Can Dogs Feel Guilt? 10 Common Myths About Dog Behavior
By PARADE@parademagazine
Doleful eyes, hunched body, drooping ears: Fido must be
feeling sorry about something—right? Not exactly, according to Decoding Your
Dog, a new book from the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists. Drs.
Debra Horwitz and John Ciribassi, experts in the field of veterinary behavior,
write about what this look really means, and uncover nine more common canine
myths, below.
Myth 1: When my dog looks guilty, it’s because he feels bad
for doing something wrong.
When your pooch puts on that doleful look, he must be guilty
of something, right? Wrong! Your dog knows you are angry or upset and is using
that body posture to try in dog language to get you to calm down and avoid
punishment.
Myth 2. My dog understands me when I talk to him.
While dogs can understand about 500 words and a very
talented Border Collie named Chaser can understand thousands, when we talk to
our dogs they focus in on a few words, our tone of voice, facial expressions,
and our body language.
Myth 3: My new dog of the same breed will be just like my
last one.
Just like two children from the same family will be alike in
some ways, they can be completely different in others. So while Johnny and
Susie both have blue eyes, one might be easy going and the other very stubborn.
Two dogs from the same breed can be very different too.
Myth 4: My dog should tolerate anything my children do.
The reality is that young children often do not know how to
interact with dogs in a caring considerate manner. Allowing children to sit on
dogs, pull on their body, hit them with toys, disturb them while they eat may
actually teach children the wrong lessons. Dogs are living, breathing,
emotional beings that need to be treated kindly and with respect.
Myth 5: A fenced yard should be entertaining enough.
Our canine friends live in a very rich world of smells and
visual input. The back yard is the same day in and day out. What dogs long for
is the smell of a new scent, the chance to check out that next bush or tree and
see the world. And when out in the yard all alone they can make bad decisions,
become extremely territorial and threatening to others, or even become
destructive or attempt to escape.
Myth 6: All dogs who are afraid of people have been abused.
While it is unfortunate that many dogs are abused, many dogs
that show signs of fear or anxiety around people and places suffer from another
problem: limited socialization. If a dog lives in a very restricted environment
during their sensitive time of emotional growth (from 8 weeks to 9 months) they
may not have the tools to process, interact, and enjoy new experiences as they
come along.
Myth 7: Dog training works best if we rely on dominance and
punishment.
Just like people, dogs learn best by humane treatment and
showing them the right things to do. Dogs are at a disadvantage—they don’t know
the rules of living in a human world. They are not out to dominate or control
us, but rather don’t really know what is the right thing to do. It is up to us
to teach them how to behave using positive training and kindness.
Myth 8: Dogs that destroy the house when home alone are
being spiteful.
Dogs that go to the bathroom indoors bark and are destructive
when home alone are most likely suffering from separation anxiety. They are
unable to relax and be calm when separated from their human family. They need a
behavior modification plan, treatment and perhaps medication to learn how to be
home alone.
Myth 9: Dogs that growl and bite are mean.
Dogs that growl are trying to tell people that they are
uncomfortable and afraid. What they really want is for the threatening thing to
go away or stop. By understanding and respecting the message we can teach dogs
the proper responses and diminish the need for aggressive responses.
Myth 10: Dogs and wolves are the same.
While dogs and wolves share a common genetic connection,
that is where it ends. Dogs have evolved over thousands of years to be partners
with humans and interact with naturally in ways that wolves do not even with
extensive training. Two great examples: dogs can follow a human’s pointing
gesture and often “ask” people for help; wolves do not without specific
training.
Toddlers prefer dogs to cats, study finds, as authors say feline appreciation ‘needs time to develop’
Misty Harris, Postmedia News
At just three years old, children already see cats as playing second fiddle
to dogs, suggests a new study of kids’ responses to animals.
Though the research sought to identify the facial features that most appeal
to youngsters in pets – specifically, whether baby-like traits play a role –
what inadvertently emerged was a picture of cats as underdogs.
Reporting in the journal Human-Animal Interaction Bulletin, scholars find
children have a preference for cats with adorable, infantile features, versus
cats that lack such qualities. Throw dogs into the mix, however, and the cats
get left in the dust, regardless of either animal’s baby-like cuteness.
“Children in our study preferred dogs over cats in every comparison, and
regardless of their familiarity with this species,” said study co-author Marta
Borgi, of the Istituto Superiore di Sanita in Italy. “The appreciation of
less-popular animals like cats probably needs time to develop, and appears more
dependent on their physical appeal and on our contacts with them.”
The study, co-authored by Francesca Cirulli, draws on 272 children, aged
three to six, who were presented with forced-choice tasks pairing different
types of images. For instance, an adult dog and adult cat, a teddy bear and a
dog, a human baby and a kitten, and so on.
Overall, the kids preferred dogs to cats, although the likelihood of
favouring a cat was higher among participants with a cat at home. In the cat
versus cat comparisons, those with baby-like features (think big eyes and
rounded, squishy faces) were preferred over those without, but the chances of
choosing the latter increased with age.
Borgi said a yet-to-be published follow-up experiment, in which both
children and adults judged the cuteness of animal and human pictures with
manipulated facial traits (more or less infantile), similarly found “no effects
of having dogs at home but a statistically significant effect of cat
ownership.”
Taken together, these results suggest that children learn to appreciate
less popular companion animals – in this case, cats – through age and
familiarity. And if they resemble babies, potentially triggering a positive,
nurturing response, all the better.
“In species whose young completely depend on their caregivers for
sustenance and protection, (this) response has a clear adaptive value,
contributing to enhance offspring chances of survival,” said Borgi. “What is
interesting for us is the possibility that such a response may be generalized
to the human-animal bond.”
