Dogs in Review May 2013

Canine Science! Everywhere! AHHH! (source)

Hey Mia!

Didn’t May come and go in a flash? Is it possible to ask for an extension? The world of canine science was bopping last month, so here’s a review of things I would have liked to cover in more detail, if I were granted a two-week extension:

--> Dogs in Research

Dogs rocked peer-reviewed journals last month! As you mentioned, the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab published an article in a recent issue of Learning and Motivation. We looked at the olfactory experience of companion dogs, and Im sure Ill talk more about our paper later. The issue will include a number of dog-centric, peer-reviewed articles covering a variety of canine cognition topics such as olfaction, memory, physical cognition, and the influence of humans on dog behavior. Here’s a brief overview of a few of the studies:

MAGIC BONES

Pattison et al. The case of the magic bones: Dogs’ memory of the physical properties of objects.

How can I not mention a paper talking about magic bones? “Using a procedure popular with preverbal infant researchers, [the researchers] allowed dogs to initially observe a bone and then to subsequently view the bone changed in either size or color. Dogs gazed longer at a bone changed in either way, compared to a control presentation of an unchanged bone. Dogs apparently encoded and remembered both the size and color of the bone.” *

OLFACTION

Hall et al. Training domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) on a novel discrete trials odor-detection task.

“[Domestic] dogs can be trained to detect a distinct odor (anise) buried in pine shavings. However, it took dogs about 60 trials to reach an average performance level of 80% correct choices, and dogs learned much better when a human experimenter delivered food reward than when the reward was buried with the odor cue.” *

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Pongrácz et al. “We will work for you” – Social influence may suppress individual food preferences in a communicative situation in dogs.

“[Dogs] would repeatedly choose a bowl containing a carrot over a bowl containing preferred sausage if a human pointed to the carrot bowl. In a delayed response test, dogs regularly search at the location where they last saw food disappear.” *

DOGS AND WORDS

Pilley. Border collie comprehends sentences containing a prepositional object, verb, and direct object.

Chaser knows words (source)

A border collie named Chaser initially captured headlines in 2011 as “the smartest dog in the world” when research published in Behavioral Processes reported that she knew the names of over 1,000 different objects.

Pilley’s current article investigated Chaser’s attention to the syntactical relationships between words, like differentiating “to ball take Frisbee” from “to Frisbee take ball.”

What’s going on with “wordy dogs” like Chaser? How did they get this way? And how can we test whether the dogs in our homes understand our words as we intend them?

• Do Dogs Understand Our Words? The Dogs Weigh In. Scientific American

• Do Dogs Understand Our Words? The Bark Magazine 

PUPPY PROBLEMS?

In other canine science news, I was happy to see that the blog Companion Animal Psychology (twitter: @CompAnimalPsych) covered a recent publication by Frank McMillan et al investigating behavioral problems in puppies from pet stores vs puppies from non-commercial breeders. According to the study: What were the behavioral differences between pet store and breeder-obtained dogs? Read on!

YAWNING IN DOGS MEANS...

Over at Not bad science on Scientific American Blogs, @Felicity__M discusses a study of yawning behavior in dogs. Check out her coverage of the recent paper, Buttner et al. Contagious yawning, social cognition, and arousal: an investigation of the processes underlying shelter dogs’ responses to human yawns.

--> Dog Bite Prevention Week 2013
Apparently, the third full week of May is dog bite prevention week, but in my mind, every day is (or should be) dog bite prevention day. I don’t want to be bitten by a dog, and also I don’t want to give a dog the experience of biting me. So how do we prevent dog bites?

• My primary strategy to avoid being bitten is to not be a child. Yes, that is cheeky, but children are more likely than others to be bitten by dogs, which we’ve discussed in earlier posts, Dogs and babies: Not always cute and The Science Surrounding Children & Dogs: Part 3 (The Ugly).

• I also avoid bites by not interacting with dogs like this: 

Watch Sophia Yin Dog Bite Prevention Video

• Instead, I ask dogs whether they want to interact, as recommended in a great post by Khris Erickson, the Humane Educator at HAWS, Humane Animal Welfare Society in Wisconsin. 
  
  
• If dogs indicate that they are not into interacting, then we dont interact. Its that simple. What I sometimes find is that owners of "so friendly" dogs want to push an interaction even if the dog is giving "not right now" indications. A dog can still be "uber-friendly" without wanting to interact all the time with everyone. Ive been thinking about this a lot recently as NYC enters summer and dogs are looking hotter and hotter, and potentially experiencing some physical discomfort.
  
