My Pets: science

Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

The Best Way to Train Cats is With Food

Using food alone is the quickest way to train cats to touch a target, according to this pilot study.

How to train cats, like this beautiful white cat with blue eyes

Photo: Esin Deniz (Shutterstock)

You can train cats to go up to a target and touch it with their nose. This in itself will be news to many people, but researchers at Massey University have investigated the best way to train cats to do this. It involves food.

There’s a lot of interest in training cats at the moment, not necessarily to perform obedience behaviours like sit and stay, but to help them in their daily lives. You can teach your cat to like going in their cat carrier so trips to the vet don’t have to begin with you getting scratched-up arms. And you can use positive reinforcement to help teach your cat where they are allowed to scratch (along with provision of the right scratching post, of course).

Erin Willson et al picked the behaviour of touching a red wand target with the nose, and set about training 9 cats to do this. They divided them into three groups: one that was rewarded with food alone, one that used a bridging stimulus (a beep followed by the food reward), and one that used a secondary reinforcer only (a beep – previously associated with food – but no food).

The first two of these conditions will be familiar to dog trainers who use positive reinforcement, since they equate to the use of food only or to click-plus-treat. The last condition may have some of you thinking back to an interesting talk by Simon Gadbois at SPARCS about the clicker and the emotions of seeking vs liking (you can read a nice summary and discussion on Patricia McConnell’s blog).

The scientists concluded that both food alone and the bridging stimulus (beep plus food) worked, but that food alone was faster. The secondary reinforcer only (beep but no food) did not work. In fact cats in this group began scratching and biting the experimenter.

This is only a small study so there weren’t really enough cats to draw firm conclusions about training methods. Nonetheless the results are very interesting, and it is really nice to see cat training getting the attention of researchers.

The study used a Treat & Train, which is an automatic food dispenser. The red wand target comes with the machine.

12 cats from the university’s feline unit took part in the study. They were aged 2 to 12 years.

Use food to train cats, like this calico cat sitting pretty for a treat

Photo: Kristi Blokhin (Shutterstock)

3 of them took part in what is called an extinction procedure. First they were taught that the beep from the Treat and Train machine meant food was about to arrive. The next day they heard the beeps without any food arriving, to see how long it would take for their response to the beep to extinguish (in other words, until they stopped approaching for food). The median response was 11 trials. This was important information for one of the conditions in the experiment.

9 cats were trained to nose-touch the target using a standardized plan. This was a shaping procedure, so cats were initially rewarded for just looking at the target, then for getting progressively closer until eventually they were expected to touch it with their nose.

The cats were divided into three groups. A beep is meaningless to a cat, so two of the groups (the bridge group and the secondary reinforcer group) were taught to associate the beep from the machine with food. Food is a primary reinforcer because it naturally has value to cats.

The food-only group got to hang out with the machine without any beeping, so that time with the machine would not be a factor.

During the training sessions, the food-only group was rewarded with food from the Treat and Train whenever they performed the correct behaviour. The machine was set up not to beep.

For the bridge group, the beep of the machine was used as a bridge, something that marks the right behaviour and fills the time until the arrival of food. In this condition, the beep is always followed by food. When the cat performed the correct behaviour, the machine beeped, and then food arrived.

For the last group, the beep was used as a secondary reinforcer. In other words, when cats performed the right behaviour, they heard the beep but did not get food. These cats were given some additional beep-food pairings to maintain this association and prevent its extinction (that’s why the first part of the experiment was important).

All of the cats in the food-only group and the bridging stimulus group (beep plus food) learned the behaviour. The group reinforced with food-only was faster at learning the task, but took the same amount of trials as the bridge group.

None of the cats in the secondary reinforcer (beep-only) group learned it. As mentioned above, the cats in this group began to scratch and bite the experimenter. Perhaps they were frustrated that they could not figure out how to get the food. (This reminds me of the study of the Eureka effect in dogs, where dogs became reluctant to enter the experimental area when they could not make the reward happen).

So if you are planning to train a cat, you should use food. (Incidentally, food is also important when training dogs).

The experimenters used a piece of Hill’s kibble as the reward. If you’re training a cat at home, you might find other kinds of food more motivating; see my interview with Sarah Ellis on The Trainable Cat for some ideas.

The results of this study are broadly in line with Chiandetti et al’s (2016) dog training study, which found no difference between use of food only, clicker-plus-food, or verbal-marker-plus food (that study did not test a secondary-reinforcer-only option).

The cats were assigned to groups in the order they happened to participate, and it turned out three older cats were assigned to the secondary-reinforcer-only group. We don’t know if age and gender of the cats would make any difference to trainability and this would be another topic for future research.

The authors conclude,

“the use of a primary reinforcer, alone, or a bridging stimulus (followed by a primary reinforcer) appeared to be efficacious for training cats to perform a novel task. However, the primary reinforcer, alone, may be a more time efficient method. The use of a secondary reinforcer, alone, may not be efficacious.”

Incidentally, learning to touch a target with the nose may seem like a trick, but it has its uses. Some people train their dogs to touch a target (such as their hand) and hold in place. It’s called a stationing behaviour because it keeps the dog still at a station, and can be useful during veterinary examinations.

This is a fascinating study and I hope to see lots more research on cat training in the future.

Have you ever tried to train a cat? If so, how did it go?

Laboratory Beagles Do Well in New Homes

Comment

Researchers follow lab beagles as they go to live with a family – and find they adjust very well.

Sleeping beagle. Lab beagles can be successfully rehomed

Photo: Sigma_S (Shutterstock)

Laboratory beagles are used for a variety of experiments. A new study by Dorothea Döring (LMU Munich) et al investigates how they behave in normal life once they are rehomed with a family.

As they explain at the start of the paper, “As rehoming practice in Germany shows that appropriate new owners can be found and that the dogs seem to adapt easily, no sound reason exists to euthanize surplus or post-experimental laboratory dogs unless they would experience pain and suffering if kept alive. From a moral standpoint, humans have an ethical obligation to provide healthy animals with appropriate living conditions.”

Although some laboratory beagles are re-homed directly to individuals, most are rehomed via animal welfare organizations that specialize in placing them. The researchers studied 145 beagles that were rehomed by two such organizations from a pharmaceutical company.

The results show the new owners were very happy with their dogs: 92% said they would adopt a laboratory beagle again. Only 9 (out of 145 dogs) were returned to the animal welfare group.

