I\u2019ve always loved the quote, \u201cIf you put two dog trainers in a room, the only thing they will agree upon is that the third dog trainer is wrong.\u201d Any issue in the dog world is like this: Vaccinations, feeding dogs, desexing, dog-dog interactions\u2026 Anything that involves dogs almost undoubtedly also involves some conflicting ideas.<\/p>\n
In my opinion, these conflicts are caused by the paucity in scientific literature on dogs. There is a lot of material out there about dogs, but not a lot of it has been studied scientifically. If dogs were studied in this way, maybe we would have less conflict and more solid answers on the right things to be doing with our animals.<\/p>\n
So why aren\u2019t we researching dogs?<\/strong><\/p>\n Because dogs are expensive to study<\/span><\/p>\n Studying dogs in controlled conditions requires significant resources, both in terms of establishing a facility to hold a sample of dogs, and maintaining the well being of these dogs over the course of the study. Additionally, there are ethical issues with the instutionalisation of animals in this way.<\/p>\n Scott & Fuller (in Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog<\/em><\/a>) outline an extensive study they did on numerous breeds, over several generations, over 20 years of work. This study was done in 1965, yet dog enthusiasts still frequently make reference to this text. The reason being is that nothing of its type has ever been replicated, because of the expense involved.<\/p>\n Rand & Hanlon (in their Report on the Validity and Usefulness of Early Age Desexing in Dogs and Cats<\/a>) refer to this challenge in the field of early age desexing. That is, to study the affects of early age desexing on adult animals is a long winded and expensive exercise.<\/p>\n However, the expense is well worth it. Consider that we are referring to Scott & Fuller\u2019s work over 40 years on! The company Fort Dodge, with their Duramune<\/a> vaccination must be rather satisfied with their investment. By actually conducting a controlled study that illustrated their vaccination\u2019s effectiveness three years after administration, they can now cash in on being the only C3 vaccination on the market that comes with that guarantee.<\/p>\n Because the study of dogs does not have a true academic field<\/span><\/p>\n There are no “studies in dogs”. There are no “doctors of canids”. There is a void in terms of dogs and academia. The only small field which covers dogs is veterinary studies which considers medical practices and dogs. What we do know about dogs, science wise, comes from zoology, psychology, and other fields, mashed together to make some interesting reading, but no definitive conclusions. There are many non-academics, dog trainers and behaviourists, who have a great understanding of the dog, and we can gain a lot from them. However, it\u2019s not science. Coppinger\u2019s book<\/a> makes this point particularly well, and concludes that much that we do know about dogs comes from studies of wolves and mammals, and not dogs themselves.<\/p>\n