This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index.

Paul McGreevy spoke a lot about research, and basically reaffirmed my points in my post Paucity in Dog Science.  McGreevy believes that ‘the times are turning’ and dogs are beginning to be a legitimate research topic. There is a lot to be learnt about dogs.

In my post ‘Paucity in Dog Science’, I identified three reasons that dogs are rarely scientifically studied.  Firstly, expense. Secondly, that dogs do not have an official academic field of study. And finally, because humans are self centred and only interested in themselves.

Paul McGreevy identified different issues hindering the research of dogs.

Funding of Dog Research

Funding for dog research is often human-focussed in that people only invest in dog research when it can be seen to help people.  (This aligns with my prior convictions that humans are self centred.)  Dog research is often only possible when there are benefits to people – such as within the military, or with guide dogs.  Pet food manufacturers often fund research to identify why pets are beneficial (i.e. why we should have them), as to legitimate pets and so also their products (or at least, this is the viewpoint expressed by McGreevy).  The research we see that is ‘for dogs’ (i.e. for dog welfare) is often funded by animal welfare charities – which is obviously not ideal, as this results in the very limited research we are seeing.

Ethical Issues in Research

A further issue that may hamper dog science is ethical considerations.  For topical animal rights issues (such as docking dog tails or whipping horses), ethics will (“hopefully”, according to Paul) deny controlled studies into these fields. This means that we need to implement different research techniques to answer some big questions. Ethical considerations can hinder all research efforts, but does have particular implications on dog research.

Domestic Dogs Are An Inauthentic Research Area

McGreevy, like myself, identified that dogs do not have a legitimate research area.  Indeed, McGreevy noted that science for a long time believed that studying dogs in domesticated settings is not useful.  This has meant that the prevailing thought is, to understand dog behaviour as clearly as possible, then free-ranging dogs living ‘in the wild’ would be our best guide. However, inevitably, these dogs still have interactions with people, and so are not seen as a legitimate research field.

Because of these stumbling blocks, for a long time, dog science has concentrated on wolves as a more ‘pure’ form of dogs.  While dogs and wolves are only 0.02% different in their DNA, dogs and wolves are very different physically and behaviourally.  Paul suggests that dingoes may be a better model for study instead of wolves.  His written statement regarding the lecture justified this by stating, “Their behaviour is more that of the unfettered dog than any wolf’s will ever be. Behaviourally, dingoes respond to their pack members in ways that are rarely evident in wolf packs. For example, adult dingoes play with one another far more than adult wolves; they vocalise more and are generally more flexible in their responses to strangers. In these ways they are typical of dogs.“

(Interestingly, I have started reading The Dingo: in Australia and Asia by Laurie Corbett, for these reasons prior to this seminar. Look out for the book review soon!)

Asides from this, Paul considered areas where he wanted more research undertaken:

Research Into Dog Ethology

Paul McGreevy spoke about how the ethology of dogs is needed to understand them as a species, and that dogs have long been understudied because their ethology is tainted by human interactions.  McGreevy called for applied ethology.  Applied ethology is the study of animals in captive and domesticated environments, and their behaviour considering these settings.

Dogs exist in diverse families and exhibit diverse behaviours. Paul McGreevy argues: we need to know about these behaviours! We shouldn’t not study dogs in homes. We have research tools that allow us to control for ‘the human effect’.  These are real dogs that we need to study and need to be given a presence in research.

If dogs were researched more in their domesticated situations, then we would have a better understanding of the conditions that bring about behavioural problems.  In this way, we would be better equipped to deal with these issues.

The Bad of Dog Ownership

Paul McGreevy identified a paucity in research on the downfalls of dog ownership.  Paul thinks we need more research on ‘the bad’ of dog ownership. Dogs are not always pleasurable to own.  Dogs do have health benefits to their ownership, but they also call people stress and distress. Science is currently geared towards the good stuff – but the bad of owning dogs is often overlooked, especially in terms of academic research.

Researching Dog Trainers

There is a lot to learn from people who have spent a lot of time with dogs. We should be studying and sampling what top dog people are doing so that we can learn from this.  The ‘top dog people’ are perhaps guide dog trainers, Norm (from Norm’s Coolies), and even Cesar Milan, among others. These people are doing ‘something’ that results in trained dogs, but we don’t know exactly what the answer is.  We need to study these successful trainers, unpick their training mechanisms – considering elements such as timing, reward schedules, non-rewards, and leash pressure.  Trainers saying “I just love my dogs” is an unsatisfying explanation.  We need to study trainers, and unpick what makes them successful.

This completes the summary on Paul McGreevy’s thoughts on dog science.  Basically, studying dog ethology and dog training means that the ‘bad of dog ownership’, that is stress caused by behavioural issues, can perhaps be better understood and ultimately prevented. However, study into dogs is often prohibited by funding difficulties, ethical issues, and the absence of an academic field of study for dogs.

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index.