Life for beagles at the lab had involved being kept in an indoor kennel with daily access to an outside run. They had been provided with treats, a wooden bite stick and a sleeping box, and most had been housed on their own. The beagles were used to general veterinary procedures like examinations and blood draws.

All of the dogs were given a behavioural test at the lab facility. After six weeks in their new home, the same test was given to all the dogs that were adopted within a 200km radius (74 of the dogs). They were also observed in interactions with the owner (e.g. inviting the dog to play, taking the dog for a walk on leash). The new owners also took part in a telephone interview 1 week and 12 weeks after the adoption.

The behaviour test included a range of things like leaving the dog alone for 90s, offering food from a flat hand, holding the muzzle closed for 10 seconds, putting a collar and leash on, using a stethoscope to check the dog’s heart rate, and so on. In the second test scenario and observations, a few dogs were not given certain parts of the test for welfare reasons (e.g. if the owner said the vacuum cleaner sent them into a panic, they were not shown a vacuum cleaner).

The initial telephone interviews were good, and by 12 weeks the dogs were showing even more good behaviours. By 12 weeks post-adoption, 94% of the dogs enjoyed being petted by the owner, and 93% were said to tolerate being groomed. 77% were friendly towards children in the family, and only 11% were cautious (none were aggressive).

A few behaviours did get worse over this time period: behaviour towards unknown children, to the family cat, and to the veterinarian. The observations of dogs showed most were friendly to a visitor (a researcher) and to a test dog that was walked by during the leash walk. However, a quarter showed a fear response to the visitor. None were aggressive.

Lab beagles adjust well to family life when rehomed. Frequent R+ training is suggested, as this cute beagle shows off a trick

Regular positive reinforcement training sessions are recommended by the authors.
Photo: Otsphoto (Shutterstock)

Most of the correlations between tests were quite low, which is not surprising (for shelter dogs, test results also do not do a good job of predicting behaviour in a new home). There was a moderate correlation between “persistent following” and reports of separation anxiety.

The presence of behaviour problems was only weakly correlated with the likelihood of people saying they would adopt a laboratory beagle again, showing that people are tolerant and patient with their dogs.

There was an interesting effect of the original source of the dogs, as dogs bred in the research facility did better than those who had come from a commercial breeder.

Obedience training and the use of frequent rewards were both linked to better-behaved dogs. This is no surprise because other studies have found reward-based dog training is linked to a more obedient dog.

Attendance at dog training classes, however, was not linked to better behaviour. It may be that the people who went to dog training classes (rather than just training at home) did so because the dog had behaviour problems, and/or because they had less experience of training a dog. This is something that warrants further investigation.

The main behaviour problems were house soiling (found in 39% of 126 dogs) and separation anxiety (reported in 28% of 125 dogs). Some of the dogs were also afraid of sounds such as the vacuum cleaner.

These results are very promising for the rehoming of laboratory beagles, since they show most dogs are friendly, adapt well, and their new owners are happy with them. This ties in with other studies that tell us most people who adopt shelter dogs would do so again. Dogs that were previously used as breeding stock in a commercial breeding establishment can also become loving family pets even though in that case the risk of behaviour and health problems is much higher.

The scientists make some important recommendations, including that beagles can be rehomed at any age as they did well in their new homes regardless of age. They can be rehomed to families with children, although safety rules should always be followed for interactions between children and dogs. Rehoming via animal welfare organizations that specialize in the placement of lab dogs is sensible.

The scientists say research facilities should select breeders whose dogs are friendly, well-socialized and not fearful. They suggest giving advice on house training, separation anxiety, and fear of sounds/objects, as well as contact details for behaviourists in case help is needed.

And another recommendation is to have regular dog training sessions using positive reinforcement.

You can read the full set of recommendations at the end of the article, which is open access (link below).

My Etsy picks: (Affiliate links)

Down Dog pin from doggiedrawings

Silver dog brooch from JewelsYouLove

Diamante Scotty Dog brooch by Lelong Designs

Reference
Döring, D., Nick, O., Bauer, A., Küchenhoff, H., & Erhard, M. H. (2017). How do rehomed laboratory beagles behave in everyday situations? Results from an observational test and a survey of new owners. PloS one, 12(7), e0181303.

Companion Animal Psychology is also a participant in the Etsy Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Etsy.com.

cats dogs science

The Sensitive Period for Socialization in Puppies and Kittens

Comment

Important building blocks for a behaviourally-healthy cat or dog.

A shy puppy hiding under a table on the deck

Let shy puppies hide if they want to. Photo: Anna Hoychuk (Shutterstock)

The sensitive period for socialization is a very important time in the lives of kittens and puppies. This is when their brains are especially receptive to learning about the kind of social world they will live in as they get older.

For both kittens and puppies, the sensitive period for socialization is a time when they need lots of positive experiences with all kinds of people and other animals. During this time they will also habituate to anything they might meet in later life (different sounds, surfaces, etc). If they are well socialized during the sensitive period, they are likely to develop into friendly, confident adult dogs and cats.

Sometimes people aren’t sure how to do socialization, so it’s important to note these should be positive experiences. You can use food to help make positive associations, and insofar as possible give the puppy or kitten a choice. For example, wait for them to approach you instead of forcing yourself on them; let them hide and take their own time to come out if they are shy. This will help to build their confidence.

The Sensitive Period for Socialization in Puppies

In puppies, the sensitive period begins at 3 weeks and goes on until about 12 or 14 weeks. Our knowledge of this period comes from classic experiments that involved isolating puppies during this time. We don’t know exactly when the sensitive period ends, and it may end at slightly different times depending on the breed.

This means two things for people who get puppies. First of all, because part of the sensitive period occurs before the puppy comes to live with you, it’s important to ensure you get a puppy from a breeder or rescue where the puppy is in a home environment and getting socialization already. Puppies acquired from pet stores are more likely to have behaviour problems such as aggression, and one reason could be that they are missing those early socialization opportunities because the environment they are born into is typically not a home environment. An early socialization program for puppies means they are less likely to have behaviour problems such as body sensitivity and separation-related behaviours as adult dogs.

Second, it means you have to be prepared to continue socialization during those first few weeks the puppy is with you.

Photo: Bad Monkey Photography

Sometimes people want to wait until their puppy has had all its vaccinations before beginning socialization. This is understandable, but unfortunately it means they miss this important period. Because the leading cause of death of young dogs (under 3) is euthanasia due to behaviour problems, rather than infectious diseases, the American Veterinary Society for Animal Behaviour recommends that puppies start puppy class at 7-8 weeks of age. Puppies should have one set of vaccinations before the first class, and should also be dewormed.

