"One of the most effective ways to improve companion dog welfare is to prevent problematic behaviours from developing".
Problem behaviours are one of the most common reasons for relinquishment, the main reasons being aggression and needing more attention than the owner can provide. Life in a rehoming kennel can be psychologically distressing and abandonment increases the likelihood of euthanasia.
We sentimentalise and at the same time demonise dogs. Even in countries where dogs are accepted as members of our families, the lack of knowledge about their behaviour and needs means that they often suffer poor welfare. One aspect of this is the prevalent but flawed idea that they should be regarded as akin to wolves and that we are required to form dominance relationships with them in order to get them to behave!
Animal welfare can be viewed from 3 approaches - the physical well-being and health of animals, the animals subjective experience of the world, it's 'affective state', and the state in which an animal can perform its natural behaviour and express its 'telos' (purpose).
They are all important, but over-emphasis on one approach can lead to neglect of another aspect. Puppy farms are inspected by veterinarians for 'good health' and hygiene - but the behavioural consequences of raising puppies in a barren environment is neglected. Over-emphasis on affective state could be used as argument that physical and sensory defects that the dog is born (with and are therefore not aware of their disability) don't affect welfare. And fear and sometimes pain can be experienced in 'natural living' but as guardians of the domestic dog, we have a responsibility to minimise these experiences. So preference must also be taken into account. Also, what is 'natural' for dogs is to live with people - in various roles and styles, so consideration of 'natural living' for the domestic dog may not be relevant in terms of comparisons with wild or feral dog populations.
Although it might be considered that dogs living in homes with their owners get a better deal than laboratory, working or otherwise kennelled dogs, this is disputable. Owner's don't always provide for their dog's behavioral needs and may punish them for inappropriate attempts on the dog's part to fulfil these needs, cope with their lack of fulfilment, or simply express their distress.
Some of the major welfare issues experienced by these dogs today are:
- inappropriate breeding and sourcing - suffering physical defects or inadequate breeding and rearing environment causing physical and psychological problems. Owners of brachycephalic (squash-nosed) dogs that struggle to breath are often completely unaware that their dog has a problem. There is also increased incidence of inherited disease - due to intensive selective breeding primarily for appearance.
- obesity - figures vary between one third and a half of companion animals in the UK are obese.
- separation distress - Human company and different forms of contact are important for dog welfare. Positive interactions increase beta-endorphin, oxytocin, prolactin, beta-phenylethylamine and dopamine (Odendaal and Meintjes 2003) and can reduce cortisol levels. These include contact (stroking, scratching) and non-contact interactions such as eye-contact and talking. But many dogs are left for long periods during the day and their behaviour indicates that they find this stressful. Their stress may manifest as destruction, vocalisation or toiletting. It has been suggested that, depending on previous experience and temperament, human contact is more important for dog welfare than conspecific contact (Valsecchi et al. 2007, Wells 2004).
Fears and anxiety are adaptive, to enable avoidance of an immediate or anticpated threatening stimulus, but if experienced frequently in situations that are unpredictable and uncontrollable for the dog they can induce stress, with welfare implications. Owners may not recognise all the signs of fear in their dogs. Not only do fear and anxiety affect the dog psychologically but they affect working ability, ability to learn and immune-supporession which can increase disease risk. Stranger-directed fear is associated with decreased lifespan in a recent study of over 700 dogs (Dreschel 2010). So psychological welfare can directly impact physical welfare. Fearfulness can be genetic and ability to cope with environmental stress can be affected by genetics, early upbringing and ongoing experiences.
One important contributing factor to fear is the number of dogs that are inadequately or inappropriately 'socialised' and 'socially referenced' to people and other animals and environmental stimuli. Puppy farmed dogs with limited exposure to these in early weeks show higher levels of social and non-social fear than non puppy farmed dogs (McMillan et al. 2011).
Another factor is the lack of ability in humans to recognise and appropriately respond to signs of fear in dogs - through body language, facial expressions and other behaviour.
Punishment based training methods are another welfare concern, with evidence of its detrimental effects, including increased aggression, fear and anxiety. There is still a widespread assumption that pain and fear can be legitimately used in the training of dogs, and justified through outdated precepts of control through dominance rituals.
Problem behaviour may be entirely normal for the species and breed but problematic for humans, or abnormal for the species. The former can be addressed through channelling the dogs need to perform these behaviours in appropriate ways. The latter, such as repetitive behaviours, may indicate poor welfare leading to coping behaviours that are abnormal for an animal in good welfare.
The distinction may be arbitrary, as dogs may perform behaviours that may be abnormal for an animal in good welfare, due to natural reactions to unnatural or suboptimal environments.
