Why are some dogs better at paying attention to humans, particularly human gestures like pointing, than others? We know genetics has something to do with it, because some breeds (like border collies) are a lot better at responding to human signals than others like beagles. To better understand the biology driving differences in ability to respond to human signals, researchers at the Family Dog Project compared dogs and wolves as they grew up. They knew that wolves can respond to human signals, but that they are better at this when they have been extensively socialized, whereas dogs can understand human signals with much less socialization. But at what age do these differences manifest?

Image from the Family Dog Project

The researchers used a pointing test to measure ability to respond to human signals. This test has been used on dogs before: if a dog is given a choice of two bowls, only one of which contains food, and he can't see where the food is, will he follow a person's pointing gesture to pick the right bowl? (The bowl with no food in it is rubbed with food so the dogs can't use their noses to get the right answer.) This test has been done in the past with dogs versus human children (dogs do about the same as two year old kids on this task), dogs versus wolves (dogs generally outperform wolves, unless the wolves have a whole lot of experience with humans), and dogs versus chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives (dogs outperform chimps!).

For this study, the researchers compared hand-reared (i.e., well socialized) 8-week old dog and wolf puppies; 4 month old dog and wolf puppies; and adult dogs and wolves. They tested the animals' abilities both with "proximal" pointing (putting their finger right up to the bowl) and "distal" pointing (standing farther away and indicating the bowl) - except that, since very young puppies and wolves don't see well, they didn't test the distal pointing in the 8 week old babies. What they found:

• The 8 week old puppies (dogs and wolves) had similar ability to follow the proximal pointing gesture with the researcher's finger right next to the bowl. However, 6 of the 13 wolf puppies tested had to be removed from the trial because they couldn't be held on the start line or didn't go choose a bowl. Of the 9 puppies, only one was removed for similar reasons.
  
• 4 month old dogs did better at distal pointing (with the researcher standing away from the bowl and indicating it) than 4 month old wolves did. In fact, the 4 month old wolves seemed to do no better than chance.
  
• Adult dogs and wolves did equally well with both proximal and distal pointing.
  
• At all three ages, wolves needed more time to establish eye contact with the pointing human than dogs did.

So all the animals at all ages were able to understand a pointing gesture when the human put their hand right up to the bowl. But pointing from farther away was harder, as you'd expect. Very young puppies (dog and wolf) were not tested on that task. At four months, wolves hadn't figured it out yet, but dogs had. As adults, the wolves had caught up. These were highly socialized adult wolves with a great deal of experience with humans.

It's interesting that dogs seem to develop the ability to understand a more difficult human pointing gesture at a younger age than wolves - and particularly interesting that this may have to do with the fact that wolves are not as eager to look us in the eye as dogs are. (If you don't look at someone, it's hard to follow their pointing gesture!)

So what does this mean for differences in different dog breeds? Do different dog breeds have differences in the timing of their cognitive development? Does this affect how much attention they pay to us, and perhaps how easy they are to train? We don't know, but I think this is one direction dog research needs to go.

(By the way, check out the original paper - it's open access, and has some great videos of dog and wolf puppies at the end!)

Gácsi, Márta, et al. "Explaining dog wolf differences in utilizing human pointing gestures: selection for synergistic shifts in the development of some social skills." PLoS One 4.8 (2009): e6584.

This post was originally published with slight modifications at Darwin's Dogs.

The death of my fifteen year old golden retriever Jack wasn’t just about my loss. It was about finding someone else to do his job, which for the last five years had been serving as a security blanket for Jenny, my shy collie mix. Jenny depended on him to tell her when people did not intend to eat her, to run interference with well-meaning strangers, and to demonstrate calm at the veterinary clinic. We could not remain a single dog household for long.

Jack and Jenny

I adopted Jenny at age 13 months. She had never been off the farm where she was born until her surrender to a shelter, and the world proved much larger than she expected. Jenny has excellent dog skills but a crippling anxiety upon encountering new people or environments. I adopted her knowing about her idiosyncrasies because I wanted to study anxiety in dogs, and wanted to experience it first hand. And so I have; living with Jenny has informed my understanding of anxiety in a way that reading about it never could have.

In my research, studying the way genetics and environment interact to affect the risk of anxiety has brought me back time and again to the importance of early environment: in utero environment, early maternal care, and puppy socialization. How the brain changes during and after the socialization period turns out to be a huge part of my research interests, and to learn from the source as I had done with Jenny, I would need a puppy, and a very young one at that. I’ve only adopted adult dogs in the past, but now is an excellent time for me to raise a puppy, as I work from home many days.

A puppy who would grow up to fit in well with Jenny had to fit a specific mold: confident around people and other dogs, but not so pushy as to annoy her. Someone she could play with. Someone male, because I didn’t want to deal with girl dog politics for the next ten years.