Choose your puppy class with care to make sure the dog trainer will use reward-based methods. Classes should include socialization opportunities with people and play with the other puppies, not just basic obedience (see: why do dogs play?). Puppy class usually lasts 6 weeks, and one study suggests that a one-off puppy party does not have as many benefits.

Remember it’s your job to take care of your puppy and ensure those experiences are positive. If other people want to pet your puppy, be sure to give your puppy a choice.

The Sensitive Period for Socialization in Kittens

In kittens, the sensitive period for socialization is between 2 and 7 weeks. This is typically before a kitten comes to live in your home, showing how important it is to get kittens from someone who will have socialized them.

We know this from a study by Eileen Karsh that handled kittens for four weeks from the ages of 3 weeks, 7 weeks, and 14 weeks. When tested at 14 weeks, the kittens that had been handled from 3 weeks of age stayed for much longer when placed on a person’s lap.

Research shows that if kittens are handled by 4 – 5 different people during this time, they will be more sociable as adult cats than if only one person had handled them. When kittens are handled and played with by more people between the third and ninth weeks, they are not just more friendly, but people seem to feel a closer bond with them, so it affects human attachment to the cat too.

Just as for puppies, it’s important the handling is a positive experience for kittens. Again, you can give them a choice (let them approach you). Speaking nicely to them while handling is also a good idea.

Even though the sensitive period for socialization will have passed when you bring your kitten home, it’s important to continue to give the kitten positive experiences. This will help them to generalize what they have already learned.

Most people don’t take their kittens to a class, but some places do offer them – it’s called Kitten Kindy® (as in kindergarten). Kitten Kindy® was created by Dr. Kersti Seksel, a veterinary behaviourist in Australia. Maybe your vet will know of a class near you, since these classes are often held at vet clinics. That means there’s a bonus that the kittens will start to have positive experiences at the vet!

Kitten class is typically for kittens aged 7 – 14 weeks, and is two or three sessions. Kittens should have had their first vaccination and been dewormed.

Kitten classes should include teaching your kitten to like the cat carrier, how to be handled and groomed, and having the nails trimmed and given medication – all useful skills for your cat. Depending on where you live, it might also include teaching kitty to walk on a harness and leash. If the class includes kittens from other litters, then they get the chance to learn to be around other cats (although they will not necessarily interact).

There should also be lots of useful info on how to provide what your cat needs (scratching posts, enrichment, suitable litter trays, toys and playtime, etc), and how to deal with behaviour problems.

Why is it called a sensitive period?

You may also have heard people refer to a critical period for socialization. A critical period means that if the right exposure doesn’t happen during that window, the abilities will never be developed. It has a sharp beginning and end, and is most likely controlled by genetics.

For example, the critical period for vision in cats is from when their eyes open (between 2-16 days) and 3 months. If they are deprived of visual information during this time, some of the cells in their brain responsible for vision will not develop correctly and even die, meaning they will never develop normal feline vision. One of the classic experiments on this deprived kittens of vision in one eye for the first few months of their life. When they restored vision to that eye, the kittens still did not develop binocular vision.

In contrast a sensitive period has a more gradual onset and offset, during which time the brain becomes more sensitive to the right kinds of experiences, and then towards the end of the period it becomes less sensitive. Exposure to stimuli during this time affects the developing brain and may also increase plasticity. Of course puppies and kittens don't have identical experiences, and perhaps different kinds of exposures will affect the brain in different ways, but work towards the same goal. Plasticity of the brain means that it may be possible to still develop in some ways if these exposures happen later than they should have, even if the development will never be quite the same.

It is difficult to define the beginning and end of these periods, although research on neurological development is providing a lot more information.

Early brain development is so important because it provides the scaffolding for further development later in life – something that also applies to human babies.

Humans have sensitive periods too

Sometimes people are surprised by the idea of a sensitive or critical period. It’s useful to know that children also have sensitive periods for development, during which important brain development occurs in response to the child’s environment.

As mentioned above, these early experiences provide the scaffolding for future development. In fact you will often hear people use the analogy of building a wall – if some of those early experiences are missing, it’s like some bricks are missing from the first layers of the wall.

Children’s early life experiences are very important. Babies need to have lots of positive experiences with adults, very little stress and good nutrition to help build a strong brain architecture. If they do, then by the time they start school they are in a better position to learn than children who have not had those experiences. Although some stresses (small and brief) are part of normal, healthy development, we now know that chronic stress in early childhood can be very damaging. If you’d like to know more, there is an excellent series of videos from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

What do you think are the implications of these sensitive periods?

What Your Cat's Nose Knows

Comment

There’s a lot more to your cat’s nose than you think.

Do you ever pay much attention to that cute little nose your cat has? We’re used to thinking of dogs as being all about smells – but it turns out cats are very much into scent too. A literature review by Kristyn Vitale Shreve and Monique Udell (Oregon State University) explains what we know about the importance of olfaction and chemical detection to cats, from what it means for indoor cats to the possibility of trained scent detection cats.

Vitale Shreve and Udell say,

“Importantly, a better understanding of cat chemical signals has critical applied implications, as scent (and marking) plays an important role in many species-typical cat behaviors, problem behaviors, and can also serve as enrichment if properly understood and applied.”

Ultimately, if cat owners have a better understanding of the role of scent in their cat’s life, they can improve their cat’s welfare.

How cats process chemical signals

You probably already know cats have two different systems that are important organs of olfaction and chemical detection.

First of all, of course, there’s the nose: the two nostrils that allow scents in to the nasal cavity. Then there’s the vomeronasal organ (more easily called the VNO if you prefer). This is in the hard palate in the roof of the mouth. When you see a cat with their mouth open in a grimace, called the Flehmen response, they are utilising their VNO to make sense of chemical signals.

Beyond that, we don’t know as much as you’d think, showing the urgency of more research in this area. For example, we know that a part of the brain called the caudate is used in processing smells, and in many species it is also activated in anticipation of rewards. In dogs, we know that the caudate is activated in response to the smell of a familiar human. We don’t yet know if this occurs in cats or not.

And while we know the vomeronasal organ has three types of detectors, only one of them has ever been investigated.

The VNO detects what are known as pheromones – chemical signals that carry meaning for that and other cats. Cats release different types of pheromones from glands on their bodies, and while the purpose of some is not known, we know a lot more about others and synthetic versions of some are available (you’ve heard of Feliway).

