dog ownership « g a l o d y

first off-lead walk in 3 weeks

February 21st, 2012 § Leave a Comment

carbs and mast cell tumours

February 18th, 2012 § Leave a Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve spent hours over the past fortnight researching nutrition and mast cell tumours.

Perhaps I did this because I feel particularly helpless – there was nothing we could do: The vet did everything. What could we, as owners, do?

Or perhaps it was because I felt guilty about not getting this particular lump checked, earlier.

Whatever the reason, I’ve learnt a lot about nutrition in general and specifically, in relation to mast cell tumours and cancer. To be honest, it all became a bit of a headache. No sooner had I found a way forward, but I discovered something else which meant it wasn’t really a way forwards and I was back at square one.

For example, one book stated that cheese was ok as a training treat for dogs with cancer, being high in saturated fat and low in carbs. But then another source stated that lactose could be converted to a form of carbohydrate and another source said that fermented cheese like cheddar was high in histamines, so should be avoided.

Or: One book stated that fish was excellent, as were tinned fish and omega 3s. But then the same source as mentioned above stated that fish, especially tinned fish, is high in histamines, and should be avoided.

Or: I’d conclude that raw eggs were great… only to find they contain some carbs.

OR: I’d conclude that feeding only fat and protein and zero carbs was the way forwards, then my friend Mike emails me (with his far superior understanding of digestion), to say that protein can be broken down to a form of carbs – so, is there a point to avoiding all carbs?

Until finally I’m left wondering (bizarrely) if it’s possible to feed a diet of entirely saturated fat – before realising that this has gone too far…

If I applied everything I read, Slate would probably end up eating lard and nothing else. Then she’d probably die of some vitamin deficiency!

So I read as much as I could and, when something was repeatedly stated in multiple sources, I went with that. If some single radical source said something, and no one else appeared to agree, I’d override it. If there was disagreement, I went with the majority.

Carbs are bad!

This was pretty much the first thing I discovered. There’s a useful paper here by Gregory Ogilvie, which explains why they are bad for dogs with cancer in particular (read the bottom of p2). For a summary of this paper, there’s a good and useful article here.

In short, cancer feeds off carbohydrates. Cancer cannot use fats at all and – after much figuring out on my part – I believe it can only use protein in a limited way.

Unanimously, all sources I read stated that a diet low in carbohydrates, high in fat and high in quality protein, was recommended for dogs with cancer.

I was a bit puzzled, though: Despite explaining the way in which carbs feed cancer, Ogilvie goes on to recommend only a diet low in carbs. Not carb-free. I couldn’t understand why this was: There is a whole cohort of raw feeders who feed no carbs at all, giving no vegetables or grains, since they believe that dogs don’t need carbs and are carnivores, not omnivores. Why doesn’t Ogilvie recommend a carb-free diet? Do dogs need some carbs?

This then set me off on an exploration of whether dogs needed carbs in their diet or not. (You can see the hours spent online, now, can’t you?) I especially found this article from a raw feeder useful.

I would really recommend a book called ‘Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs’ by Lew Olson This was recommended to me by another dog owner who feeds raw. It put forth a powerful argument, from someone with a PhD in Nutrition, for the absence of carbs in any dog’s diet – not just dogs with cancer. (By the way, by ‘carbs’ I mean not just grains, but potatoes, sweet potatoes and other vegetables.)

This book was great because it also had suggestions for cooked diets, for those who don’t feed raw – and it even had suggestions for things to add to kibble, to make more nutritious meals, for those who can’t move away from kibble. Plus diet suggestions for senior dogs, puppies, pregnant dogs and dogs with all kinds of diseases – including cancer. I would really highly recommend it. (I also bought Lonsdales ‘Work Wonders: Feed your dog raw meaty bones’ – which was terrible: Overly simplistic and just the kind of pro-raw rant which I hate. I threw it out!)

My conclusion was that dogs don’t need carbs. But carbs are cheap. Even relatively expensive kibbles are mostly carbohydrate: James Wellbeloved is 26% meat. Symply is 26% meat. Joe & Jacks is 26% meat. This is the ‘average’ amount of meat in most dry dog foods. Visualise a 15kg sack of dog food. Now visualise only 26% of that as meat. The rest is rice. People are paying something like £45 for what is essentially and largely a sack of rice. (By contrast, Orijen is 80% meat.)

Moreover, there is a growing trend amongst dog food manufacturers to create ‘grain-free’ foods for high prices: People who have got wise to the ‘sack of rice’ idea are quick to buy these foods. But usually the rice has been replaced with the exact same quantity of potato. Which is also cheap and a massive source of carbohydrates.

