Tag Archives: welfare

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)

Questioning Working Dogs (the ethics of dogs working for us)

McGreevy’s Thoughts on Dog Breeding

McGreevy’s Thoughts on Dog Science

McGreevy on a Modern Dog’s Life

Vets, Sex, Disease, and Aging

01/16/11

Kenneling Rescue Dogs

Please note that this is an old post and some of my ideas have changed since it was originally published. I leave it up for historical purposes.

Recently, I came across “Minimum Health Requirements for Shelters”. I had the pleasure of working in an animal shelter that did meet most of these standards, and were close to meeting the remaining. This was a big shelter and had many resources, both financially and in terms of staff and volunteers.

However, I believe that my shelter was exception in this regard – many shelters do not provide an enriched and healthy kennel environment. The Animal Welfare Act calls for food, water, and shelter, and all kennels I know meet these standards, but we all know that animal welfare is a lot more than these essentials. Because of the complexity of animal welfare, the practice of kenneling dogs has been brought into dispute.

This post looks to examine how the lack of resources often means that rescues cannot meet these minimum health requirements, and that they ultimately have to make difficult decisions regarding the fate of their animals due to their lack of resources. Additionally, it will look at why many rescues kennel dogs, and the problems associated with long term kenneling. Alternatives to kenneling will also be considered. Continue reading →

12/27/10

What is the answer? (to puppy farms)

My suggestion is that breeders become responsible for their puppies for the entirety of their lives.

As in many states microchipping is currently compulsory, and it is likely to make its way into other states as time progresses, I think this is a great way to monitoring dogs throughout the entirety of their lives. All we would need is, in the microchipping database, for an additional field, ‘breeder’, to be added for every puppy. In this way, dogs are permanently linked to their breeder.

This means that, if that dog ends up into a facility (i.e. a pound), then the breeder can be responsible. If a facility fails to find the owner of an animal, the breeder would be contacted. The breeder would have the opportunity to receive the animal back (administration costs only), or else pay the facility a fee and allow the facility to receive ownership for the animal, and consequently rehome it (or otherwise).
I argue that this is a suitable solution as it would mean that:

  1. Responsible breeders have the opportunity to get back any animal that, unawares to them, ends up in unsatisfactory care.
  2. Breeders may be less likely to have litters if they are concerned that their puppies may cost them a fee if they end up in inappropriate care.
  3. Breeders will seriously consider the homes in which the puppies end up in, as securing a ‘forever home’ first up would ensure no fees later down the track.
  4. Pound-like facilities would also have monetary benefits as a result of this proposal.

 

I don’t believe tougher animal welfare standards are necessary. These standards are already adequate (though poorly enforced), and any changes to these standards only make things more demanding for breeders who recognise legislation.

I don’t believe additional licensing (of owners or of breeders) is feasible. There would be lots of administrative costs associated, and obviously there would be people who would ‘slip under the radar’.

The beauty of this suggestion is that, as far as I’m concerned, it is only unscrupulous breeders unconcerned with their animals welfare which would object to this proposal. As a future breeder, I would LOVE to have the opportunity to get any animal I bred back out of a pound-like facility and rehome them myself.

There would be no additional restrictions or legislation to be enforced, just an extra field to create on the microchipping database. Pound facilities would not have a hugely additional workload – instead of calling two phone numbers when a microchipped animal enters the facility, they would call three numbers.

The main kink in this proposal is that individuals would be able to sell animals which are not microchipped, as I am sure they currently do. There needs to be more policing of microchipping. This is a difficulty. One potential solution is to educate puppy buyers the importance of microchipping, and emphasising ideas such as “you wouldn’t buy a vehicle without a warranty, so why would you buy a puppy without a micrcohip?”.