The importance of scent and pheromones to cats

Medical detection cats?

Cats are able to tell the difference between many different scents. Vitale Shreve and Udell say their size, agility, and ability to fit in small spaces means that cats may make excellent scent detection animals. For people who are afraid of dogs, cats might make good medical detection animals. Of course, more research is needed, not just into a cat’s sense of smell but also into the practicalities.

How cats use chemical signals

Cats have scent glands on the head between the eyes and ears, on the side of the forehead, in the cheeks, under the chin, at the corners of the mouth, between the pads on the paws, at the base of the tail, in the ano-genital area, and around a female cat’s nipples. These glands produce pheromones.

Pheromones are used in social communication. As solitary animals, cats can use scent to mark their territory so other cats know to stay away, without them even needing to meet. When cats live in groups, they can maintain a ‘group scent’ that means familiar cats all smell similar. When you see cats rub against each other’s bodies, it is believed they are maintaining this group scent.

Pheromones are also used in sexual activity. When a tomcat rubs his head near a sexually intact female, he leaves F2 pheromone.

In addition to pheromones, cats deposit scent by scratching and with saliva, urine and faeces.

Scratching leaves scent from glands in the cat’s paws, and over time may build up on the scratched object. It may become an “olfactory reference point” for the cat, and so providing appropriate places for cats to scratch and leave their scent is important.

The importance of scent to kittens

Kittens are born with their eyes and ears closed. They use the feeling of warmth, their sense of touch and chemical detection to find their nest. The nest is full of chemical signals – secretions from the mother cat’s glands mark the area, and hair, saliva and urine from the kittens all add to the mix. This nest odour is thought to reduce stress in the kittens, have a calming influence and improve their well-being.

Photo: Rashid Valitov; top, Dziewul (both Shutterstock).

Did you know that within a litter of kittens, by the time they are one or two days old (and until about 32 days) each one has its own preferred nipple on the mother? The scientific term is “teat constancy.” Pheromones are released from glands around the nipples. We don’t know if each nipple has its own characteristic odour, or if saliva from the kitten adds its scent to the nipple.

As the kittens are able to move around more, “teat constancy” subsides and kittens will nurse from other female cats as well as their mother.

Scent in social relationships between cats

Olfaction plays an important part in social relationships between cats. The authors say that in one study, sniffing accounted for almost a third of the behaviours observed. Cats often sniff each other at the start of social interactions.

Male and female cats respond differently to smells from other cats; the Flehmen response and urine spraying are more common in males, whereas female cats pay more attention to skin secretions than to urine. Chemical signals seem to play both a sexual and a social role.

Chemical signals are also used in marking territory and there are several theories about how this works. It may be that marking is used to tell other cats to stay away, but an alternative idea is that it helps the cat feel at home within their own territory. This is another area where more research is needed.

What this means to you as a cat owner

Cat owners should recognize that chemical signals are important to cats, even if we are not always able to detect them ourselves.

Some of these signals help to make cats feel safe and secure – which means that if we get rid of them with too much cleaning, it may make our cats more anxious. The authors suggest the use of cleaning products should be limited near the cat’s rest areas, scratching posts and litterboxes. If we remove their scent from these areas, they may choose different areas for these activities instead, which we may be none too happy about.

You may notice that in places where your cat rubs frequently, the furniture or wall is marked and paint may even be rubbed off. Your cat gains comfort from these areas smelling like him- or her-self, so if you can hold off cleaning or re-painting as long as you can, your cat would prefer it.

Photo: Kristi Blohkin (Shutterstock).

Adding the cat’s own scent to new furniture or new environments may help it to feel calm and relaxed. This may be especially important in rehoming centres, where the cat is faced with a completely new and stressful environment.

The idea of scent as a reference point within the environment may be especially useful for people with blind cats.

Providing scents to cats can be an enrichment activity, especially for indoor cats. Catnip is an obvious example, and while many cat owners are aware of this there are other substances such as silver vine that fewer people have heard of. Sarah Ellis has a lovely idea in her book, The Trainable Cat (co-authored with John Bradshaw) of a sensory box – bringing things from the outside in for the cat to experience. Remember too that cats can get used to things, so rotating scents or bringing in new scents is a good idea.

Cats can be trained to go on leash walks to give them access to the outdoors. Alternately, safe enclosed ‘catios’ can give them outdoor spaces if it is not possible for them to have regular outdoor access. Simply leaving a window safely ajar can let them sniff the breeze.

Scratching is important to cats, and so they need to be provided with suitable scratching posts. When such posts are available, cats will use them – and you can reinforce this behaviour by rewarding them (e.g. with a cat treat) for scratching them.

If your cat is not using the litter box appropriately (peeing outside the box, urine spraying, pooping in the wrong place), then in addition to taking your cat to the vet to check for a medical problem, also consider that stress might be playing a role. Make sure you have enough litter boxes, that they are big enough and located in quiet areas, and take steps to reduce stress in all aspects of your cat’s life. Vitale Shreve and Udell note the unfortunate possibility that if litter box issues are a result of anxiety, the scent from them may make the cat feel more comfortable, and completely getting rid of that scent may cause more anxiety… Since humans are not likely to tolerate this scent, it emphasizes the importance of reducing stress in all other areas.

It’s worth thinking about where a cat’s scent glands are when stroking your cat too. A study by Sarah Ellis et al (2014) found cats prefer to be stroked around the head in the areas where the scent glands are, and suggests it may be a bit like allo-rubbing.

Of course, always give cats a choice of whether or not to interact with you or with particular scents.

Conclusions

It turns out that scent and chemical communication matters a lot to cats, and that cats can differentiate between many different smells. While we need more research on different aspects of how cats produce and utilise chemical signals, we can use what we already know to help make cats feel more comfortable and secure, and even use scent as enrichment.

What Helps Shelter Dogs Get Adopted and Stay in Homes?

Comment

A new literature review looks at how shelters can increase adoptions and reduce animal relinquishment.

A cute mixed breed dog lies down with a ball in its mouth

The review, by Dr. Alexandra Protopopova (Texas Tech University) and Lisa Gunter, looks at the factors that affect adoption rates, the effects of interventions, and how to decrease the numbers of people giving their dogs to shelters (or returning dogs after adoption). The review is important because it will help shelters to know about evidence-based ways to reduce the number of dogs in shelters.

Although some factors vary from one country to another, some things are consistent: people spend very little time looking at a shelter dog before deciding to adopt, and they pay attention to the dog’s size, breed, and colour.