As for why Ogilvie recommends only a low-carb diet and not one which is carb-free… Well, there is a little clue on p15 of his paper, where he recommends Hills Prescription Diet w/d and again on p16, where he comments that ‘the only commercially available food which meets [the recommendations for a food for cancer suffering dogs] is Hills Prescription Diet n/d’.

By the way, the third largest ingredient on the Hills Prescription Diet n/d is…. guess what…? RICE.

Further snooping around reveals that Hills Prescription Diet n/d was developed off the back of Ogilvie’s research. Call me sceptical, but I have to ask the question: Who funded his research? Was it Hills??

Calculating the carb content

I have spent many an hour figuring out how to calculate the carbohydrate content of dog foods, since these are not listed.

This article from the website dogfoodadvisor.com is very useful in that respect. It turns out that manufacturers don’t list carbohydrate amounts on their nutritional analysis labels, but this can be worked out by deducting the other quantities.

However, before you can follow those instructions to work it out, you must first work out the dry matter basis of the food – even if it’s a dry food – since dry foods contain some moisture.

This is especially important if you’re comparing a dry food and a wet food. To work out the dry matter basis of the food, there’s another helpful article from dogfoodadvisor.com here.

This did produce some interesting results: NatureDiet customer service had told me that their foods contained a total of 6.5% carbs. Yet, when converted to dry matter this turned out to be about 25% carbs.

The way forwards

I’m not sure yet what we’re going to start feeding our dogs, since I don’t think raw is an option for us – for many reasons.

For Slate, I’m looking at perhaps a combination of Orijen for one meal, and the second meal being K9 Natural (freeze-dried raw) or Ziwipeak (air-dried raw), plus the addition of: Raw eggs, tinned fish, yoghurt, cottage cheese, fish oils and garlic. (Not all of that, every day, obviously.) There are some carbs in Orijen – around 18-25%. I don’t know if we could afford to feed her Ziwipeak for 2 meals a day, but we will more than halve her carb intake through having no carbs in her second meal. We will also use no carbs in training treats, nor simple sugars. (You’d be surprised at what’s added to ham or hotdog sausages: A lot of glucose and some wheat/grain too.)

Although we can give both dogs all the added extras (raw eggs, tinned fish etc), I don’t think we can afford to feed both dogs the K9 Natural or Ziwipeak. So Grey will probably get the slightly-cheaper-than-Orijen (but still with 60% meat) Acana for both meals, or maybe Orijen itself.

Finally, my friend Mike sent me a couple of interesting articles about the effects of fasting on cancer cells. The academic paper can be found here, but there is also a readable write-up here. In essence, cancer cells can’t adjust quickly enough to environmental changes (such as sudden fasting) and it causes them to go crazy and self-destruct.

When I read this, I recalled that there are a contingent of BARF feeders who fast their dogs one day a week, to mimic natural feeding. Since this would cost us nothing to do, and I can’t see how it would do any harm, I think we should probably incorporate this into the plan for Slate.

snow for Grey

February 7th, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Aubrey, the labradoodle puppy

January 15th, 2012 § Leave a Comment

Yesterday, we took a trip to visit some friends and to meet their new labradoodle puppy, Aubrey.

These friends had been on our waiting list, for the litter we had planned to have with Grey.

When we decided not to breed her, they faced the difficulties of finding another litter in the UK from stock which were free of health problems in their lines.

What appealed to them the most about the SRHP was their physical appearance, and their good temperament with people and other dogs. They wanted a ‘family pet’ and had no intention of competing in any dog sport with their dog.

We managed to dissuade them from the SRHP as a breed. I recommended they consider a labradoodle from a responsible breeder – with all health-tests carried out – and a first-generation crossbreed, to ensure maximum genetic diversity and a low COI.

They did a lot of research to find a good breeder and in October, they travelled to Northamptonshire to bring home Aubrey – a chocolate labradoodle, with a standard poodle father and a show-bred labrador mother.

Aubrey is now 20wks old and is a very happy, laid-back yet energetic puppy who takes things in his stride. The family are enjoying a dog which wants to stay in the general vicinity of them on walks naturally, and without any training: Labradors are bred to walk at heel and not to hunt, in front of the handler. Poodles were originally retrievers also. Neither breed have been bred to hunt and find game before the shot. (As SRHPs have been bred.)

And, on arriving home from our walk, Aubrey was quite happy to be tied up outside for a short period of time without protest, whilst we put the kettle on. Later in the evening, he was silent when shut out in another room at dinner time. I couldn’t imagine a SRHP silently and non-vocally accepting these things without considerable training. Such is Aubrey’s laid-back nature…

SRHPs may look like grey labradoodles – but, inside, they are a different kettle of fish, as a HPR breed.

the difference between Weimaraners and SRHPs

January 13th, 2012 § Leave a Comment

I’ve been considering writing a post along these lines for a while, since people considering a SRHP often ask me what Slovakian Rough Haired Pointers are like. Especially compared to their Weimaraner cousins.

