In case you missed it, there was a debate tonight held at the creationist museum in Kentucky.
Bill Nye the Science Guy and a fellow named Ken Ham, who is the CEO of a company called “Answers in Genesis” ,duked out creationism this evening. During their back and fourth Ham mentioned this study:
Genome Sequencing Highlights the Dynamic Early History of Dogs
Adam H. Freedman,Ilan Gronau,Rena M. Schweizer,Diego Ortega-Del Vecchyo,Eunjung Han,Pedro M. Silva,Marco Galaverni,Zhenxin Fan,Peter Marx,Belen Lorente-Galdos,Holly Beale,Oscar Ramirez,Farhad Hormozdiari,Can Alkan,Carles Vilà,Kevin Squire,Eli Geffen,Josip Kusak,Adam R. Boyko,Heidi G. Parker,Clarence Lee,Vasisht Tadigotla,Adam Siepel,Carlos D. Bustamante,Timothy T. Harkins,Stanley F. Nelson,Elaine A. Ostrander,Tomas Marques-Bonet,Robert K. Wayne ,John Novembre
Published: January 16, 2014 in PLoS Genetics DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1004016
Ham used this study as evidence of the great flood, and dogs arising from a few ancestors that made it onto the ark. Nevermind that Freedman and co. say that “We narrow the plausible range for the date of initial dog domestication to an interval spanning 11–16 thousand years ago, predating the rise of agriculture.” right there in their abstract. According to Ham, the “great flood” occurred approximately 4,000 years ago. That’s, at a minimum, 7,000 years off from Freedman et al. (2104) So, I’m curious why he cited this article for the debate? Clearly, the evidence here supports that dog domestication came many years before the ark and that they came from wolves.
Oddly enough, Ham also speculated that dogs aren’t typically included as evidence for evolution, but Darwin himself speculated that dog breeding demonstrated how natural selection could work, labeling it “artificial selection”:
“Even in the case of the breeds of the domestic dog throughout the world, which I admit are descended from several wild species, it cannot be doubted that there has been an immense amount of inherited variation; for who will believe that animals closely resembling the Italian greyhound, the bloodhound, the bull-dog, pug-dog, or Blenheim spaniel, etc.–so unlike all wild Canidae–ever existed in a state of nature? It has often been loosely said that all our races of dogs have been produced by the crossing of a few aboriginal species; but by crossing we can only get forms in some degree intermediate between their parents; and if we account for our several domestic races by this process, we must admit the former existence of the most extreme forms, as the Italian greyhound, bloodhound, bull-dog, etc., in the wild state. Moreover, the possibility of making distinct races by crossing has been greatly exaggerated. Many cases are on record showing that a race may be modified by occasional crosses if aided by the careful selection of the individuals which present the desired character; but to obtain a race intermediate between two quite distinct races would be very difficult. Sir J. Sebright expressly experimented with this object and failed. The offspring from the first cross between two pure breeds is tolerably and sometimes (as I have found with pigeons) quite uniform in character, and every thing seems simple enough; but when these mongrels are crossed one with another for several generations, hardly two of them are alike, and then the difficulty of the task becomes manifest.”
-Charles Darwin on “The Origin of Species”
So, Ham took, what is a common argument for evolution by natural selection, and bastardized it for his own purposes.
Anyway, I am sure the Freedman et al. (2014) crowd need a beer after seeing their work used for ill. While this is an example of the bad things that can happen when we democratize science, I hope that others do what I did, and go read the original study. Because this research is open-source, anyone can go read it and discover that the study is some of the worst evidence for the great flood.
/done with soapbox Go Bill Nye!
Horowitz, A. (2009) Disambiguating the “guilty look”: Salient prompts to a familiar dog behavior. Behavioural Processes. (81)447-452.
About the Author
Alexandra Horowitz is an assistant professor of psychology at Barnard College. She wrote the book Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know. http://www.columbia.edu/~ah2240/
Summary
Anthropomorphism occurs when we, dog owners, ascribe human emotions to our dogs. Most of the time anthropomorphism isn’t a big deal; we assume our dogs are feeling pain, fear, or happiness. Basic emotions, like the ones mentioned previously, are called primary emotions and there is scientific evidence that dogs experience them. More complex emotions, such as jealousy, guilt, and pride are considered secondary emotions, experienced by few animals. Animal caretakers, however, report observing secondary emotions in their charges despite the lack of scientific evidence. In this study, the author tests the claim that dogs feel guilty when they have broken a rule. Many dog owners report their dogs “look guilty” when they come home and the trash can has been knocked over, or the dog has had an accident in the house. Dr. Horowitz contends that scientifically evaluating guilt in dogs will have positive implications not only for understanding our dogs, but how we train them and fix behavior problems.