Dogs can arrive at shelters as strays (the most common route in the US), by being surrendered by their owner (about 30% of dogs in shelters in the US), after being seized in an animal cruelty investigation, or by being returned following an adoption that has not worked out.

The review found a dog’s appearance is an important factor in its adoption. People also seem to prefer dogs that were surrendered by their owner rather than strays, and are influenced by breed labels with dogs described as pit-bull types taking longer to be adopted. One study at a Florida shelter found that removing breed labels was successful at improving adoption rates of pit-bull type dogs (adoption rates of other dogs were unchanged).

If people decide to spend time with a dog, then its behaviour becomes more important, with people adopting dogs they describe as showing calmness, friendliness and playfulness. But the decision to adopt a dog or not is typically made after only 8 minutes.

A study by Protopopova et al (2014) found people are more likely to adopt a dog if it plays with them and lies down near them. Following this, Protopopova et al (2016) found adoption rates were increased 2.5 times with an intervention that both encouraged play (using the dog’s favourite toy) and then keeping the dog on a short leash and using treats to lure it into a down position near the potential adopter.

What helps shelter dogs - like this cute mixed-breed - get adopted and stay in homes?

Photo: Tom Feist; top, Emily on Time; both Shutterstock.

Other strategies have looked at reducing the number of dogs relinquished or returned to shelters. Young dogs are more likely to be relinquished, and there are differences between relinquished dogs and those kept, as well as between the people who relinquish dogs and those who don’t. Moving house and difficulties in finding rental homes that take pets, and personal issues, all play a role too, showing how complicated an issue it is.

About 15% of adopted dogs are subsequently returned to the shelter in the US. Again, returned dogs are typically young, and there is a range of reasons including housing, personal issues, and behaviour issues that are typically spotted quite soon after the dog was taken home.

Since so many dogs end up in shelters as strays, microchipping and identification tags would go a long way to being able to return dogs to their owners. Unfortunately, studies of providing education and/or training and behaviour information to people adopting dogs have not always had the positive results you might expect. However, a program that used foster homes (including giving the foster responsibility for finding the dog a new home) had promising results.

The review also looks at the issues with behavioural assessments of shelter dogs, and points out areas where we need to know more (such as the behaviour of people thinking of adopting a dog). Finally, wider community involvement may help too.

Although we know quite a lot about how dogs end up in shelters, a lot more research is needed to help design evidence-based programs to reduce relinquishment and increase adoptions. This paper is a useful summary of what we know so far.

You can follow the researchers on Facebook: Dr. Alexandra Protopopova at the Human-Animal Interaction Lab and Lisa Gunter is part of the Canine Science Collaboratory headed by Dr. Clive Wynne.

Reference
Protopopova, A., & Gunter, L. M. (2017). Adoption and relinquishment interventions at the animal shelter: a review. Animal Welfare, 26(1), 35-48.

dogs interview science

Interview with Dr. Christy Hoffman

Comment

Dr. Christy Hoffman on her research on dog rivalry, how to increase shelter adoptions, and why Anthrozoology is such a fascinating subject.

Dr. Christy Hoffman with her two dogs. Photo: Stephanie Handley

I spoke to Dr. Christy Hoffman (Canisius College) about her research on the factors that lead to a successful human-animal relationship.

Zazie: I’m really excited to chat with you! I wanted to start off by talking about your recent study with Dr. Malini Suchak if that’s alright.

Christy: Sure.

Zazie: You were looking at rivalry and decision-making in dogs and you decided to investigate this by looking at dogs that already know each other and in their own homes. Why do you think it’s so important to study canine cognition in the dog’s familiar environment and with dogs that they already know?

Christy: Well, we wanted to do that because, based on our understanding of dog behaviour and experience, relationships are really important when determining kind of the competitive nature of dogs. Because it often depends on who the dogs are in relation to each other, who’s going to be more competitive, rather than necessarily being an individual characteristic of a dog. Both of us have primate research backgrounds so we realize that relationships are really important and context is really important when looking at competition between animals. And so that's why we really wanted to test dogs in relation to dogs they already knew and spent a lot of time with.

And then in terms of studying the dogs in their own homes, we felt like we would have a better chance of getting an understanding of the dog’s typical behaviour in being able to study the dogs where they’re most comfortable. I’ve done studies that have brought dogs to the Canisius College campus in the past and they did fine in the study, but we definitely had to take time to get them acclimated to the environment and all the new smells and new people. And so by studying the dogs in their own homes we could kind of avoid all those potential confounds.

"So within a household, one dog might care more about human attention and the other dog might care more about food."

Zazie: Brilliant, thank you. So in this study, one of the dogs saw the other dog approach a plate and eat the food, and then they had a choice of whether to go to the same plate which is now empty or another plate which has food on. What would you say you found?

Christy: Well within the household some individual dogs were classified as low-rivalry and some as high-rivalry and that was based on James Serpell’s Canine Behaviour and Research Questionnaire, which the dog owners completed before they even knew anything about the study that we had planned. We just said this is an online survey. And so we could split these dogs into these two categories, and we found that dogs that fell into the high-rivalry category were more likely to go directly to the plate that still had food on it, compared to the dogs that were low-rivalry who tended to first check out the plate that the other dog’s already eaten off of. So that plate had no food. So it doesn’t seem like necessarily a very smart decision, however those low-rivalry dogs still were able to access the food. We weren’t trying to train them to go to an empty plate or a full plate, we just wanted to see what their natural inclination was.

And we also found that this difference disappeared though, when we gave dogs a chance to think about it or a chance to process what was going on. So the low-rivalry dogs tended to kind of follow if there was no delay between when the first dog took the food off the plate, walked round the corner out of the room, and we let that low-rivalry dog approach the plate. If we only had that dog wait 5 seconds before approaching the plate, then that difference between the low and high-rivalry dogs disappeared.

Dr. Christy Hoffman with her dog Grizzly. Photo: Stephanie Handley

Zazie: I think that’s really interesting. And you did it with dogs and with a person, so you had the person take the food as well to see if the dog followed the person. So do you think the dog rivalry scale also relates to a dog’s relationship with people?

Christy: Erm, I think potentially. So dog rivalry, the questions on the C-BARQ really get at aggressive tendencies between dogs that know each other that live in the household together. And there are a lot of correlations between dog-related aggression, human-related aggression as well. So others have found looking at the C-BARQ data, because the C-BARQ does have questions about human-directed aggression as well as dog-directed aggression. So certainly there could be that relationship there. And it may also relate to an individual dog, how that dog experiences the household. So the interactions with the other dog in the household and the humans as well might be affecting the dog’s tendency to follow.