I haven’t posted on the subject before now, because I only have one SRHP and it seems a bit unfair to extrapolate from her to the entire breed. Some of the things I feel about the breed are a bit negative, and I haven’t wanted to offend those who love them.

But I have taught 5 SRHPs in the dog training classes I run, as well as many more Weimaraners. I’ve seen many Weimaraners at working events, shows and training over the years. I’ve seen fewer SRHPs at these events, but still some. I have a couple of friends with SRHPs. So what I write is informed by all this and not only by my own two dogs.

I also should state the proviso that, since this is a new breed which has only recently been developed, it could be argued that there is no such thing as a settled and established SRHP personality/character. And that all which we can describe are the qualities emerging from the different lines. I think this is true, but to separate the breed further into the different lines, would be far too complicated.

The long and the short of it, is that they are absolutely nothing like Weimaraners in everything except for coat colour and eye colour. They are definitely not Weimaraners in a wire-haired coat. In fact, it is hard to believe they have considerable Weimaraner blood in them. Consequently, it always surprises me that the breeders who are behind this breed in the UK and elsewhere are almost exclusively Weimaraner breeders.

Relationships with other dogs

To begin with a positive point: I’ve only once seen any aggressive behaviour from a SRHP, and that dog had been attacked as a puppy and been traumatised by the experience.

Most of the other SRHPs I’ve met have had great temperaments with other dogs. Most have been very playful, even once they are older, and their boisterousness can mean they are a handful for their owner: Without good training, I can imagine them becoming very dog-focussed and making a bee-line to play with other dogs, ignoring their handler.

Many of the bitches I’ve met have had a submissive and gentle quality to them, tempered with a great desire to play. The male dogs I’ve met have been a bit more full-on and boisterously playful.

Coming from owning a Weimaraner, owning a SRHP was a walk in the park when it came to encounters with other dogs. Our Weimaraner takes offence at other dogs much more easily – whether they are sniffing her bum in some way which she doesn’t like, or whether they are being too assertive and confident when approaching her, or showing too much confidence when they sniff her nose… She is much less tolerant or forgiving of social faux pas.

She has never hurt or broken the skin of another dog, but other dogs do get ‘told off’, during encounters. She was extensively socialised as a puppy and this behaviour didn’t manifest itself until she reached maturity at around 18 months – 2 yrs.

Having seen many other Weims around at working events, it has to be said that Weims are (on average) much more difficult when it comes to interactions with other dogs. By comparison, owning a SRHP has been so ‘easy’ in this respect. This ease around other dogs is definitely something I could get used to!

Relationships with people

With people, again the SRHPs I’ve met have been exceptionally loving. Many adore physical affection in an almost cat-like way, and they will accept this from anyone who will offer it. (If a random passer-by says anything to Grey, in the street, she will want to get to them, and then lean against them for fuss.)

Most Weimaraners, on the other hand, aren’t fans of big physical affection from a stranger. They may want to sniff a stranger and meet him or her in a more low-key way, but they are more ‘aloof’ in this respect. With their owners and family, on the other hand, Weims are extremely affectionate and demonstrate a lot of love for their people.

A SRHP’s affection is indiscriminate and directed at every member of the human species – whilst a Weim is more selective and reserves most affection for close family. To me, there is more of a deep understanding between person and dog – an attachment – behind the Weimaraner’s affection. With the SRHP, there is more the quality of enjoying the physical fuss and patting. There is less something deep and meaningful and selective about it.

Put another way: If I had to rehome our SRHP, I wouldn’t worry for a second about her settling in immediately – assuming her new owners were kind and met all her canine needs. Whereas, with our Weim, I would worry that she would pine and go off her food and would want us, in particular. When kennelled, our SRHP is happy to eat. Our Weim, unless she is given wet tasty food, will refuse to eat. (When usually she is a pig.)

Physical co-ordination

This might seem like a strange thing to mention, but it’s something I’ve noticed with our SRHP throughout her life.

She is not very physically co-ordinated. This means that she gives the impression of not being aware of what her legs are doing, or perhaps even of where they are, or even that they belong to her.

This manifests itself in various ways: She often falls asleep on her back, and as a puppy, she did this right next to a radiator. She managed to get one leg stuck behind the radiator, so that, on waking and turning in the opposite direction, she really hurt herself. By itself, this story is meaningless. But taken as an example of her attitude towards her appendages in general, it speaks volumes. She often sleeps with her legs bent at impossible-looking angles and her neck almost bent back on itself. She looks like a dead dog, mangled after a car accident!

