Studies About Dogs

[Aidan3]

http://doggonesafe.blogspot.com/2011/02/st...o-not-know.html

"Some Key Risk Factors Identified in this Study

Children considering themselves to be the highest authority over the dog

Children walking the dog without adult supervision

Ignorance of dog body language signals - considered by the authors to be the main bite risk factor"

[Aidan3]

Title: Impact of nutrition on canine behaviour: current status and possible mechanisms

Nutrition Research Reviews (2007), 20, 180–194

Authors: G. Bosch, B. Beerda, W. H. Hendriks, A. F. B. van der Poel and M. W. A. Verstegen

A paper I stumbled across about how nutrition may improve dog behaviour and therefore welfare. It's a bit heavy, but might be interesting for some folks.

http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php...e7fa9d615b280fd

Did you access this on campus by any chance? I can't seem to access it from my home computer. Did they mention anything about tryptophan deficiencies in dogs fed corn as the primary protein source?

[corvus]

Title: Impact of nutrition on canine behaviour: current status and possible mechanisms

Nutrition Research Reviews (2007), 20, 180–194

Authors: G. Bosch, B. Beerda, W. H. Hendriks, A. F. B. van der Poel and M. W. A. Verstegen

A paper I stumbled across about how nutrition may improve dog behaviour and therefore welfare. It's a bit heavy, but might be interesting for some folks.

http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php...e7fa9d615b280fd

Did you access this on campus by any chance? I can't seem to access it from my home computer. Did they mention anything about tryptophan deficiencies in dogs fed corn as the primary protein source?

No. I just checked the link and it didn't work, so I did a search for it and found it again. Weird. Here's the link I just looked at it from: http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php...f42f347c677729f

I don't think it says anything about corn in particular.

You know, I couldn't get that link to work, either. Might have to search for the title on Google.

Edited February 24, 2011 by corvus

[Aidan3]

You know, I couldn't get that link to work, either. Might have to search for the title on Google.

I don't know why I didn't think of that

http://www.allnaturalpetcare.com/Animal_Nu...ne_Behavior.pdf

[Aidan3]

Behavioral assessment of child‐directed canine aggression

[Jigsaw]

Animal Play and Animal Welfare

Unfortunately abstract only. Haven't had time to search if full article is available online without paying.

[Greytmate]

Towards an Animal-Friendly Family Law: Recognising the Welfare of Family Law's Forgotten Family Members

Tony Bogdanoski

University of Sydney - Faculty of Law

Griffith Law Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 197-237, 2010

Abstract:

Companion animals have assumed a pivotal role as legitimate members of the family in contemporary Western liberal societies, including Australia. However, the legal position of Australian family pets following family breakdown has largely gone unexamined. Even though their welfare is promoted by animal protection laws, Australian family courts do not currently need to explicitly consider the welfare of companion animals when deciding their post-separation placement or ownership. Drawing upon the emergent field of animal law, as well as developments in North American family law, this article argues that Australian family law should not simply regard companion animals as equivalent to any other piece of personal property requiring distribution between the parties upon separation or divorce. In particular, this article proposes that specific provisions should be inserted into the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), distinct from existing provisions relating to the property and human children of the parties, stipulating that family courts explicitly consider the welfare of family pets in allocating them to the parties. Ultimately, the effect of treating family pets differently from personal property would be to acknowledge that companion animals are not merely chattels but, as living beings that are dependent on their human owners for their future welfare, are instead very similar to human children and therefore also require special legal protection and attention in family law proceedings.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 41

Keywords: companion animals, family law, divorce, property, animal law

Accepted Paper Series

[Jigsaw]

Interesting study on how human interaction with strangers can affect how dogs interact with them.

Reputation-like inference in domestic dogs ( Canis familiaris).

Authors:

Kundey, Shannon M. A.1 [email protected]

de los Reyes, Andres2

Royer, Erica1

Molina, Sabrina1

Monnier, Brittany1

German, Rebecca1

Coshun, Ariel1

Source: Animal Cognition; Mar2011, Vol. 14 Issue 2, p291-302, 12p, 1 Chart, 1 Graph

Document Type: Article

Subject Terms:

*HUMAN evolution

*COGNITIVE development

*DOGS

*BEHAVIOR

*PRIMATES

*ANALYTICAL skills

Author-Supplied Keywords:

Canine

Cognition

Dog

Vicarious reinforcement

Abstract:

Humans frequently interact with strangers absent prior direct experience with their behavior. Some conjecture that this may have favored evolution of a cognitive system within the hominoid clade or perhaps the primate order to assign reputations based on third-party exchanges. However, non-primate species' acquisition of skills from experienced individuals, attention to communicative cues, and propensity to infer social rules suggests reputation inference may be more widespread. We utilized dogs' sensitivity to humans' social and communicative cues to explore whether dogs evidenced reputation-like inference for strangers through third-party interactions. Results indicated dogs spontaneously show reputation-like inference for strangers from indirect exchanges. Further manipulations revealed that dogs continued to evidence this ability despite reduction of specific components of the observed interactions, including reduction of visual social cues (i.e., face-to-face contact between the participants in the interaction) and the nature of the recipient (i.e., living, animate agent versus living, inanimate self-propelled agent). Dogs also continued to demonstrate reputation-like inference when local enhancement was controlled and in a begging paradigm. However, dogs did not evidence reputation-like inference when the observed interaction was inadvertent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Animal Cognition is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Author Affiliations:

1Department of Psychology, Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Room ROS 27, Frederick, MD 21701, USA

2Department of Psychology, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA

ISSN:

14359448

DOI:

10.1007/s10071-010-0362-5

[Jigsaw]

Study comes up with some interesting findings:

Link has video footage.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011...ily-fooled.html

Female Dogs Aren't Easily Fooled

The battle of the sexes has just heated up—in dogs. A new study finds that when a ball appears to magically change size in front of their eyes, female dogs notice but males don't. The researchers aren't sure what's behind the disparity, but experts say the finding supports the idea that—in some situations—male dogs trust their noses, whereas females trust their eyes.

The study, published online today in Biology Letters, didn't set out to find sex differences. Cognitive biologist Corsin Müller and his colleagues at the University of Vienna and its Clever Dog Lab wanted to find out how good dogs are at size constancy—the ability to recognize that an object shouldn't change size if it disappears for a moment. But they recruited 25 female and 25 male dogs for the study, just to be safe.

When a dog came to the lab for the test, first it got to play with two balls: one the size of a tennis ball and one that looked identical but was about the size of a cantaloupe. Then the dog and owner left the room while a researcher set up the experiment. When the dog came back, it sat in front of its owner, who was blindfolded so that his or her reactions wouldn't influence the pet. One of the balls sat to the left of a screen in front of the dog, and an experimenter, hiding behind another screen, slowly pulled the ball with transparent string. As the dog watched, the ball went behind the screen. Then the ball reappeared on the other side. But in some cases, it was replaced by the other ball, so the ball seemed to have magically shrunk or grown (see video).

Overall, dogs looked at the ball longer when it seemed to change size. But when Müller analyzed sex differences, "I was quite surprised," he says. Male dogs looked at the ball for about the same amount of time, whether or not it appeared to magically change size. But female dogs looked much longer at balls that changed size than at balls that remained the same—about twice as long, or 36 seconds on average. Müller warns that when animal cognition researchers put together their study groups, they may be missing this kind of effect if they aren't including equal numbers of male and female animals.

Müller and his colleagues think it's unlikely there'd be an evolutionary reason for female and male dogs to have different visual skills. But psychologist and dog expert Stanley Coren, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Canada, disagrees. "Whenever you find sex differences, you can usually find an evolutionary reason as to why these things occur," he says. He speculates that females might need to rely on sight more when keeping track of a litter of puppies, which pretty much all smell the same. Or maybe there's some kind of trade-off for males. Males are more scent-oriented—people prefer them over females for tasks that require trailing and tracking—so they may pay less attention to visual differences, he says.

To test whether females are more reliant on vision because they need to track their puppies, researchers could try the experiment on female dogs that are pregnant or have new litters of puppies, to see if they're even more attentive, says psychologist Emma Collier-Baker of the University of Queensland in Australia.

Müller and his colleagues aren't pursuing the difference between the sexes. Instead, they're trying to learn whether dogs get better at understanding space if they're given educational toys when they're 2 months old. The results could show whether dogs' shortcomings in spatial understanding are ingrained or have to do with the environments they grow up in.

Müller can't try this out on his own pooch, because he doesn't have one. He figures it wouldn't be fair for his dog to wait alone at home all day while he goes to work and plays with other people's puppies.

[Jed]

I understood that this forum was solely for listing links to various interestng dog related research, not for discussion/argument.

However

Corvus

Well, the "evidence" is anecdotal. That's why it's not being taken seriously. Because there is no scientific evidence to support it yet. Scientists did loads of research into it for humans years ago and concluded that the benefits far outweighed the risks.

Here is a link to articles written by Catherine O'Driscoll DVM, based on research conducted at Purdue. Purdue is a large university, where a lot of research is conducted, by people who regularly publish, such as Dr Glickman DVM et al. I suggest you read Dr O'Driscoll's article and the supporting research.