Dogs, and owners, were recruited from parks, via flyers, and the internet. All dogs were at least 6 months old, had lived with their owners for a minimum of 3 months, and were the only dogs in their households. No dogs were excluded based on their breed or gender. Out of the recruited dogs, only those that could sit-and-stay for 10 seconds while leaving a treat alone were used in the experiment, leaving 14 total.
The owners and dogs were tested in their homes. Owners were instructed to have their dogs sit, hold a treat in front of them, and tell the dog, “no”. Once the dog was reliably sitting and leaving the treat alone, the owner would set the treat on the floor out of reach of the dog and leave the room for 20 seconds. An experimenter would stay with the dog, and give it the treat or remove the treat so the dog could not eat it. The owners were instructed to scold the dog or greet the dog normally when the came back by the experimenter, regardless of the dog’s true behavior. Dogs underwent the procedure nine times each. The dogs were given treats and allowed to interact normally during some sessions, to reduce stress and “refresh” the dog.
Dog behavior was recorded with a video camera, and coded. Avoiding eye contact, laying down, rolling over onto their backs or sides, tucking the tail, holding ears and head down, low quick tail wagging, and moving away from the owner were classified as “guilty looking” behavior.
Actually eating the treat, or not, had no influence on the number of guilty looking behaviors the dogs displayed. Scolding by the owner produced more guilty behaviors than simply greeting the dog, especially if the dog had not actually eaten the treat. Dogs that had participated in obedience classes in the past exhibited more guilty behaviors when scolded than dogs that hadn’t had a class. Dogs did not show more, or less, guilty behavior over the course of the experiment.
The author had some concerns that by having the experimenters give the dogs the forbidden treat, the dogs would not recognize eating the treat as disobedience. So, the experiment was altered and repeated with some of the dogs. Instead of having the experimenter give them the treat, they waited until the dog ate the treat on their own, and truly disobeyed. In these trails the results were the same; the dogs exhibited more guilty looking behavior if they were scolded. Their disobedience still didn’t matter.
The author concludes by suggesting more detailed studies that include information about scolding habits, breed, and previous history of each dog.
What Becky Thinks
One of my professors told me, “Science is the painful elucidation of the obvious.” For many dog training professionals, that’s exactly what this study is. Many of us already had a hunch that the “guilty look” was a response to our behavior rather than true guilt.
Projecting human emotions on to our pets, especially in cases like this, does more harm than good. One study that was cited in the discussion section of this article described dogs that, “looked guilty” when any mess was on the floor, regardless of what caused the mess. If we scold our dogs after the crime has been committed, or we assume they committed the crime out of circumstance when they actually didn’t, we effectively teach them that messes=scolding. So, they associate any mess with, you the owner, getting angry.
One thing that struck me in this article, and the author doesn’t elaborate much on it, is that the dogs displayed significantly more “guilty” looking behavior when they hadn’t broken any rules. I don’t have a hypothesis about why this could be. Superficially, it seems like this is evidence that the dogs in the study did know that taking the treat was wrong in some way. As humans, don’t we get more upset when we are wrongly accused of a misdeed? That kind of thinking, however, is anthropomorphic, and it’s exactly what the study suggests we should avoid.
Alexander, M. Friend, T. and Haug, L. (2011) Obedience training effects on search dog performance. Applied Animal Behavior Science. (132)152-159.
Information on Micheal Alexander could not be readily located, making me think that he was probably a student of Ted Friend, PhD. Information on Dr. Friend can be found here. http://animalscience.tamu.edu/facultystaff/faculty/friend.htm
Summary
Conventional wisdom surrounding search and rescue (SAR) dog training says that less is more. Some trainers believe that too much obedience training leads to a lack of independence from the SAR dog. This is problematic because a good SAR dog should stay on the scent of a lost person even if their owner calls them back. On the other hand, SAR dogs are expected to be obedient for safety, and publicity, reasons. This study evaluated the training methods and the performance of 177 SAR dogs using a questionnaire completed by their handlers. Handlers were solicited through the National Search Dog Association, and could answer the questionnaire even If their dog was not nationally certified. The authors were interested in two things 1) Does waiting to obedience, and agility, train SAR dogs until their older and larger mean that they are punished more and 2) Do training methods, in fact, have an influence on how successful SAR dogs are at their work?