Jenny

Now, I have counseled others that adopting a very young mixed breed puppy from a shelter or rescue group means you really have no idea at all who you have just brought home, and that there is no shame in purchasing a dog from a responsible breeder. However, in practice, I balked at purchasing a dog. I completed an intense shelter medicine internship at the University of Florida several years ago, and I still feel part of that community. As the distance between the present day and that experience increases, I find myself holding tighter to those connections and looking for new ways to remain a part of sheltering. Purchasing a dog who was not going to be in want of a home felt a bit like eating humanely raised meat: I tell myself it’s okay for others to do it, but when I actually try to do it myself, some part of me rebels.

Yet as I looked at puppies from local rescue groups, in short order I found myself in a panic: could I really adopt a puppy whose genetics were completely unknown, whose parents I most likely couldn’t meet, and who had almost certainly had some early life trauma before ending up in foster care? Genetics and early experience are both critical in shaping the adult personality, and while I hope I could handle dealing with another shy dog, Jenny needed someone dependable, not another neurotic failing to keep it together when the mailman drove past.

When I started to seriously consider purchasing a dog, I had to decide on a breed. I love retriever-collie mixes: ideally the best of both worlds, retriever-social and collie-smart. But finding a responsible breeder of retriever-collie mixes seemed a tall order. Border collies are too intense for me. Australian shepherds have their tails docked so short. And I wanted to find a breed that is not recognized by the AKC, that is absolutely not bred for looks, that possibly even has open stud books to keep the genetics pool large and diverse.

I found the Scotch Collie and the English Shepherd. The Scotch Collie club had an open stud book policy going for it (good for them!). The English Shepherd club had a closed stud book policy (open it up, guys!) but it had been open relatively recently, the breed isn’t recognized by the AKC, and the dogs can’t be shown in conformation classes. The breed is a versatile working breed. Both breeds have lovely breed standards that accept a wide range of phenotypes (for example, 30-80 lbs in adult weight - a wide range!), which in itself tells the story of breeding for temperament and not looks.

In the end, I chose the English Shepherd based on the fact that there are more of them around, so it was easier to find a litter promptly. Waiting a few months would mean potty training a puppy in January in the Midwest, an experience I’ll leave to others.

The English Shepherd club maintained a list of breeders who had available puppies, with lots of information about the parents. It’s a well designed resource, and I link to it not to encourage others to run out and get an ES puppy (they are smart and high energy and not for everyone) but to provide an example of what kinds of information should be provided about available litters.

I screened the descriptions of parents: I discarded those who weighed more than 70 lbs, as managing Jack in his dotage had been hard on my back. I discarded those who were described as “protective” or “taking some time to warm up to people.” I checked that the parents had passed the relevant genetic tests (for this breed, tests for several eye diseases and hip dysplasia). Then I looked at the remaining breeders’ websites.

The breeders I liked talked about how they raised the puppies: giving them lots of positive experiences. They talked about what they did with the puppies’ parents - agility, nosework, herding. They often had long applications for potential owners to fill out, which asked all the questions they should: How will you exercise this dog? Do you have a fenced yard? What will you do if he is destructive?

I found a litter in Virginia with a male who sounded perfect: confident, social, and by the way athletic. My husband and I stuffed Jenny into the car and drove 9.5 hours to pick up our boy. He cost, by the way, probably more than twice what a rescue puppy would have cost, but I have paid for knowing that he is clear of some genetic diseases for which he might have been at risk, and for knowing that he was in the uterus of a calm, happy mother; raised with a litter who had plenty of high quality food and safe places; and had extensive early socialization (including the Early Neurological Stimulation and Early Scent Stimulation programs). He has proven, in his first week and a half with us, to be social and sweet, willing to settle down when asked so long as he is given plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, and terrifyingly smart. He and Jenny are already wrestling for hours daily, laying the foundation for what I trust will be a long friendship.

That is the story of how we found Dashiell.

Dashiell

Stanley Coren, well known and respected author on dog cognition, recently published a blog post about dogs not enjoying hugs. Now that I have been asked to weigh in on his post by my father ("that can't be true!"), my lab mate ("Jessica will have some useful insights about this!"), and multiple dog park friends, I feel compelled to spread my wisdom across the internet for the benefit of all, whether they want it or not.