If she cuts her paw and I bathe it and bandage it, when she is then released, it takes her a good many long seconds to find (by nose/smell) where the part of her is, which I’ve been administering to. She cannot locate it by finding the part of her which she has felt (in her mind) being touched. (If I took your arm behind you, and jabbed a pin in a finger, you’d instantly be able to know which finger to look at, when I freed your arm. You wouldn’t need to examine each of your fingers for a pin-prick.) It’s as if there is no in-dwelt body awareness. I’ve often wondered if Tellington Touch might be able to help to develop this, although I haven’t looked into it further. (Note to self to do so.)

Other SRHPs I’ve met have been similarly uncoordinated, although I’d think this may not occur to owners as a problem or as something needing to be resolved, but rather as quite an appealing factor. On the one hand, this characteristic is very endearing: SRHPs have a reputation for being very clownish and playing the fool. I’d suggest that part of the reason for such clownishness, is this lack of body-awareness and co-ordination, manifesting as a sort of endearing clumsiness.

On the other hand, endearing or not, it makes training certain things quite difficult: Precision behaviours, for example. Just how to train a slightly more upright sit, or a right leg leading rather than a left leg, on agility, if you have a dog whose mind is out of touch with what her body is actually doing in the first place, in order for that to be shaped otherwise? Doing competitive Obedience with a SRHP would be something of a challenge.

At the moment, this lack of co-ordination is affecting our agility training for working trials: Grey finds it hard to learn when to gather herself together and jump. (Or even – where is her self, in order to gather it together?) When encountering less formal obstacles out on walks (walls, fences), she goes about them with a gung-ho attitude and no attention to precision, just charging at them and throwing herself over them. She manages to make up for having no body awareness by just over-confidently throwing herself everywhere. (This is quite terrifying to watch sometimes, as I often expect a broken leg to be the result.)

Weims, on the other hand, often excel at agility. Our Weim, Slate, jumps really well and has a great awareness of her body and where it is. Approaching a jump, I can see her eyeing it up and calculating where to take off from, in order to clear it. If I bandage or administer to one of Slate’s paws, she instantly knows which one it is!

Focus and concentration

Just as Grey’s body often seems to be all-over-the-place, so is her mind in many ways. She is very capable – when able to focus! However, she appears to have the canine equivalent of ADHD. (Adam and I joke that she has a peanut for a brain.)

With a lot of work (a disproportionate amount of work, to the outcome!), this has become much better. But still, reward-ratios need to be high in order to keep her focus over extended periods of time.

This is one of the reasons I worry we will never be able to compete with her in working trials: How will she sustain interest in her handler for long enough to manage heelwork requirements without any reinforcement? On 10 minute out-of-sight Down Stays and when Tracking, she sometimes just forgets what she’s doing. It’s as if she suddenly comes to, and thinks ‘What am I doing here? I don’t remember!’

Slate, on the other hand, came to a new training class with me this week and followed me through an entire obedience heelwork routine without a single treat, scarcely taking her eyes off me.

Perseverance and dealing with failure

This is related to focus and concentration…

Even using entirely reward-based methods, Grey finds it difficult to bounce back from failure. When shaping with the clicker, Slate will keep trying new things if the first one doesn’t work. She wants the treat so much, that she will just keep going and keep working.

Grey, on the other hand, will find failure itself to be so punishing, she will go and hide under the table if she tries something and I don’t click. I have to be very careful to reduce criteria quickly, if Grey fails at something, so that she can then get reinforcement again quickly. (In turn, this makes learning slower and giant leaps of insight less likely.)

As is evident from my attempts to teach Grey to handle at a distance – and ultimate failure - her default response to not understanding is to give up, rather than to try something.

Retrieving

The SRHPs I’ve seen do have an inherent and natural desire to retrieve. However, it’s not quite as manic and obsessive as most Weimaraners. (Who I’d equate with labradors, in their keenness to retrieve.) The SRHP doesn’t find retrieving quite as inherently rewarding, and the retrieve may require more work.

Conversely, I’ve not heard of any SRHPs with hard-mouth – and I’ve heard of many Weims with it.

I’d also add that I’ve found teaching direction work to Grey incredibly frustrating and – despite great perseverance, ultimately impossible. This is whilst having a Weim which I’ve taught to move around almost like a piece on a chess board, giving labradors a run for their money at retriever training days. (Comparing Slate and Grey’s working test results speaks volumes.)

From talking with others who’ve attempted to teach their SRHP to handle, they’ve experienced similar problems. Perhaps this is all tied in with a lack of body awareness: Perhaps it extends to a lack of geographical awareness – an inability to translate the casts from the handler into directions, to run in. After all, if you don’t know where you own feet are, how can you understand someone’s direction and translate it to your own physical body, as it is located in geographical space?