Handlers were asked about their background, their training methods, and the equipment they used. Training methods were divided into positive reinforcement techniques, or compulsory techniques. Examples of positive reinforcement techniques are clicker training, toy rewards, treats, and luring a dog into preforming the correct behavior rather than forcing it. Compulsory techniques include physically forcing the dog to perform the correct behavior and physical discomfort, typically pain, caused by specialized collars or the handler. Equipment used by handlers was classified as active or passive. Active equipment was defined as any item that caused discomfort to the dog via mechanical action; prong collars, choke collars, shock collars, and head halters. Passive equipment included items that caused little discomfort and were limited in the types of forces they could exert on the dog; collars, harnesses, verbal commands, or leashes. It is my personal interpretation that the active equipment is designed to cause discomfort while passive equipment may only accidentally cause discomfort.
Based on the survey results, the authors found that most of the handlers that responded to the survey were women (68%), and that women preferred positive reinforcement techniques over men. Almost 50% of the SAR dogs were either German Shepherds or Labrador Retrievers. Only 14% of handlers using equipment on puppies (dogs less than 4 months old) preferred active, or punishing, types of equipment. This number jumped to 37% of trainers when the dog is between 4 months-1 year old. 49% of trainers using equipment used active equipment if the dog was over 1 year old. The authors speculated that dogs trained when they were older would be more likely to be subject to compulsory techniques, and their data supported that. Luckily, most trainers began obedience training their dogs before they were 12 weeks (3 months) old.
95 of the handlers surveyed indicated that their dog was nationally certified, and 72% of them preferred positive reinforcement techniques. 80% of nationally certified handlers and dogs reported spending more than 4 hours per week training their dogs, while only 49% of non-certified dogs did. This lends support to the second question the authors wanted to answer: are positive reinforcement techniques better? While they didn’t find definitive proof, they did show that the most successful trainers prefer to use positive reinforcement techniques, and they like to train more hours.
The authors concluded that there was some evidence for both of their hypotheses. They made particular mention of the use of punishment on SAR dogs. As previously stated, SAR dogs need to disobey their handlers if they are on a good scent. Punishment of disobedience in SAR dogs probably makes them less likely to stay on a scent when they are given an opposing command such as, “come here” by their handler. Positive reinforcement techniques use rewards to keep dogs on scent. During obedience training appropriate behaviors are reinforced and inappropriate behaviors are ignored or gently corrected. A dog that chooses to stay on a scent when it is called does not fear punishment. The study could not answer, however, the question of obedience training in general interfering with SAR performance. The authors went out of their way to mention that this is an important topic for future study.
What Becky Thinks…
I was more interested in the questions this study couldn’t answer than the questions it could. Does more obedience training negatively impact SAR dog performance? It is popular wisdom that the more obedience training a SAR dog has, they less independent it is while searching. It seems to me, that if finding lost people is more reinforcing than following obedience commands, the dog should tend to ignore the handler the closer it is to the lost person. Meaning that playing with their favorite toy should be more motivating than coming back to their handler for a pat on the head and a trip home. This would only work, as the authors point out, if the dog is not punished for disobedient behavior.
I didn’t mention it before, but the author’s mentioned that military and police dogs tend to be trained by men while volunteer SAR handlers tend to be women. On top of that, they found that women were more likely to report positive reinforcement training techniques. I don’t have any good hypothesis about why this is. Anecdotally, I think women are better at reinforcing their dogs using their voices. Not too many macho men want to bend down to their dog and squeal in a high pitch voice every time it sits, “Oh what a gooooooooood boy you are! What a smart puppy, yessssssss. Goooooood dog!” Not to say men are bad dog positive reinforcement trainers; there are lots of great ones! Perhaps the men that train SAR dogs tend to be cops or veterans. If they learn to train dogs in the military or police force, they might simply have had different teachers than you average SAR woman handler. Who knows?
All in all, cool paper. It would be nice to see more experimental evidence rather than a questionnaire. Even so, it is refreshing to see some interest in these kinds of practical training topics.
Bradshaw, J. Blackwell, E. Casey, R. 2009. Dominance in domestic dogs- useful construct or bad habit? Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research. (4)135-144
The lead author on this article is John Bradshaw, PhD. He is a visiting fellow in the department of clinical veterinary science at the University of Bristol. More information on Dr. Bradshaw can be found here (http://www.bris.ac.uk/vetscience/people/john-w-bradshaw/overview.html).
Before diving into this article I need to clarify its title. A construct, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is,
“1: something constructed by the mind: as
a : a theoretical entity <the deductive study of abstract constructs — D. J. Boorstin>
b : a working hypothesis or concept <the unconscious was a construct that came from the daily effort to understand patients>”.