"...it kind of took me by surprise in the dog world that dominance might as well be spelled with four letters, rather than however many letters are in dominance."

Zazie: Okay, thank you. I wonder if we could just clear something up for readers of the blog, some of whom are more used to hearing people talk about relationships in terms of dominance rather than rivalry. Rivalry’s not the same thing as dominance, is it?

Christy: No, it’s really interesting. When looking at past studies of dogs’ relationships with other dogs and tendencies to follow, other studies have used the term dominance, and it’s a tricky word in the dog world. Coming from the non-human primate side of things where we talk about hierarchy and dominance quite regularly, it kind of took me by surprise in the dog world that dominance might as well be spelled with four letters, rather than however many letters are in dominance. Because it’s been really misunderstood and taken out of context, the term dominance, when we talk about dogs. And so while there’s still, at least in some groups of dogs, there’s still evidence of hierarchy, we really have to be careful when we’re talking about that word dominance.

And what we found when we asked owners who they felt was kind of more the leader in the household, or which dog got his way more, it was really interesting that the owners consistently said that this was something that was inconsistent. So it really depended on the context. So they would say well, dog A is always going to eat first, but dog B is always going to run out of the house first when we open the door. Or Dog B is always going to be the one that barks at the window first, but dog A is going to be the one that interrupts me when I’m petting Dog B so that I can pet Dog A. So there’s a lot of variation in dogs. I think it goes back to variability within dogs about what they care about. So within a household, one dog might care more about human attention and the other dog might care more about food.

Two West Highland Terriers relaxing together

Photo: OlgaOvcharenko/Shutterstock

Zazie: Great, thank you. So I also wanted to ask you about some of your research on shelters because you’ve done a lot of research about how shelters can improve adoption rates of dogs and also cats. If you were talking to shelter workers about this research, what would you most want them to know?

Christy: I really would encourage shelters to use the data that many of them have at their fingertips, because a lot of shelters are using really great and powerful databases. So they’re collecting information about when dogs come into their shelter, when they leave the shelter, what those outcomes are – were the dogs adopted, were they transferred, did their owners reclaim them or were they euthanized? And they also are recording in these databases information about the dog’s age, the dog’s breed, the dog’s colour, some of them have information about the health status of the dog or the dog’s size. And if they’re able to use this information from their database, if they’re able to look at that it can really help them to decide where to focus their efforts and their resources, especially in terms of what dogs are they marketing, you know, and what needs to have priority in that organization.

"Save the toy for the cat that really needs a toy in the picture with them."

What my graduate students and I have found over the years is that when we do ask shelters for information, which many have kindly obliged us with that information, but it’s become clear that they don’t know off the bat how to access the information. Or it may take them some time because they’ve never actually down-loaded the data into an Excel spreadsheet before, or looked at the data in the way that we’ve been looking at it. And I think that that would be a very powerful tool for them if they were able to look at their data a little more systematically.

Zazie: Definitely. So what kind of things do you think make a dog get adopted more quickly?

Christy: Well, from a study that a former graduate student Miranda Workman and I did together on cats, we found that if cats are photographed with toys in the picture they tend to be more popular on Petfinder, which is the site that we were looking at data from. And they also tend to be adopted more quickly. So if there are animals, particularly cats, that maybe don’t photograph well or that you have an idea may be sticking around the shelter for a longer period of time, adding a toy to the photo may help increase interest in that particular cat. I did hear though that one shelter at least heard about our study and they just started throwing a toy into all of their cat’s photos, but it kind of undoes the effect. Save the toy for the cat that really needs a toy in the picture with them.

Zazie: So save it for the cats that need a bit of extra help.

Christy: Right.

Zazie: I wrote about that study on my blog and actually that was a very popular post. Lots of people read that one and were very interested in that one, so that was very good.

Photo: Piyato/Shutterstock

Christy: I really do appreciate how you’ve covered several of my studies, because I can’t usually afford open access fees to make the studies readily available to the public and animal shelters. And I certainly don’t want shelters paying $35 to read any of my papers, so I really do appreciate that you help take that to the public.

Zazie: Oh good. I enjoy doing it and I think people don’t realize that sometimes with open access papers the researcher has had to pay a lot of money for that to happen. Another study that you’ve done, which I haven’t written about but I wanted to talk to you about, is you’ve looked at the factors involved in animal transfer programs where some shelters bring in pets from a long distance away. I was wondering what some of the lessons were that you found out from that study?

Christy: One that really surprised us… well first of all it surprised us that there’s really not much literature, or any that we saw, on these animal transfer programs, which kind of inspired us to do this very exploratory, very preliminary study. I’ve noticed that over the past year or so some of the large animal welfare groups, animal advocacy groups, in the United States have been doing webinars and writing blogposts about best practices in animal transfer. Which I think great because from our very qualitative, very preliminary study, we were surprised that there is a lack of consistency across organizations in terms of what veterinary care they required the animals to have prior to being transported, and also what their policies and procedures were once they brought – the study focussed on dogs – once they brought the dogs in.

"And so another key theme that came out from our study was the importance of honest, clear communication between the organizations that are receiving the animals and the organizations that are sending them out."

Some of them had quarantine periods where they had the dogs separate from other dogs for a certain amount of time, but a lot did not, and not everybody even indicated that they required vaccines prior to transport. So there definitely needs to be more investigation, because it could be that the way we asked our questions, a lot of our questions were open-ended so maybe somebody just didn’t think to put ‘we require rabies vaccines’. But if they’re really not requiring a rabies vaccine, or other vaccines, that’s very, very concerning. Especially since a lot of the groups in our study are animal rescues that don’t have shelter facilities, so they are putting dogs in people’s homes into foster care. And without best practices in place that could make people’s own animals vulnerable to infection from animals being brought in. So it seems that there’s room for improvement in this area, to better understand it and make the prospects for the dogs coming in better, you know make things so that they stay healthy, and keep the population that you already have healthy.

We also found that some organizations said that they had broken off relationships with the shelters that they had taken dogs in from in the past, because those organizations had been dishonest with them. You know, they would say they were getting a Labrador and it’s not a Labrador when they pick up the dog or the dog arrives at their door. And so that’s created problems too. And so another key theme that came out from our study was the importance of honest, clear communication between the organizations that are receiving the animals and the organizations that are sending them out.