I now think that all my attempts at direction training have only caused Grey to lose confidence and to know that it’s very possible to ‘fail’ to get the retrieve or reward, when we do distance work. This has been a blow to her confidence, such that she bugs (looks in different directions when lined up), and is sticky on casts (remaining in a sit, when cast). (Quite how all this is going to translate into working trials sendaways remains to be seen.)

Were I to be starting gundog work from scratch with a SRHP, I would scrap all hope of having a handling dog and I’d rely on their excellent nose to run out and find the retrieve, even if that involved hunting up an entire field. I would prioritise developing confidence that sustained hunting will lead to a find. (Much in the way of the NAVHDA Duck Search.) I wish I had known this, before I started out with Grey. Instead, I tried to do with her what I’d done with Slate and to put her through a reinforcement based retriever training programme.

I’ve seen that it’s perfectly possible to be very successful in UK FTs with a non-handling dog. Not quite as possible to be successful in working tests, but that’s less important.

Hunting ability, range and nose

With the best examples of the breed: Excellent. I think, given sufficient game exposure when young, the SRHP will range acceptably well. There are a couple of excellent hunting SRHPs around. For an all-purpose, rough and ready gundog, the SRHP is great: They will get into bushes and dense cover, go through nettles and thorns – all things which my Weim (and most other Weims) will baulk at.

They are also excellent swimmers and tend to absolutely love water, labrador-style. Again – something which Weims are not renowned for – most Weims are reluctant swimmers.

Due to their thicker/warmer coat, they are happier in cooler weather and they can be uncomfortable in the summer. They are very happy to remain in Down or Sit Stays in wet conditions – unlike many Weimaraners, who often stand up from stays in wet weather.

And, as mentioned above, they will hurl themselves over most obstacles (uncoordinatedly!).

Grey often winds things from a greater distance than Slate and works a scent better. I’d say she has a better nose.

Noise & vocalisation

Beware of this, in SRHPs! Excitement almost invariably translates into barking, whining, yowling and vocalising whilst yawning.

Despite our relentlessly and persistently ignoring the noise and not giving her whatever it is she wants, it continues to be an issue. Even whilst writing this, Grey is whining upstairs at me, anticipating her breakfast and training. I will wait this out, but it could be a very long time and she appears unaware of the noise she is making.

I know from others with SRHPs that they also struggle with noise issues constantly, so this is not particular to Grey.

In comparison, Slate is relatively silent. She will bark if she hears a strange noise and has more guarding tendencies than Grey does. And occasionally, if we are going to a particularly exciting event, she will make noise in the car as we arrive. But on average she is a much quieter dog, which rarely whines.

In short…

SRHPs are nothing like Weimaraners. If you find yourself considering both, you may be putting too much emphasis on the appearance of your dog and not enough on other non-appearance based characteristics. You might also need to meet more of each breed, in the flesh, so these differences become more evident to you.

If you’re looking for a rough shooting companion with a gung-ho attitude and, besides steadiness to flush, you’re not bothered about a great degree of precision, then a SRHP would be a great dog.

If you want to compete in any other dog sport, I wouldn’t recommend one.

As a family pet, if you know what you’re getting into, and are prepared to put in a lot of time on the training front, they could be a good choice.

However, in choosing a puppy you’d need to steer your way through the many health issues the breed faces at the moment and you may find that there are other breeds in a better position, health-wise in the UK, which you might want to consider instead.

Dogs in Need of Space

December 3rd, 2011 § 2 Comments

Excellent blog post here, called Dogs in Need of Space.

the dog-human bond

November 2nd, 2011 § Leave a Comment

Being a good-enough puppy parent

I’ve long felt that manipulating rewards and punishments doesn’t explain everything which is going on between people and their dogs. But I could never quite put into words why I thought this. It just seemed that some things operated in another dimension.

Gradually, a combination of learning more about what we know of the human-dog relationship from reading about research; an awareness of the animal-assisted therapy literature (which features the dog-human relationship greatly); and a knowledge of attachment theory, has come together and I’ve started to hash out some thoughts about this ‘missing dimension’ of feelings and connections between us and our furry pals. Here are some of my first, rough, thoughts…

To start with, dogs and humans have been interacting with each other for up to 100,000 years.

A jaw fragment from a domestic dog, 14,000 years old

The result of this, is that canine and human minds are curiously attuned. Here are a few recent studies which illustrate this phenomenon:

1) Dogs’ understanding of human pointing gestures (Lakatos et al 2009): A researcher kneels down, with an upturned cup on her left and another on her right. She points to one of these cups. Opposite her is someone holding a dog. The dog is released when the researcher points. The dog, without having received any training, goes to the cup the researcher has pointed at.