  
• I also think about context, practicing interventions and what a leash can (and can’t) prevent. Patricia McConnell, CAAB, offers in-depth insights into this topic over at her blog, The Other End of the Leash, in the post Dog Bite Prevention 2013.
  
  
• When it comes to preventing dog bites, I frequently check out The Blue Dog, a website aimed at educating children about dogs. I first learned about The Blue Dog at the 2nd Canine Science Forum. The website houses resources and research on children and dog bites, in addition to providing general dog information:
• Research on dog bites

• Research on dog bite prevention

--> Up next: Some of the leading canine science researchers will be presenting at a Canine Science Conference, SPARCS, June 28-30, 2013. The best part is, anyone in the world can join, either in a conference hall in Redmond, WA, or streaming live to your living room. 

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I recently covered the SPARCS conference on #SciAmBlogs, who will be there & what to expect, at You’re invited to a canine science conference. Take a look!

I know your life is currently heavily focused on The Big W, and I’m not talking about the best movie ever, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Hoping for an update on working dog welfare!

Cheers!

Julie

* summary by Macpherson K. & Roberts W.A. (2013). Exploring the canine mind: Studies of dog cognition, Learning and Motivation, DOI: 10.1016/j.lmot.2013.04.006

© 2013 Julie Hecht

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Camp Unleashed Heaven on earth for dogs

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Hi Mia!
How fun following you on Facebook and Twitter answering student science questions for "Im a Scientist. Get Me Out Of Here!" A zombie apocalypse should not be taken lightly, and we must consider how to prepare. And glad someone asked why dogs eat grass. That question makes a bit more, um, sense ;)

A Special Place for Dogs
We’ve all heard of the Rainbow Bridge, a mythical land where pets go when they pass away to hopefully meet again with their owners. While I don’t know whether that exists, I do know that if there’s a Heaven on earth for dogs, its probably Camp Unleashed (Facebook/Twitter).

Annie Brody founded Camp Unleashed in 2004 “on the premise that dogs need a vacation from the human world — a place where they can be off-leash, safe, and in a pack with other dogs in their own natural environment.”

The four-day retreats offers activities and experiences for dogs and their people alike that highlight seeing the world from the dog’s point of view. The two camp locations, one in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts and the other in Asheville, North Carolina, offer a wide range of activities depending on the session: agility, canine cognitive games, canoeing and water sports (for all), clicker training, off-leash hikes, and scent games, to name a few.

The idea is simple: both dogs and their people need a taste of life off the leash. For many, it is often the first time they’ve experienced this possibility, and from what I hear, it’s very eye-opening! For example:

"Camp Unleashed allows me to bond with my dog in a way I can nowhere else. My dog is allowed to be himself, with a joy and a freedom that I cannot offer him in the real world. I find that I relax more too, being around like-minded people and tapping into dog-like qualities--living in the moment, enjoying nature, taking pleasure in my surroundings and just letting go."
-- Elizabeth Bermel, Ossining, NY 2011 Berkshires

Brody also hosts an online radio show called The Dog Connection. Recently, Alexandra Horowitz and I joined her on the air to talk dogs.
Julie interview: The science behind dogs and the dog-human relationship
Alexandra Horowitz interview: What’s it like to be a dog?

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And now for the exciting news: this weekend, I get to go to Camp Unleashed! I’m giving the Saturday night lecture at Camp Unleashed in the Berkshires titled, What Can Canine Cognition Research Do for You? Get Into the Head of the Dog in Your Bed, and Youll Both Be Happier. And of course, I’m very much looking forward to seeing the camp in action.

This will be the first time I give a talk to an audience that’s equal parts dog and human! I’m interested to see how the dog members of the audience respond to the audience-participation parts of the presentation. Usually, I invite one person and one dog up on stage to demonstrate a study. This time around, I imagine a few more four-legged audience members might volunteer to participate! And I assume they’ll be better than their people at guessing the meaning behind the barks and growls ;) 

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And now back to you! The Working Dog Alliance website looks A M A Z I N G! As I mentioned on Facebook, the Research and Legislation links are where its at. Of course, looking forward to hearing more about the upcoming Australian Working Dog Conference Nov. 4-5 in Sydney. Good stuff!

Julie

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