02/14/13

Oral Flea Treatment Most Effective in Dogs

This is a guest blog post by Jon Clarke at Aussie Professional Pest Control Sunshine Coast. Thank-you Jon!

Veterinary scientists discovered that oral flea treatment is significantly better at controlling fleas in dogs versus a topical treatment.

In a study published in the January 2013 issue of Veterinary Parasitology, scientists compared which was more effective of the two most popular veterinary flea treatments for dogs: oral spinosad (commonly found in Comfortis) or fipronil/(S)-methoprene topical (commonly found in Frontline).

Continue reading →

12/30/12

Razboinichya Rover

In 1975, a well preserved “dog-like” skull was found in the Razboinichya Cave (in the Altai Mountains in Siberia). Because this skull was so well preserved, it provided opportunities for study between this animal, dogs, and wolves.

A wolf skull, dissimilar to the skull found in Siberia.

This cave was a home to many other archeological finds. There were bones from numerous other mammals, from reptiles, amphibians, and fish. About 71, 290 mammalian bones and fragments were uncovered and removed from this site. The “dog like” skull was found among the bones of foxes, cave hyenas, and gray wolves.

But what exactly was this skull?

After extensive analysis, the pooch in the cave was found to be most similar to fully domesticated dogs from Greenland that existed 1000 years ago. The Razboinichya Rover was unlike wolves, both modern and ancient.

They look at the skull shape, the arrangement of the teeth, and so forth. The short and relatively broad snout and the tight teeth, both indicate that this animal is more dog than wolf. The only slight anonamly is that the teeth of the Razboinichya canid is inconsistent with the Greenland domesticated dog. In all other measurements, this canid is a dead-ringer. Continue reading →

11/16/12

Research Finds: Hungry Dogs are Hungry

Some Thoughts About Dogs welcomes guest blogger Michael D Anderson from NerdWallet.

Photo © Ruthless Photos.

Biologists at the University of Vienna published a study last month about dogs’ temperament in relation to their owners. The study hypothesized that without their owners, dogs would be more likely to view ambiguous events as negative ones. This is a common feature of human cognition – you’ll often hear that depressed people “see the glass as half-empty.”

The abstract of the study is available here.

The Vienna researchers found that, unlike in humans, when presented with ambiguous stimuli, dogs don’t have a negative judgment bias when they’re in distress. This is a jargon-loaded, awkward way of generalizing on the following: These scientists found that, when hungry, dogs don’t become emotional if their owners are absent—they go right to the bowl of food because, following one of the experiment’s stipulations, these dogs hadn’t eaten in at least three hours.

Experimenters measured how long it took each of 24 dogs to approach a bowl—the study had initially included 32 animals, but the scientists decided to exclude dogs that had unusually extreme separation anxiety.

In training—before the two testing days—the biologists conditioned the dogs to identify one side of the testing room as positive—where a bowl had food—and the other side as negative—where a bowl was empty.

On testing days, they refreshed dog’s memories about the room, but then they changed up locations a bit. They established near-negative (i.e. closer to the original negative location), middle and near-positive locations. At the beginning of each test, they approached one of these new locations with a bowl.

The experimenters then tested for “latency,” or long it took the dogs to approach the bowl, when the owner was present and when he or she was absent. The owner, they said, had an effect. The dogs took longer to approach the near-negative location and shorter to approach the near-positive; in tests without the owner, they approached at the same rate to each respective location.

What I don’t understand is how the biologists so tightly connect dogs’ approach to food—which they measure as “latency”—to their mood. The idea, I think, was that dogs should take longer to approach a bowl—even if the location is near-positive—when the owner isn’t there. The idea is that the dog is distressed without the owner around—they’ll start barking, toileting, or whatever else instead of going right to the bowl.

But these dogs were hungry: as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, owners were asked not to feed their dogs in the 3 hours before the study.

The whole premise of this experiment is odd. What they pose is that dogs are less temperamental than humans: emotional distress or not, they’ll logically discern where the food is. What I think they meant to ask is whether or not dogs behave any different after domestication: Are they still primal? The answer, I think, didn’t even require extensive experiments: yes, they’re hungry, owner be damned.

McGreevy’s Thoughts on Dog Science

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. Continue reading →

03/25/11

Paul McGreevy Seminars

Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to Paul McGreevy present a two-day lecture.

Paul McGreevy is from The University of Sydney’s faculty of vet science. He is a vet that practiced in the UK for 5 years, before pursuing an interest in behaviour. His approach is scientific, with frequent references to academic studies throughout his lectures. He is the author of A Modern Dog’s Life (“a rant about what we could do better for welfare”) and Carrots and Sticks (interviews with animal trainers globally). He concluded his sessions with an emphasis on the help science can provide to the training field, that there is “room for humanity” within science, and there is still plenty to learn.

Photos © Ruthless Photos

I have been struggling for several weeks to begin writing my summary of his two-day seminar. I think that, due to the breadth of topics covered, I have had a little difficulty organising my thoughts and the best order for presenting the topics on this blog.

What I have decided may be best is to summarise some of the topics covered, in preparation for more in-depth posts as time progresses. As such, this post is likely to be edited overtime and act as an index to future posts.

Firstly, I thoroughly enjoyed the scientific nature of this seminar. Paul McGreevy went into details examining many aspects on the nature of dog science, and then also specific dog studies that has taken place. In a way, Paul described a very similar phenomena to what I described in my post Paucity in Dog Science. However, this is a lot more to the dog-science conundrum than I initially thought. I will review this topic with enthusiasm!

Paul McGreevy also spoke a great deal about dog breeding, with a particular focus on dog health. As a dog breeder, I was perhaps sensitive to this information, but I surprisingly found myself quite receptive to his ideas. Basically, Paul believes that the health of dogs should be at the forefront of breeding practices and that inherited disorders should be considered a form of cruelty.

This was a dog training seminar, so Paul did consider the four quadrants of operant conditioning and other training principles (such as classical conditioning and non-associative learning) a great deal. He talked about what he thought were ‘the keys’ to dog training. He also spoke specifically about improving dog recalls. Though there were the occasional tidbits that offered new insights, for the most part the information was not new to me. However, Paul talked a lot about horse training which I found incredibly interesting. I have a curiosity in horses, yet not enough to actively pursue the subject.

Paul considered the ethical and welfare issues concerning working dogs. That is, working dogs in all aspects – from sheep dogs, to assistance dogs, to police or customs dogs. This was definitely thought provoking, and another issue I will look forward to examining in more depth. He refers to his work with the Australian Working Dog Survey, though I am yet to read this document thoroughly.

The book Paul wrote, and refers to, A Modern Dog’s Life, concerns the stresses of day-to-day life that dogs have to contend with. Though these weren’t at the forefront of his seminar, they were addressed throughout and did provide interesting food-for-thought. These also encompasses, in some ways, the extraordinary dog senses and the challenges these pose for dog trainers. He also considered how desexing, disease and aging could influence behaviour.

McGreevy Seminar Index

Dog Training

McGreevy on ‘The Keys’ to Dog Training

Classical Conditioning Bits

Operant Conditioning Bits

McGreevy on Rewarding Dogs

McGreevy on Punishing Dogs

McGreevy on Non-Associative Learning

General Dog Training Thoughts from Paul McGreevy

7 Tips for Improving Your Dog Recall

Other

Dog Senses (with Paul McGreevy)