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/purdu...nation-studies/

I can assure you that the evidence is not anecdotal, and it is being taken seriously by everyone, including vets world wide, who base their statements on research and who are open minded.

If you believe it is anecdotal, you either need new sources of information, or you need to do some research.

It is also widely acknowledged that vaccines can cause a fast-acting, usually fatal, disease called autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (AIHA). Without treatment, and frequently with treatment, individuals can die in agony within a matter of days. Merck, itself a multinational vaccine manufacturer, states in The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy that autoimmune haemolytic anaemia may be caused by modified live-virus vaccines, as do Tizard’s Veterinary Immunology (4th edition) and the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.(6) The British Government’s Working Group, despite being staffed by vaccine-industry consultants who say they are independent, also acknowledged this fact. However, no one warns the pet owners before their animals are subjected to an unnecessary booster, and very few owners are told why after their pets die of AIHA.

Numerous dogs die of this in Australia annually, yet their vets assure them that the dog died because of hereditary problems leading to a poor immune system, or "just bad luck". This information has been available for years, yet the nay sayers continue to rebuff it.

And that is detrimental to all dogs.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Jed

[corvus]

Here is a link to articles written by Catherine O'Driscoll DVM, based on research conducted at Purdue. Purdue is a large university, where a lot of research is conducted, by people who regularly publish, such as Dr Glickman DVM et al. I suggest you read Dr O'Driscoll's article and the supporting research.

I tried to read the supporting research, but the links are broken. Do you have working links to them?

[Aidan3]

Here is a link to articles written by Catherine O'Driscoll DVM, based on research conducted at Purdue. Purdue is a large university, where a lot of research is conducted, by people who regularly publish, such as Dr Glickman DVM et al. I suggest you read Dr O'Driscoll's article and the supporting research.

I tried to read the supporting research, but the links are broken. Do you have working links to them?

http://replay.web.archive.org/20061130200545/http://www.vet.purdue.edu/epi/great_dane_vaccinosis_fullreport_jan04.pdf

"the long-term potential adverse consequence of repeated vaccination is likely to remain unknown"

Edited May 9, 2011 by Aidan2

[Aidan3]

Aggressive conflicts amongst dogs and factors affecting them Edited May 15, 2011 by Aidan2

[Aidan3]

.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Aidan2

[Jigsaw]

Aggressive conflicts amongst dogs and factors affecting them

Link's not working for me.

[Aidan3]

Aggressive conflicts amongst dogs and factors affecting them

Link's not working for me.

Fixed now.

[Jigsaw]

thanks!!

[Aidan3]

http://www.azs.no/artikler/art_training_methods.pdf

"We distributed a questionnaire to 364 dog owners in order to examine the relative effectiveness of different training methods and their effects upon a pet dog's behavior"

[Aidan3]

http://vet.osu.edu/assets/pdf/hospital/behavior/trainingArticle.pdf

"A 30-item survey of previous interventions was included in a behavioral questionnaire

distributed to all dog owners making appointments at a referral behavior service over a 1-

year period. For each intervention applied, owners were asked to indicate whether there

was a positive, negative, or lack of effect on the dog’s behavior, and whether aggressive

behavior was seen in association with the method used."

[WoofnHoof]

An interesting article comparing the behaviour of different breeds of dog to ancestral wolf behaviour.

Anim. Behav., 1997, 53, 297–304

Paedomorphosis affects agonistic visual signals of domestic dogs

DEBORAH GOODWIN, JOHN W. S. BRADSHAW & STEPHEN M. WICKENS

Anthrozoology Institute, University of Southampton

Abstract. Many of the structural modifications of modern breeds of domestic dog, Canis familiaris, can

be explained by changes in the rate of development, during domestication from the wolf, C. lupus. These

changes have been dominated by paedomorphosis, or underdevelopment, so that the adult passes

through fewer growth stages and resembles a juvenile stage of its ancestor. In this paper the effects of

these processes on the signalling ability of 10 breeds selected for their degree of physical dissimilarity to

the wolf are examined. The number of ancestral dominant and submissive behaviour patterns used

during signalling within single-breed groups ranged from two (Cavalier King Charles spaniel) to 15

(Siberian husky), and this correlated positively with the degree to which the breed physically resembles

the wolf, as assessed by a panel of 14 dog behaviour counsellors. When the signals displayed by each

breed were grouped according to the stage of wolf development in which they first appear, those breeds

with the smallest repertoires were found to draw most of their signals from those appearing before 20

days of age in the wolf, suggesting that physical paedomorphism has been accompanied by behavioural

paedomorphism.

Link to full article