In addition to the idea about the requirement of humans to assert dominance over dogs, there are other misconceptions surrounding diet - such as the need to deprive a dog of food for one day each week and that cereals should be excluded as 'unnatural' from the diet. There is evidence that dogs are natural omnivores and prefer to eat small, regular meals (Axelsson et al. 2013, Morris and Rogers 1989)
Our anthropomorphic perceptions of dogs may help "ultimaely enable people to benefit socially, emotionally and physically from their relationships with companion animals" (Serpell 2005), but it does mean we may not pay as much attention as we should to the 'umwelt' of the dog - the sensory world that they inhabit, which is not the same as humans.
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human qualities to animals. We can over-estimate or wrongly interprete the cognitive skills of dogs. It is unlikely that dogs experience self-conscious emotions such as guilt or pride (Lewis 2002), though many owners think they do.
Anthropocentrism is the interpretation of reality in terms of human values and experiences. Although human and dog sensory worlds overlap a lot, we don't have their sensitivity to smell or noise and therefore may not be aware of olfactory or noise influences on welfare.
Measuring dog welfare
Although health can be assessed by professionals, many owners don't recognise pain or be able to gauge quality of life in their dogs. It is impossible to ask the dog directly how it feels, though this is critical to welfare assessment. So scientists use physiological and behavioural proxy measures . Physiological indicator variables include heart rate, adrenaline and cortisol, while behavioural patterns indicating stress can be correlated with physiological measures of the same. Individual response to stress is very variable, and observation method and time of day can affect measures, so we still don't know which behaviours, if any, can reliably indicate underlying emotional state at population level.
Repetitive behaviours such as circling, pacing etc can occur in pet dogs but are common in kennelled dogs - researchs have recorded 1/4 of US military dogs, and between half to 93% of dogs in UK kennels (though depends on time of day). These behaviours can damage physical health and are as such welfare issues. However they also may indicate poor underlying welfare, depending on motivation. Carrying out a stereotypy or repetitive behaviour can temporarily relieve feelings of stress so actually help an animal cope. In some cases the behaviour has been inadvertently rewarded.
Measures of positive well-being can also be considered - grooming, relaxed postures and play behaviours can indicate absence of poor welfare and presence of good welfare (Held and Spinka 2011). High levels of play between dog and owner may be indicative of a successful dog-owner relationship (Rooney and Bradshaw 2003). However the tendency for dogs to continue play into adulthood and enjoy interspecific play with humans raises the question whether it may have been selected for during domestication and so be a behavioural need, rather than 'luxury' behaviour.
New technologies to assess welfare include physiological measures such as cortisol measured from hair, fMRI scanning etc. Using cognitive measures such as cognitive bias are also proving useful. Preference testing and economic demand experiments can indicate relative value of a resource and how hard an animal work to gain or avoid something respectively, and therefore tell us what we need to provide dogs with and how to look after them.
Now we understand more about the cognitive abilities of dogs and how we may have underestimated this in the past, it may also change our ideas about welfare. For example, if dogs are able to pick up on routines and patterns this might reduce frustration in some situations, for example if there is a different routine at the weekend than during the week. But on the other hand if they pick up on pain and distress in other dogs, for example at the vet, this might cause them to suffer more. .(This might indicate a capacity for empathy but further studies are needed to distinguish this from interest or arousal caused simply by the social stimulus of another).
In conclusion, we are still learning how to improve and maintain welfare for dogs. They are 'special' in domestic animals as their 'natural' environment and behavour is so closely interwoven with ours. We can further investigate preferred behaviour patterns within this environment though.
Balancing the relative importance of the 5 needs enshrined in the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and how these address the 3 approaches to welfare examined here: health, psychological wellbeing and natural behaviour - will involve some subjectivity. The diversity of the way we keep dogs makes it hard to disseminate and implement welfare standards for them. Rooney and Bradshaw ask whether 'the majority of owners are sufficiently knowledgeable to give their [dogs] a good standard of welfare' and call for findings from welfare science to be transmitted to those caring for dogs. Which is where veterinary, welfare and behaviour experts must play an exemplary role.
One important contributing factor to fear is the number of dogs that are inadequately or inappropriately 'socialised' and 'socially referenced' to people and other animals and environmental stimuli. Puppy farmed dogs with limited exposure to these in early weeks show higher levels of social and non-social fear than non puppy farmed dogs (McMillan et al. 2011).
Another factor is the lack of ability in humans to recognise and appropriately respond to signs of fear in dogs - through body language, facial expressions and other behaviour.
Punishment based training methods are another welfare concern, with evidence of its detrimental effects, including increased aggression, fear and anxiety. There is still a widespread assumption that pain and fear can be legitimately used in the training of dogs, and justified through outdated precepts of control through dominance rituals.