Research has found that even little puppies can ‘read’ human pointing gestures in this way (rather than looking at the finger itself, as many other species do). The fact that puppies can do this, indicates that they are born with this ability – the behaviour is innate.

Dogs perform as well as a 2-year old child on this test, and they outperform chimps (who often flunk pointing gesture tests). They cannot perform as well as 3-year old children.

It seems logical that this ability has evolved in dogs as a result of our two species working so closely together for up to 100,000 years: Herding sheep, hunting and guarding together, it was advantageous to both of our species, for dogs to be able to understand human gestures.

2) Dogs’ ability to perform social referencing (Merola et al 2011): When a strange object suddenly emerges from a cardboard box, dogs are likely to show fear if the experimenter shows a fearful face, and likely to be accepting of the object if the experimenter shows a happy face.

That is: They ‘reference’ the response of their human companion, in order to help them determine whether something novel is a threat or not. Dogs are, here, ‘reading’ the social responses of another species, extracting meaning from these social responses.

Such social referencing experiments are much usually directed at human toddlers – this is a standard child-development test.

See from 3.45-8.10 mins, on this video (may not be viewable in some countries, unfortunately):

3) Humans’ ability to understand dogs’ barks (Molnár et al 2010): When played recorded barks, humans can reliably identify the contexts in which those barks would have been made – the emotional ‘meaning’ behind them. Humans are able to identify five barks with different emotional ‘meaning’. It seems that it is not only dogs which can understand the emotions of humans, but the reverse is true as well.

See from 14.50-21.19 in the same video, above.

4) The capacity of dogs and humans to regulate each other’s emotions (Odendaal & Meintjes 2003): In this study, owners and their dogs were left alone together, and owners were told to pat, stroke, cuddle and talk to their dogs – as they usually would during a ‘petting session’. After 20 minutes, the stress hormone (cortisol) levels in both dogs and humans were greatly reduced and the feel-good hormone levels (of oxytocin, dopamine and endorphins) were increased.

As similar results were seen in both humans and dogs, this is a mutually beneficial exchange, wherein each helps the other to reduce stress and anxiety. These results suggest that dogs and humans can ‘regulate’ each other’s emotions when they feel bonded or emotionally attached to each other.

We have long been aware of such emotional regulation taking place within the human species: When a human baby cries, the baby’s caregiver comforts him or her, so that the stress and fear (resulting in elevated cortisol levels) which the baby had been experiencing, are reduced. But examples of cross-species emotional regulation are extremely rare.

The oxytocin levels in the dogs were actually five times greater after the petting session with people than before. Oxytocin, as a hormone, is associated with attachment to others; with what we humans experience as love. Oxytocin levels rise greatly during experiences of bonding and affiliation, and the quintupling of oxytocin in this experiment suggests that humans and dogs can experience each other as attachment figures.

There are a great many studies from the field of animal-assisted therapy, which echo the findings here – supporting the idea that humans and dogs can form mutually beneficial relationships, experiencing each other as attachment objects.

5) Dogs prefer a human attachment figure over another dog (Tuber et al 1996): In this study, eight 7-9 year old mutts lived as littermate pairs in kennels all their lives. They had been fully socialised to people and were looked after by one human carer. The pairs had not been apart even for a minute in the previous two years and hardly ever during their life time.

Despite this, when one of each pair was taken away for four hours, the remaining dogs’ behaviour did not alter. The stress hormones (cortisol) in their blood did not change. That is, they were not stressed by the absence of their sibling.

When they were taken to an unfamiliar kennel, they were upset and their cortisol levels went up over 50%. Yet this proved true, whether they were with their littermate or not: The attachment between the siblings provided no support and no emotional regulation to reduce their stress.

However – crucially – if the human carer sat with the dog in the new kennel, the dog would stay near the carer and seek comfort. Remarkably, the proximity of the human carer alleviated the dog’s stress completely: If the carer were there, their cortisol levels remained almost normal. That is: The presence of a human caregiver was better able to reduce stress in these dogs than another dog could – even if that dog were a sibling, and even if the siblings had lived together all their lives and saw their human carer much less frequently.

This research suggests that, outside of puppyhood, dogs are unlikely to experience another dog as an attachment figure. Yet they continue to experience humans as attachment figures. Dogs remain ever-ready to attach to humans, throughout their lives: Research shows that just a few minutes of friendly attention from one person on two consecutive days, is enough to make adult dogs in rescue kennels desperate to remain with that person; they howl, jump at the door and scratch when that person leaves on the second day.