Dominance is a construct. It isn’t a real thing; it’s an idea (hypothesis) used to help us understand the world around us. The authors say that because it is a construct we should be very careful about the use of the word. Dominant should be used to describe the relationship between two individuals, not the individual itself. They note that this is now widely the case in scientific literature, but not among dog trainers. When we, as dog owners and trainers, describe a dog as dominant we tend to mean that dominance is a permanent character trait, and that the dog will attempt to become the “alpha” of its surrogate pack, given the chance. Calling on three lines of evidence: wolf behavior, feral dog behavior, and domestic dog behavior; the authors argue that dominant dogs don’t exist in the way we think they do.
Wolf Behavior
The author’s reviewed a wide range of studies on wolf behavior, specifically social structure of wolf packs. Many studies of wolf behavior were originally conducted on captive, non-related, wolves. In the wild, wolf packs are typically composed of a breeding pair and their offspring (all related individuals). When their offspring reach maturity, they have the option of leaving their pack and starting a family of their own. In captivity, that can’t happen, leading to increased instances of aggression and strife among pack members. Researchers, at the time, thought wolves fought regularly, and that it was a product of a strict dominance hierarchy with members constantly battling to increase their status. Newer studies, especially on wild wolves, have found little evidence to support this. In one study they reviewed, evidence for the existence of dominance hierarchies in wolf packs was found, but status was not correlated with aggressive behavior. This means that the more dominant wolves weren’t the most likely to display aggressive behaviors, and that dominance is a poor explanation for aggressive behavior in wolves. The author’s conclusions were that few fights over status occur naturally in wolf packs; however, status does play a role with regard to breeding and feeding.
Feral Dogs
The authors concluded that feral dogs would serve as a better model for domestic dog social interactions than wolves because they are the same species as domestic dogs. Feral dogs do not show intense cooperative behavior while raising puppies or acquiring food. They do, however, form loose pack-like associations and defend small patches of territory. In feral dog packs, females mate with multiple males every day during estrus, and do not fight with other females over breeding rights. So, it is important to note that wolf behavior is actually quite different from dog behavior in some major aspects, and they are not good models of dog behavior when compared to feral dogs.
Domestic Dogs
In order to evaluate dominance hierarchies in domestic dogs, the authors did their own study that included 19 male, neutered, dogs living at a rescue. They observed these dogs interacting in a .28 acre pen. Dogs were scored as “confident” or “submissive” based on their behavior when interacting with others dogs. These scores are called David’s Scores of Dominance. Age, size, length of time at the facility did not predict how confident or submissive any particular dog would be, but the three largest dogs all had high confidence scores. Next, the authors attempted to construct a diagram of the “pack hierarchy”.
Each set of the letters represent a single dog. Positive David’s scores are confident and negative scores are submissive and displayed on the Y axis. Solid arrows point from a dominant dog to a submissive one. Dotted arrows indicate a relationship between the two dogs took place, but dominance could not be established. Dogs that have no arrows between them did not interact enough to make any statement about their relationship. Many of the 19 dogs did not interact enough to make it on the diagram.
The authors concluded that relationships among dogs in a group are fluid and complex, with confident and submissive dogs, but no clear “alpha”.
RHP(Resource Holding Potential)
One alternative explanation for dog aggression is resource holding potential. The author’s explain that this is a predictive model that takes into account how important a particular resource is to an individual, and how likely that individual is to win a fight. For example, a dog may become aggressive while guarding its food bowl, but not its toys because it values its food dish more. They conclude that this hypothesis has some merits, but can’t explain certain aspects of dog behavior. As many dog owners can attest, size does not predict how likely a dog is to fight over resources such as food and toys. RHP is heavily reliant on animal size as a predictor of fights (competition) occurring. The authors also point out that dog relationships, say at the rescue mentioned previously, are often based on the initial encounters each dog has with one another over resources that aren’t especially valuable to either dog. Two dogs that don’t know each other may try to retrieve the same toy. Whichever dog happens to show signs of escalating a fight, wins; and the loser dog tends to keep losing to that dog because it would rather not escalate the situation into a fight. So, if the dogs are separated and rejoined as a group those initial encounters over invaluable resources may change each time they meet, thereby altering the structure of the group each time they meat. Over time, these encounters can lead to stable relationships among individual dogs that can’t be predicted with a RHP model.