Photo: aaor2550/Shutterstock

Zazie: And sometimes if an organization is thinking of setting up that kind of program, especially if they’re bringing in dogs from overseas perhaps, local people might be concerned or express a worry that local dogs might suffer as a result. Do you think that’s the case or not?

Christy: That’s definitely a concern brought up quite a bit in discussion of the animal transport. And it seems to be it depends on the location of the organization bringing in the animals and the demands on their system from the local dogs. And so one argument that people talk about is how bringing in dogs from elsewhere often helps diversify the population of dogs available for adoption. So for example, in many parts of the north-Eastern United States, there isn’t the large number of dogs coming in from the local community to the shelters. And of the dogs that are coming in, there’s not a lot of diversity in terms of the size of the dogs or the breeds of the dogs. And so bringing those animals in from the South or from certain other parts of the world might increase that diversity. I think also it’s tricky because, you know, breed and size of dog aren’t everything, and so having an understanding of dogs’ early life histories when possible is really important. And you know, making sure that the people that are sending the dogs out are sending out good representatives from their community. Because definitely there have been organizations as well that relationships have broken up over sending really adorable dogs that don’t have adorable personalities.

Zazie: Oh dear. So you mentioned Labradors… dogs being described as Labradors when they weren’t necessarily Labradors. And one of the studies you did a few years back was actually about Pit Bulls, and what shelter workers recognize as Pit Bulls. And I found that really interesting, because I come from England which has Breed Specific Legislation and Pit Bulls are not allowed. But sometimes here at the shelter where I volunteer, I find that people describe a dog as a Pit Bull and I look at it and I think I wouldn’t have called that a Pit Bull, so I found differences. So what did you find in your study?

Christy: Well, that study I did with Carri Westgarth who is in England at the University of Liverpool, and if you don’t mind I’ll tell you the back-story of how we came up with the idea for the study.

Zazie: Okay.

Christy: We were at the International Society for Anthrozoology conference in Cambridge, England, in 2012, that’s where we met for the first time. And we were at a pub, cos that’s what you do in England, you go to pubs, right?! At the end of the day, after the conference, we were in a pub and I was showing her some dogs that I had worked with when I was living in Chicago at the time, at the shelter. So I was quickly scrolling through on my phone saying “Pit Bull… Pit Bull… Pit Bull… look at all these Pit Bulls that are in the shelter’. And she was like “What do you mean? These aren’t Pit Bulls.” And I was like, “What do you mean they’re not Pit Bulls? Yes, they’re Pit Bulls.” And she said, “No, no, they’re Staffordshire Bull Terriers.” And I was like, “What?! Staffordshire Bull Terriers are Pit Bulls.”

A Staffordshire Bull Terrier sleeping on the couch

A Staffordshire Bull Terrier (Nieuwland Photography/Shutterstock)

So the next day we kind of both had thought about it a little bit, about that conversation, and approached each other with this idea that we should really look at this, at cross-cultural differences in what is considered a Pit Bull. And especially if something is being legislated against, you would think there would be a common definition, when lives are on the line especially right? That people would have an idea of what they’re talking about.

And so we did this survey, where we had photos of dogs that we had collected both from England and the United States. And we asked people first of all, just open-ended, describe what breed or breeds each dog represented. And then we asked this horrible open-ended question that was super-cruel to people, to say “Why do you think it’s this?” Which is really hard, you know. Like you see a picture of a Labrador and you say it’s a Labrador. Well why is it a Labrador? Because it looks like a Labrador, right? Like people had to think really hard, “What makes this look like a Labrador?” And so that open-ended qualitative information was really helpful and informative. So the people then went through the pictures a second time and we just asked them, “Is this a Pit Bull?” or “Do you think this is a Pit Bull type dog or not?”

And so we found that in the United States Pit bull is a much broader category; a lot more dogs fall into the category of Pit Bulls than is the case in England. But even so there’s a lot of diversity in the United States in terms of what’s considered a Pit Bull. So it’s not that everybody in the United States agrees that a particular dog is a Pit Bull, there’s still a lot of disagreement about whether a particular dog is a Pit Bull or not. Less so in England, and as you might have guessed from that initial conversation that I had with Carri, in the United States we tend to consider the Staffordshire Bull Terrier to be a Pit Bull, and in the UK they are distinct from Pit Bulls and not included in the Breed Specific Legislation in the UK.

Dr. Christy Hoffman with her dog Santiago. Photo: Stephanie Handley.

And also for the study, we looked at the laws in various parts of the United States where there is Breed Specific Legislation, and I was thinking certainly they must be defining, again, Pit Bull in the community; even if it varies community to community they must have some definition, they must have some way to categorize or classify these dogs. But really the language in these laws tends to be written very loosely and there really weren’t clear-cut descriptions of what these communities mean by a Pit Bull. Which was pretty eye-opening and surprising to see.

Zazie: It is actually, yeah it is. So, right at the start of this interview you mentioned having done primate research in the past. How and why did you move from primates into working on dogs?

Christy: Yeah, so… I have to get this suitable for public audience! So I actually started studying non-human primates when I was in college. I studied howler - mantled howler - monkeys that are in Nicaragua after my sophomore year of college. And I knew that animal behaviour was something that was pretty cool to me when I could go to Nicaragua for a month and watch howler monkeys sleep in the tops of trees for hours on end and I still loved it. There were times when I didn’t know if I was watching a howler monkey or a termite mound, because they move about the same amount.

Zazie: Wow.

Christy: And I still thought it was super-cool. And so the next summer, before senior year of college, I was selected to be a research assistant in Puerto Rico on an island called Cayo Santiago where there are about 1200 rhesus macaques living on this island, free-roaming. So I was a research assistant on the island for the summer. And rhesus macaques are on the opposite end of the spectrum of active compared to howler monkeys, they’re all over the place. And so I really enjoyed that work and I took a year off after undergrad, but a few months of teaching ninth grade made me know I wanted to get back in to school as a student.

"There were times when I didn’t know if I was watching a howler monkey or a termite mound, because they move about the same amount."

So I applied to graduate school programs and was accepted into a program where the person who became my advisor was wanting to do more and more research on this island where I’d done the research in Puerto Rico before. And during my time in Puerto Rico both as an undergrad and grad student, I was fascinated and distressed by the number of stray dogs living in Puerto Rico. People forget I think that Puerto Rico is part of the United States but it’s so different also from, at least the parts of the United States that I’ve lived in. And so it was very eye-opening to me to see that people had very different relationships with dogs than again what I had experienced. And I, you know, wanted to save as many dogs as I could while I was there, so I would chase monkeys around during the day and then in the afternoon and evening try to help dogs in various ways, shuttle them to the vet clinic or administer some medications or organize a spay/neuter clinic, or find places in the United States to send these dogs. So I had first-hand experience of the transfer process!