6) Human and dog tuggy games are not competitive, but are played by the dog for the sheer pleasure of social exchange with a human (Rooney et al 2000): When dogs play tug with other dogs, they generally want to compete with each other for possession of the toy. If one dog lets go of the toy, the other dog is likely to guard that toy from him or her. If a second tug toy is provided to the two dogs, they will often take a tuggy each and play by themselves.

When playing tug with a human, dogs are much more likely to relinquish the toy, apparently to keep the game going. They do not want possession of the toy, but the pleasure of social exchange with the human. And they completely ignore the presence of a second tug toy; they continue to bring the one toy to the human and to encourage the human to play tug.

Attachment

Much of this research illustrates the way in which canine and human minds are curiously attuned. When we start talking about minds which are attuned, and when we start touching on the regulation of each other’s feelings, we are moving into the realm of attachment theory.

John Bowlby

Attachment theory was the work of John Bowlby, a psychoanalyst. Although attachment theory is used these days to talk about human relationships, curiously it all began with a cross-species relationship, since Bowlby was hugely influenced by the experiments of Konrad Lorenz with geese (1935).

Lorenz found that, if baby goslings first saw Lorenz on hatching, instead of the mother goose, the goslings would adopt Lorenz as the parent figure and follow him everywhere instead: They became ‘attached’ to Lorenz:

Although (luckily) human children don’t adopt the first moving object they see as ‘mum’, Bowlby believed that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form similarly strong emotional attachments with others – again, as a survival mechanism. We might think of it as a baby’s need to be near a caregiver or parent, in order to feel safe. Being separated from this caregiver is frightening for a baby: If the baby ends up alone, he might die of hunger or exposure – or, in the wild, end up becoming someone else’s lunch. Defenceless and helpless, he can’t exist in the world if he’s not looked after by a caring adult.

It is the role of the caring adult, or caregiver, to soothe the baby when she becomes distressed – to make the feelings of fear and anxiety go away, thereby reducing levels of the harmful stress hormone, cortisol, in the blood. The baby and the caregiver both experience increases in oxytocin at these moments of affection and bonding – in fact, attachment might really be understood as the giving and receiving of love.

As the baby grows up, he begins to be increasingly interested in the world, and becomes an increasingly independent toddler. But he doesn’t stop needing his caregiver’s presence: Toddlers begin to explore further away from their caregivers, but they still need to return at moments of stress or fear, to ‘touch base’ and reassure themselves that they are safe and that their caregiver is still reach-able.

Here is a an example of a securely attached child, from a classic experiment by Mary Main into attachment styles. Note that a securely attached child will be distressed, and likely cry, on separation:

I believe the basic tenets of attachment theory remain very similar, for dogs.

Attached by more than the lead between you

John Bradshaw’s excellent book In Defence of Dogs suggests that dogs’ minds categorise humans differently to the manner in which they categorise other dogs. This is borne out by the finding that dogs do not play tug with humans, in the same manner they play it with other dogs; they prefer to play in a socially cop-operative way with us. It is also borne out by the finding that adult dogs appear to be biologically pre-programmed to prefer a human attachment figure even to a member of their own species.

Indeed, it might be that dogs are born not only with a biological predisposition to attach to their canine mother as puppies, but also with a biological predisposition to attach to a member of the human species, throughout their adult life.

Humans and dogs have hunted, herded and guarded together for up to 100,000 years. The propensity of dogs to remain attached to their human caregivers throughout adulthood enabled new heights of co-operation and understanding to be reached between our species. This was, undoubtedly, of benefit to both in our shared activities.

And they called it, puppy love…

The results of recent research into human/canine attachment don’t appear to have filtered down to dog training itself yet. Most puppy training books talk about praising and rewarding your puppy when she does the right thing, and ignoring or preventing unwanted behaviour. In other words, about the giving (and removing) of rewards.

This way of thinking about things is called ‘learning theory’ or ‘operant conditioning’. Learning theory is very useful and an excellent way to teach your puppy all sorts of behaviours, from sit and down to recall and complicated tricks.

However, to wholly and entirely see your puppy (or any animal) in terms of learning theory is to treat her a bit like a computer or an input-output, operant-conditioning machine.

Skinner box

I believe there are aspects of the dog-human exchange which can’t be reduced to learning theory. These elements are emotional and relational and they operate in the dimension of attachment behaviour. Usually, we don’t need to think about these things, because they are happening in the background and they tick along just fine without us knowing about them.