Problem behaviour may be entirely normal for the species and breed but problematic for humans, or abnormal for the species. The former can be addressed through channelling the dogs need to perform these behaviours in appropriate ways. The latter, such as repetitive behaviours, may indicate poor welfare leading to coping behaviours that are abnormal for an animal in good welfare.
The distinction may be arbitrary, as dogs may perform behaviours that may be abnormal for an animal in good welfare, due to natural reactions to unnatural or suboptimal environments.
In addition to the idea about the requirement of humans to assert dominance over dogs, there are other misconceptions surrounding diet - such as the need to deprive a dog of food for one day each week and that cereals should be excluded as 'unnatural' from the diet. There is evidence that dogs are natural omnivores and prefer to eat small, regular meals (Axelsson et al. 2013, Morris and Rogers 1989)
Our anthropomorphic perceptions of dogs may help "ultimaely enable people to benefit socially, emotionally and physically from their relationships with companion animals" (Serpell 2005), but it does mean we may not pay as much attention as we should to the 'umwelt' of the dog - the sensory world that they inhabit, which is not the same as humans.
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human qualities to animals. We can over-estimate or wrongly interprete the cognitive skills of dogs. It is unlikely that dogs experience self-conscious emotions such as guilt or pride (Lewis 2002), though many owners think they do.
Anthropocentrism is the interpretation of reality in terms of human values and experiences. Although human and dog sensory worlds overlap a lot, we don't have their sensitivity to smell or noise and therefore may not be aware of olfactory or noise influences on welfare.
Measuring dog welfare
Although health can be assessed by professionals, many owners don't recognise pain or be able to gauge quality of life in their dogs. It is impossible to ask the dog directly how it feels, though this is critical to welfare assessment. So scientists use physiological and behavioural proxy measures . Physiological indicator variables include heart rate, adrenaline and cortisol, while behavioural patterns indicating stress can be correlated with physiological measures of the same. Individual response to stress is very variable, and observation method and time of day can affect measures, so we still don't know which behaviours, if any, can reliably indicate underlying emotional state at population level.
Repetitive behaviours such as circling, pacing etc can occur in pet dogs but are common in kennelled dogs - researchs have recorded 1/4 of US military dogs, and between half to 93% of dogs in UK kennels (though depends on time of day). These behaviours can damage physical health and are as such welfare issues. However they also may indicate poor underlying welfare, depending on motivation. Carrying out a stereotypy or repetitive behaviour can temporarily relieve feelings of stress so actually help an animal cope. In some cases the behaviour has been inadvertently rewarded.
Measures of positive well-being can also be considered - grooming, relaxed postures and play behaviours can indicate absence of poor welfare and presence of good welfare (Held and Spinka 2011). High levels of play between dog and owner may be indicative of a successful dog-owner relationship (Rooney and Bradshaw 2003). However the tendency for dogs to continue play into adulthood and enjoy interspecific play with humans raises the question whether it may have been selected for during domestication and so be a behavioural need, rather than 'luxury' behaviour.
New technologies to assess welfare include physiological measures such as cortisol measured from hair, fMRI scanning etc. Using cognitive measures such as cognitive bias are also proving useful. Preference testing and economic demand experiments can indicate relative value of a resource and how hard an animal work to gain or avoid something respectively, and therefore tell us what we need to provide dogs with and how to look after them.
Now we understand more about the cognitive abilities of dogs and how we may have underestimated this in the past, it may also change our ideas about welfare. For example, if dogs are able to pick up on routines and patterns this might reduce frustration in some situations, for example if there is a different routine at the weekend than during the week. But on the other hand if they pick up on pain and distress in other dogs, for example at the vet, this might cause them to suffer more. .(This might indicate a capacity for empathy but further studies are needed to distinguish this from interest or arousal caused simply by the social stimulus of another).
In conclusion, we are still learning how to improve and maintain welfare for dogs. They are 'special' in domestic animals as their 'natural' environment and behavour is so closely interwoven with ours. We can further investigate preferred behaviour patterns within this environment though.
Balancing the relative importance of the 5 needs enshrined in the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and how these address the 3 approaches to welfare examined here: health, psychological wellbeing and natural behaviour - will involve some subjectivity. The diversity of the way we keep dogs makes it hard to disseminate and implement welfare standards for them. Rooney and Bradshaw ask whether 'the majority of owners are sufficiently knowledgeable to give their [dogs] a good standard of welfare' and call for findings from welfare science to be transmitted to those caring for dogs. Which is where veterinary, welfare and behaviour experts must play an exemplary role.