But I also could see that for some people, like if you’re trying to run a restaurant and there are stray dogs milling about in front of your restaurant, it’s going to be hard to keep your client base. People don’t want to leave a restaurant and be mobbed by dogs that have sad-looking eyes and that are sick, or that are trying to jump on them and grab their leftovers.

(Photo: Wollertz/Shutterstock)

And so I became interested in human-animal interaction as a result of seeing all of this while I was in Puerto Rico. And as time wore on I became more and more interested in this, and the monkeys – I had to get my dissertation so I kept working with the monkeys, but in my mind in some ways they were taking a back seat to my interest in the human-animal relationship and dog cognition as well. And so I was actually fortunate to have a post-doc where I could apply what I had learned about animal behaviour, in my case studying monkeys and hormones as well, and transition over to studying the human-dog relationship thanks to funding from the Waltham Foundation and the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development. So I was able to finally make that leap as a post-doc when I’d been kind of wanting to for years. And then a few years after that, I was able to take this job here at Canisius College where my work continues to look at both sides of the human-dog relationship, where I teach a canine class to undergraduate students but I also teach a class to graduate students called Psychology of the Human-Animal Bond and another class specifically on shelters. So it’s a dream realized to be able to do the research that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and also to be surrounded by students who share those interests as well.

Zazie: That’s fantastic, and it’s a very highly-regarded program in Anthrozoology at Canisius as well isn’t it?! So why do you think Anthrozoology is such a popular and such an exciting field at the moment?

Christy: Yeah, well I think there are a lot of reasons. I think the rise of popularity of animal-assisted therapy has piqued a lot of people’s interest in wanting to know more about human-animal relationships. And also kind of the increase in prevalence of service dogs, emotional support animals as well, and learning more and more about the various jobs that dogs – and when I say dog I mean animal half the time – and other animals can do and ways they can help people. And then there’s also increasing concern for the welfare of animals that are used for human benefit, including lab dogs, farm animals, companion animals as well. And so that’s also an important focus of the Anthrozoology program here at Canisius. And we also extend out so they can learn about wildlife in our program as well, and human-wildlife conflict and also ways that humans might be able to help or benefit wildlife as well.

"We do some number games with him, and test out his olfactory abilities, and more often than not he cheats or thinks of problems in a way we hadn’t thought about them and demonstrates that we have to re-think our methods!"

And so our program really does look at human and non-human animal relationships from both perspectives, the human side and the non-human side. And we find that people are interested in all these aspects of animal welfare, and the benefits to humans that animals provide, and so with the changes to the climate and everything I think that’s also put human-animal interactions and relationships on people’s radar as well especially regarding human-wildlife conflict.

Zazie: And so we’re getting near to the end, so a slightly personal question but not too personal: Do you have any pets at home yourself?

Christy: Yes! I have two dogs that – I do want to defend myself and say that I have successfully fostered dogs before, so I’ve brought dogs into my home and they’ve been adopted into other homes. But the two dogs that I have are both foster failures. So Grizzly is about ten years old, everybody thinks she’s a boy but she’s a girl, so Rottweiler-Shepherd mix we think. And she’s our Steady Eddie, like she is an excellent dog, just don’t ask her to solve any cognition problems! She just walks into her crate when you try to ask her to do anything slightly challenging. And she would totally fail a detour task, but she’s excellent and really great with our 2-year-old human daughter. And then we have Santiago who is a Pit Bull mix. I actually snuck his photo into the Pit Bull study that we did years ago, to see what people thought about him. And so when people ask me what breed he is they really regret it, because I start sounding off, like “this percentage of people in England think he’s this… and people in the United States think he’s this…” But he’s great. He actually does like cognitive challenges so he comes with me to Canisius several times a year for my research methods class so that we can try to figure out what’s going on in his head and we do some number games with him, and test out his olfactory abilities, and more often than not he cheats or thinks of problems in a way we hadn’t thought about them and demonstrates that we have to re-think our methods! So I’ve got two dogs. And then we have a parakeet who we found as a stray a few years ago. So that’s our household.

Zazie: Brilliant! Thank you very much. Is there anything else that you would like to say?

Christy: Well, again thank you so much for all of your constant work. I see how often you’re posting to Companion Animal Psychology and sharing things on the Facebook page as well, and it’s such an important service. And like I said, especially for those papers that we publish that are behind a paywall, you do such a great job and you’re so responsible about the way you communicate the science. I really, really appreciate that because, as you know not everybody does report things responsibly or very accurately and so I appreciate that. I’ve been so excited to be able to talk to you actually, email’s fun but it’s nice to actually talk to you as well.

Zazie: I’ve been really excited because I really admire your research and also so much of it is so useful and relevant to people, as well as being interesting and fascinating and well-designed. So I’ve been really excited to talk to you and probably I could talk to you for hours, but that would be too much to go on the blog!

Thank you Dr. Christy Hoffman for taking the time to talk with me and for a fantastic interview!

About Dr. Christy Hoffman: Christy Hoffman is an assistant professor in the department of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation and directs the Anthrozoology Master’s program at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY (USA). In addition, she runs the Canisius Canine Research Team, which can be followed on Facebook.

You can read about Dr. Hoffman’s research in the following posts:
Rivalry and decision-making in dogs
Finding out if dogs like cats – or not
Proof the internet helps cat adoptions
Large study finds no evidence for ‘black dog syndrome’
Is attachment to pet dogs linked to their behaviour?

Companion Animal Psychology is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

My Pets

The Best Way to Train Cats is With Food

Further Reading on Cat Training

Laboratory Beagles Do Well in New Homes

The Sensitive Period for Socialization in Puppies and Kittens

The Sensitive Period for Socialization in Puppies

The Sensitive Period for Socialization in Kittens

Why is it called a sensitive period?

Humans have sensitive periods too

Further reading

What Your Cat's Nose Knows

How cats process chemical signals

Medical detection cats?

How cats use chemical signals

The importance of scent to kittens

Scent in social relationships between cats

What this means to you as a cat owner

Conclusions

Further reading

What Helps Shelter Dogs Get Adopted and Stay in Homes?

Interview with Dr. Christy Hoffman

Popular Posts

Latest Posts