But sometimes the advice which is given from the perspective of learning theory conflicts very strongly with the suggestions we might make from an attachment perspective. To show you what I mean, here’s an example. Here is some advice from Jean Donaldson (1996), a fabulous writer on the subject of learning theory, on getting your puppy used to being left alone:

First, if it’s a new dog or puppy in your house, set the precedent right away… right off the bat, leave baby dog or newly adopted dog alone for brief durations, over and over… It is absolutely normal that puppies and dogs will distress vocalise when you leave them alone… wait for a lull before going to them, at whatever cost. Resist thoughts like ‘what if he needs to go out’ or some other vital communication from dog to human, and worry about the potent behaviour modifying influence of your arrival chez dog. (49-50)

The thinking, here, in terms of learning theory, is that returning to the puppy will reward what the puppy is doing (making noise). So the owner should not return until the puppy is silent. This makes perfect sense, in terms of learning theory.

Yet, from an attachment perspective: This is an immature, helpless and bewildered baby animal, in an unfamiliar environment. He has just been taken away from his mother, his main attachment figure to this point, and his siblings.

On his own for probably the first time in his life, he feels abandoned and, so, in fear of dying. (Any immature animal, truly abandoned, most certainly would die.) With his noise, the puppy is attempting to get a caregiver to respond and help him with the unbearable fear he is experiencing.

This is terrible, but in his protests there is hope: There is hope that someone is listening, that someone might yet respond. When might he fall silent? When he has given up all such hope. Psychologically, this is a far worse place. In humans, we see the effects of truly non-responsive caregivers in the orphanages of developing countries, where children silently rock themselves – knowing that there is no point making noise, because no one will come. It has been proven that the resulting unregulated high cortisol levels wreak havoc on the developing brain, over time, leading to all kinds of psychological difficulties. Yet this is exactly what learning theory would lead us to, with puppies.

Currently, separation anxiety is the single biggest problem behaviour in adult dogs, with 15% of all dogs suffering from some form of separation distress. Separation anxiety is a major reason why dogs are given up to rescue and rehoming centres, because of the destruction and noise they create. What is ‘separation anxiety’? It is an acute panic, on the part of the dog, who believes he has been abandoned – left behind forever, to die. When he sees you leave, he does not believe you are coming back.

A dog with separation anxiety does not feel ‘securely attached’. He does not trust you, his caregiver, to be reach-able when he needs you – instead he believes that you will be inaccessible, far away from him. It can easily be seen how the conventional advice from a learning theory perspective – ‘do not return to a noise-making puppy’ – can cause a puppy to associate being left with escalating panic and fear.

Is it any wonder that separation anxiety is such a great problem for today’s dogs, when the predominant approach to puppyhood pays little heed to a puppy’s emotional needs?

Conceiving of the dog-human relationship by way of attachment often results in startlingly different solutions than does a blanket application of learning theory. We need to pay much more attention to attachment around issues of separation (temporary or permanent) of the dog from the caregiver, throughout its life. This includes: Leaving the breeder/mother; the first night; night-times in general; alone-training; kennelling; hospitalisation (of dog, at vet’s); rehoming.

Animals do grieve and are aware of the absence of attachment figures, and an awareness of this could have great implications for all kinds of policies: From vets permitting human visitors to pets who have been hospitalised, through to puppies being kept next to the new owner’s bed during the first night. And fewer dogs growing up to have separation anxiety, because their owners were educated into an awareness of their needs, instead of a hardcore behaviourist approach.

We also need to pay attention to attachment during the socialisation period, when the puppy is using the owner as a ‘secure base’ – retreating to gain confidence and to ‘refuel’, and then going forth into new territory, to encounter new things.

We can but hope…

References

Donaldson, J. (1996) The Culture Clash. James & Kenneth, London.

Lakatos, G., Soproni, K., Dóka, A. & Miklósi, Á. (2009) A comparative approach to dogs’ and human infants’ understanding of various forms of pointing gestures. Animal Cognition, 12(4), 621-31.

Lorenz, K. (1935). Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels. Der Artgenosse als auslösendes Moment sozialer Verhaltensweisen. Journal für Ornithologie 83, 137–215, 289–413.

Merola, I., Prato-Previde, E., Marshall-Pescini, S. (2011) Social referencing in dog-owner dyads? Animal Cognition. [Aug 28 2011 epub ahead of print]

Molnár, C., Pongrácz, P., & Miklósi, Á. (2010) Seeing with ears: Sightless humans’ perception of dog bark provides a test for structural rules in vocal communication. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 1004-1013.

Odendaal, J., Meintjes, R. (2003) Neurophysiological correlates of affiliative behaviour between humans and dogs. Veterinary Journal, 165, 296-301.

Rooney, N., Bradshaw, J. & Robinson, I. (2000) A comparison of dog-dog and dog-human play behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 88, 235-48.

Tuber, D, et al. (1996) Behavioural and glucocorticoid responses of adult domestic dogs to companionship and social separation. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 110, 103-8.