It’s notable, for instance, that girls were likelier than boys to prefer a
dog with infantile traits than a dog without them. Across all the children,
however, researchers didn’t see the overall bias for baby-like dogs that was
seen with baby-like cats.
Borgi believes the study sheds light on the most efficient ways in which
companion animals can be selected for kids – especially those who have deficits
in social domains (say, autism) and could benefit from pet interaction.
'Decoding Your Dog' may help you befriend 'best friend'
Steve Dale, Special for USA TODAY 7:07 p.m. EST January 5, 2014
Though they write for scientific journals, this is the first time
veterinary behaviorists have written a book for the public. Experts address pet
problems from jumping to fear of thunderstorms
When it comes to animal behavior, everyone is a self-professed expert.
"You must be the 'alpha dog' in your house, showing your dog who's
boss," is one common misconception, say veterinary behaviorists.
That belief is not based in science, and it may even be downright
dangerous.
Setting the record straight is one reason the American College of
Veterinary Behaviorists has written the new book Decoding Your Dog: The
Ultimate Experts Explain Common Dog Behaviors and Reveal How to Prevent or
Change Unwanted Ones, out this week (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27). It's
edited by two veterinarians who specialize in pet behavior, Debra Horwitz and
John Ciribassi, and myself.
It might be that more dogs die as a result of perceived bad behavior than
all cancers combined. When a dog has cancer or another illness, the
human/animal bond is often intensified. But when a dog has a serious behavior
problem — say the dog is barking non-stop and chewing on the baseboard when the
family departs, with the landlord and neighbors complaining — the human/animal
bond may fracture. When that happens, the pet may land in a shelter.
In fact, behavior may be the most common explanation for giving up pets,
particularly young animals. Avoiding behavior problems, or having appropriate
tools to deal with them, will save lives, which is the goal of this unique
book. Though they write for scientific journals and books for veterinary
professionals, this is the first time veterinary behaviorists have written a
book for the general public. The 21 contributing authors offer science-based
methods to deal with a wide array of problems, from dogs happily jumping up to
greet guests at the door to dogs not so happily lunging at other dogs on walks.
Here are some of the book's nuggets of knowledge and advice:
Q: Do dogs bite their owners or other familiar people because they are
competing for "alpha status"?
A: This is untrue. Most often dogs bite for defensive reasons that are not
related to a social hierarchy.
Q: Do dogs get on sofas, rush ahead on walks or jump on people to be
dominant?
A: Again, no. Dogs favor couches for napping like we do, because they are
soft, and because they smell like their favorite people. Dogs rush ahead on
walks because they're eager to explore the world, those smells are exciting,
and people are too darn slow. Dogs are happy to greet people and like to jump
because it's the only way to greet them face to face, and because they are
beyond exuberant.
Q: Do dogs purposely urinate in the house or otherwise behave badly because
of separation anxiety?
A: Like all behavioral problems, dogs with separation anxiety aren't being
spiteful. They're not intentionally punishing you for your departure; they are
just attempting to cope with your separation. Like many behavior problems, an
appropriate diagnosis is most important.
Without veterinary input, people may
assume the problem is separation anxiety, when the dog might be under-exercised
and/or bored. Perhaps the dog is piddling in the house when you are away
primarily due to an undiagnosed medical condition. Some dogs were never
reliably taught to be home alone (despite what their owners believe). If this
is a senior dog, has the dog "forgotten" house-training? Or does the
dog actually suffer from separation anxiety? And suffer is the right word —
these dogs are suffering. Often pharmacological intervention, combined with
behavioral therapy, is most helpful and most humane.
Q: If dogs are anxious or fearful, do they need better training?
A: Fears and anxieties have nothing whatsoever to do with how well a dog is
trained or intelligence. In fact, if you have a dog who is pacing (perhaps a
dog is fearful of an oncoming thunderstorm), and you tell her "lie
down," and she does, while she may no longer be pacing she may still be
very anxious. Anxiety doesn't go away just because you're not seeing it. One of
the most potentially damaging myths is the idea that a dog should be punished
for anxious or fearful behavior. The idea stems from the beliefs that the dog
is "being bad" or "trying to be dominant" by not listening
when you try to tell the dog to stop a certain behavior (pacing, whining,
etc.). Using punishment will only make the animal more anxious and fearful in
the long run.
Q: So what can you do if your dog is afraid of thunderstorms?
A: Generally dogs who exhibit signs of anxiety during thunderstorms don't
just "get over it." In fact, typically without intervention, the
anxiety worsens over time. The following are among a list of tips that may help
many dogs, but not all dogs, as one size doesn't fit all. Create a cozy place
to "escape" the storm, offering a "zen" mood there with
classical music. Plug in an Adaptil diffuser (which emits a copy of a calming
pheromone). Also, potentially helpful is a body wrap called the Thundershirt.
Some dogs can be distracted with games or tricks. Of course, close the blinds
and pull the shades on windows. Ultimately, the most humane action may be
medication, which lowers the anxiety just enough so the above suggestions (and
others) can be implemented.
Q: My dog almost seems like he has Alzheimer's sometimes. What's going on?
A: Senior dogs can suffer from a condition similar to Alzheimer's disease
in people, referred to as canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome. To determine
if a dog has CCDS, the first step is a medical exam to rule out a medical
explanation causing or contributing to the problem. While there is no fountain
of youth, the good news is that old age is not a disease. Especially when
discovered early, there are things that can be done to help slow the disease
progress, including nutritional supplements, appropriate exercise and teaching
an old dog new tricks.
Steve Dale is a nationally syndicated pet journalist, radio host and
certified animal behavior consultant who has written numerous books.
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