Behaviour Science
117 (2009): 47–54.

24
. In the words of David Ryan, chair of the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors: “It makes good television to go head to head and dominate a dog. Unfortunately, television is not real life and tends to show short interactions where the dog is forced to submit. It is not impossible for ‘handy' owners to repeatedly force their dog into submission either, but these unpleasant and unnecessary
measures are not how most pet owners want to live with their dogs. Lamentably the high profile of these programmes means the on-screen warning ‘do not try this at home' is often not heeded.” See
http://www.apbc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Why_Wont_Dominance_Die.pdf
(accessed April 9, 2010).

25
. As wolf biologist David Mech points out in a recent article in
International Wolf
, it can take two decades for new scientific ideas to become fully accepted. He goes on to say: “Hopefully it will take fewer than 20 years for the media and public to fully adopt the correct terminology and thus to once and for all end the outmoded view of the wolf pack as an aggressive assortment of wolves consistently competing with each other to take over the pack.” See “Whatever happened to the term ‘alpha wolf'?”
International Wolf
, Autumn 2008, pp. 4–8; available online at
http://www.wolf.org/wolves/news/pdf/winter2008.pdf
.

26
. See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z6XR3qJ_qY
(accessed November 17, 2010).

Chapter 5

1
. Daniel G. Freedman, John A. King, and Orville Elliot, “Critical period in the social development of dogs,”
Science
133 (1961): 1016–1017. The authors worked in Bar Harbor (Maine) at the Jackson Laboratories, the site of many groundbreaking discoveries about dogs.

2
. It later emerged that this idea had initially been proposed, almost a century earlier, by the English biologist Douglas Spalding. However, there is no indication that Lorenz knew this, and the images of Lorenz swimming in his lake, attended by his retinue of faithful goslings, will always be the first that come to mind whenever imprinting is mentioned. Equally evocative are the orphaned Canadian geese in the movie
Fly Away Home
who were imprinted onto a microlight aircraft.

3
. Peter Hepper, “Long-term retention of kinship recognition established during infancy in the domestic dog,”
Behavioural Processes
33 (1994): 3–14.

4
. Although the research to prove the occurrence of such learning has not, as far as I know, been done on wolves themselves, there is an extensive scientific literature on kin recognition mechanisms in other mammals, based on cross-fostering experiments. Something similar happens in our own species—hence the
Westermarck effect
, whereby unrelated individuals who spend their childhood in the same household find each other sexually unattractive.

5
. Given dogs' reliance on their sense of smell, it is surprising that no one seems to have taken into account the role of olfaction in their concept of what constitutes a human. Perhaps, unknown to us with our comparatively feeble noses, there are one or two smells that definitively signify “human being.”

6
. See, for example, John L. Fuller, “Experiential deprivation and later behavior,”
Science
158 (December 29, 1967): 1645–1652.

7
. Michael W. Fox, “Behavioral effects of rearing dogs with cats during the ‘critical period of socialization,'”
Behaviour
35 (1969): 273–280.

8
. Mother cats seem to rely on a straightforward rule of thumb to identify their offspring: “If it's the size of a kitten and it's living where I keep my kittens, then it must be one of mine.” Hence the ease with which Michael Fox was able to persuade cats with litters, or “queens,” to accept Chihuahua puppies as if they were their own. Many queens will also accept the introduction of kittens younger than their own—a phenomenon some animal rescue organizations capitalize on to raise orphans.

9
. David Appleby, John Bradshaw, and Rachel Casey, “Relationship between aggressive and avoidance behaviour by dogs and their experience in the first six months of life,”
Veterinary Record
150 (2002): 434–438.

10
. This outcome was initially reported as an effect of simple handling by the people looking after the rats; however, it later emerged that the return of the infants, smelling of human, stimulated the mother to take extra care of them. The extra care, rather than the handling itself, was what corrected their development.

11
. See Susan Jarvis et al., “Programming the offspring of the pig by prenatal social stress: Neuroendocrine activity and behaviour,”
Hormones and Behavior
49 (2006): 68–80.

12
. David Tuber, Michael Hennessy, Suzanne Sanders, and Julia Miller, “Behavioral and glucocorticoid responses of adult domestic dogs
(Canis familiaris)
to companionship and social separation,”
Journal of Comparative Psychology
110 (1996): 103–108.

13
. Subsequent research has shown that dogs' stress hormone levels are different depending not only on the gender of their owners or carers (lower if they are women) but also on their personalities (lower if the owners are extroverts).

14
. Sharon L. Smith, “Interactions between pet dog and family members: An ethological study,” in
New Perspectives on our Lives with Companion Animals
, ed. Aaron Katcher and Alan Beck (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), pp. 29–36.

Chapter 6

1
. This tradition is usually ascribed to C. Lloyd Morgan, one of the founders of comparative (i.e., animal) psychology. Writing in 1894, he proposed what has become known as Morgan's canon: “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.” (For the word “lower” we would now substitute “simpler.”) Morgan came to realize, however, that this was unnecessarily restrictive and, in
1903, stated: “To this, however, it should be added . . . that the canon by no means excludes the interpretation of a particular activity in terms of the higher processes if we already have independent evidence of the occurrence of these higher processes in the animal under observation.” In other words, if we can show that dogs experience a particular emotion, then that emotion can be invoked as a potential explanation for any dog behavior.