Conclusion
The authors conclude that associative learning offers a better explanation of dog behavior in social contexts, and that pet dogs probably do not fight for “alpha” status in the pack, because it does not truly exist. A dog may be attacked at a dog park while attempting to play with a big, brown, dog. From then on it may have great anxiety when meeting other brown dogs and appear defensive, increasing the overall likelihood a fight will occur. The authors believe the same explanation is likely true for dogs that are aggressive with their owners. A dog may avoid the owner when they know they are about to be punished, if the dog growls or snaps at its owner, and the owner backs up; they have just learned that aggression prevents punishment. This kind of explanation, based on learning theory, tells us why aggressive behavior persists and what exactly maintaining it. In the previous case, it was avoiding punishment and the owner backing up. Simply saying the dog is dominant, and therefore refuses to punished or pushed around in any way, does nothing to help owners fix the behavior.
What Becky Thinks
After reading this article, and summarizing it three times, I let it sink in. In high school, without reading about it, I would put our family dog in an alpha roll because I thought that’s how wolf packs worked. I assumed that dogs were so closely related to wolves that using a wolf-style punishment would make more sense to her. Luckily, this was a pretty well behaved dog and the alpha rolls didn’t have any significant damaging effects on her behavior. For some dogs, the alpha roll is probably on par with a rolled up newspaper. For others, it may be an utterly terrifying experience. For those of you who are unfamiliar with an alpha roll; it’s a technique of punishment where you force the dog into a submissive position and hold it there until it’s calm. After reading this article, I rethought my use of the alpha-roll in high school. I think it is likely that the alpha-roll is a punishment like any other: squirting with water, spanking, loud noises, etc. The reason the alpha-roll works is because it’s unpleasant, like all punishment, not because I’m exerting dominance over the dog in a way it truly understands. It just plain sucks to get flipped on your back and held down until you stop squirming.
After reading this article I started trying to predict which dog out of the four I interact with most (Rocket, Karma, Kyron, and River) would behave as an “alpha”. I thought, “Hey, I’ve been watching dogs for years. I should be able to identify the alpha out of these dogs that I know well if dominance theory is correct.” Nope. Karma, who routinely attacked Rocket when they first met, can’t take a toy from her. Rocket, however, can take toys from Karma, but Karma can keep treats from Rocket. Both Karma and Rocket keep Kyron out of their space, but I’ve seen him defend his space from much larger dogs. River does not fight with Rocket or Karma, and lets them take his toys. I observed today that River growled once at Rocket and kept his toy, even though he lets her have them most of the time. So, there was an exception to the rule. I realized that out of these four dogs there was no clear dominant dog at all. Karma is the most likely to behave aggressively, but she doesn’t show any clear pattern of dominance, except over Kyron.
I think the authors are correct that associative learning is a better explanation for aggressive dog behavior. Karma probably stopped attacking Rocket because a) Rocket stayed in space despite the aggression and b) because she had lots of interactions with Rocket where nothing bad happened. So, Karma learned that her aggressive behavior didn’t work and that Rocket wasn’t associated with anything bad happening. It took a long time, but learning did occur and Karma rarely even growls at Rocket.
Rocket and Karma both growl, and sometimes snap, at Kyron. When Kyron first met them he constantly attempted to mount them, and we would have to pry him off. Now, they have learned to initiate aggressive behavior with Kyron very quickly, avoiding the whole “He’s going to mount me, and I don’t like it!” problem. Which is too bad; Kyron has since learned that mounting only results in heartbreak, and would happily play with them instead.
In regard to people, I think the authors are also correct. If a dog growls at you when you come near its food; it’s probably just defending its food. There’s no diabolical plot to become the “alpha” of the household, and the pup has likely learned that growling, or biting, is a good way to make you back up. The dog has no idea you are there to fill its water dish, and that you don’t care about its food. If you live with a dog, you probably have a few members of your household that can go near the dog’s food and others that can’t. It may be that your children can man-handle the dog, walk it, and dress it doll clothes, but they can’t touch it while it eats. This same story can occur with toys, the bed, a certain person, or another dog.
The take home message is that labeling a dog as dominant doesn’t help anyone change the dog’s behavior, and likely an inappropriate label because traditional “alpha” dogs don’t exist. Figuring out what is reinforcing bad behavior will definitely help, and strange dominance exercises like the alpha-roll are unnecessary. Beware of any trainer who tells you that you that you should strive to dominate your dog. Discounting a medical problem, or extreme learned/genetic aggression; pretty much all behavior problems can be fixed by understanding how your dog learns and learning how to train dogs yourself. Opinions about dog behavior are like…well you know the rest. There are many merits to conventional wisdom concerning dog training and behavior, but we should always be open to new science and new ways of thinking. Even if you don’t agree with a word I’ve said, it should at least provoke some thoughts about wolf and dog behavior. Dogs are occupying new roles in society, and now more than ever we have the tools to better understand them. As Bob Dylan said, “The times are a’ changin’”.
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