Source: The Data Says "Don't Hug the Dog!", Stanley Coren, Psychology Today

1. Does your dog enjoy being petted by you? Almost certainly.
2. Does your dog enjoy being grabbed and squeezed? Probably not.
3. Do any dogs enjoy being grabbed and squeezed? I am sure there are some. I know some dogs who enjoy all interactions with humans up to and including getting whacked up side the head (I live with one). But as a species generalization, I believe they mostly don't.
4. Should you hug random dogs when you meet them? Absolutely not. But you knew that already, right?
5. Should you hug your own dog? Sure. I do it to my dogs sometimes. Just be aware that you are doing it for your own enjoyment, not theirs. My dogs tolerate the occasional squoze. I tolerate being punched in the butt when I get home from work.
6. How can it be that dogs, who love us so much, don't enjoy hugs, which we enjoy so much? Well, note that primates really love pressing our tummies against each other, but canids don't (except when they are initiating sex or displaying poor manners). They display affection other ways: licking you in the face, sitting next to you, leaning on you. With someone who moves at the same pace they do, you sometimes see them walking or running shoulder to shoulder. I would love to hear from people about what they think their dogs do instead of hugging.
7. Was Coren's study a good study? It wasn't actually a study, and Coren didn't say it was; in his blog post, he refers to it as data. This data set was pretty interesting and it was nice of him to share it with us. It would be even nicer if someone did a study using similar approaches, but with a control group, maybe having the person scoring the dog body language blinded to the group the dog is in (editing out the human so you can't see the hug?), and published it in a peer reviewed journal. Oh, and while I'm asking, make it an open access journal, please.
8. Where can I learn more about dogs and hugs? In my mind the best resource is Dr. Patricia McConnell's coverage in her classic book, The Other End of the Leash. Which is a must-read for oh so many reasons.

Dog parks can be valuable ways to exercise and socialize your dog. They can also be dangerous places where dogs can get hurt. And so we ask ourselves: are dog parks a good thing or a bad thing? I argue that they are neither. Like retractable leashes, they are just a tool that can be used well or badly.

Park design

The design of a dog park can have a lot to do with how well it functions. I think the size of the park is incredibly important. At my local park, we have a lot of space. And I use this space with my dogs. If there is a group of dogs that my dogs aren’t getting along well with, and I see trouble brewing, I move on to a different part of the park. In a small park, this wouldn't be possible.

Jenny at my fabulous local park

My local park also has a smaller area, separately fenced. It’s a great place to take a smaller dog when the park is full of big dogs, or to take a dog who needs a cooling down period after he's been acting like a bully. I don’t use this space much with my dogs, but it’s extremely helpful for a friend of mine who’s trying to teach her six month old to restrain his enthusiasm around other dogs by giving him time outs when he fails to control himself appropriately.

Park timing

I don’t go to the park when it’s crowded. Of course, it’s crowded at the times that are the most convenient for the most people: late afternoon, weekends, when the weather is lovely. I go in the mornings during the week. I lead a lifestyle which makes that possible (though I have to push back at work to protect that time). If you can only go to the park when it’s crowded, it might not be worth going at all. Tempers run high when dogs are packed in together with no real room to get away.

Dog management

This is the important one for me: I am always alert and managing my dogs. I keep an eye on them. One of them can have a short temper with other dogs, and I keep her moving, away from groups. If I see her meeting another dog, I am watching closely for her to get tense, and if I don't think it's going well, I call her away before something goes wrong.

This kind of management is hard for a lot of owners who don’t understand dog body language well. For this reason, I’ve founded a group at my local park with the goal of (among other things) providing educational material at the park to help owners understand how to identify and avoid problems before they start. Not everyone will be interested in this material, and that’s why it’s also important to me to attend a large park during low occupancy times.

Stuff happens

My dogs have been attacked at the park. One of my dogs has also been attacked while I was walking him on leash on a sidewalk. And once he got away from me and was almost hit by a car. That’s life. Is it more dangerous at the park than on a leash on the sidewalk? Possibly, though I’d love to see evidence one way or the other. Is it more dangerous to a young dog to fail to get his crazies out on leash, and then be at risk of being surrendered by a frustrated owner? Again, I can’t say, but there are risks to any choices about how we manage our dogs.

At the park, there are no cars, no cats, no children, no bicycles, no terrifying joggers just begging to be bitten. One of my park friends walked her dog on leash until he bit a roller blader who passed too close. Without the park, she would be unable to exercise her dog safely. My shy dog Jenny has made canine and human friends at the park that she is unable to make in situations in which she's restrained. She has made incredible gains in confidence. That has come at a risk, but to me, with a lot of careful management of the dog park environment, at the right park, with these dogs, it’s worth it.

My Bark article, Testing the Tests, is now available on the web for free. I did a lot of background reading for this story and I learned a lot of interesting stuff about shelter behavioral assessments: how they're designed, how to evaluate whether they work, and new work that's going into improving them. Check it out!

I am staying in a rented room near the aquarium where I’m doing an externship this week, and my hostess’ dog likes to hump me. I’m trying to suss out all the intricacies of his reasoning.

Humping is generally seen as a dominance behavior in dogs: one dog does it to another dog to assert his dominance. (If he is mistaken, a fight might break out.) This dog is probably trying to assert his dominance over me. But my hostess tells me he has never tried to hump any other guests. Why not? (Maybe he felt secure in his relationship with them and didn’t have to try to prove himself. He’s a big dog and it’s possible they were scared of him.)

But she adds that he does try to hump her neighbor, a little old lady. So if he likes to hump people that he feels insecure about, why her? And, alarmingly, does he think I am as much of a pushover as a little old lady?

Dogs are weird. It’s always a little frustrating when I can’t quite suss one out: “why did I spend so much money on vet school if I still don’t know everything?”