animal welfare Archives

Why animal behavior studies matter

08•08•16

Have you ever had an MRI?

The sights, sounds, and that uncomfortable feeling of lying still in a noisy chamber…

Shudder.

Greg Berns, a scientist at Emory, trained dogs—all future assistance dogs under a year old—to withstand the stress of an MRI machine. He then used the fMRI to map dogs’ brain activities when exposed to dog and human smells.

In Budapest, another scientist did the same thing: trained dogs to withstand 10 minutes in an MRI machine while listening to 200 different human and dog sounds.

The Emory study found that the dogs’ owners’ aroma actually sparked the “reward center” of their brains. Dogs’ brains showed that they prioritized the whiff of their people over anything or anyone else.

In the Budapest study, researchers isolated the part of the dogs’ brain that registered sounds and found that it works exactly like ours (called “the voice area”), which was only discovered in humans in the 1990s.

Other studies conducted at Yale, MIT, and Duke indicate that the emotional centers of dogs’ brains act identically to those of human toddlers.

So, why does this matter?

What does it really mean that dogs’ brains, their emotional centers, act like ours do when we see people we love? Why does it matter that they recognize happy vs sad intonations and act differently based on which they hear?

On the one hand, longtime dog owners scoff at all this research. Why spend a tremendous amount of time, money, and manpower to test something that dog owners already KNOW about the fur under their feet?

On the other hand, though, is the harsh reality of our animal culture. Even among animal lovers and dog owners, lots of people consider an “outside dog” no big deal… but no one would EVER have an “outside toddler.” Their brains process loneliness and loss and love the same way, so what’s the difference?

That right there is why animal studies matter.

A parent in Maryland letting her kid walk a mile to the park? Outrage and calls to Child Protective Service.

But outright, substantial abuse to animal? Often nothing.

Several years ago, a woman in a nearby county was reported by her neighbors for animal hoarding. There were no services in place to either help her or punish her, but 24 dogs were removed from her trailer home. She still got to keep more—around 6, though her neighbors said when she found out that an animal welfare organization was coming, she started ferrying dogs to a friend’s house. The plywood floors in her trailer were so urine-soaked that they squished underfoot.

I helped with those dogs. Their nails were so long, they curled under. They had rotten teeth and ear infections and fleas.

All but one of the dogs were able to be placed in shelters to await their fate.

The woman?

Nothing.

Not one thing happened to her because there weren’t really enough resources to do much of anything and… after all… they’re just dogs.

That is why animal behavior studies matter.

If we can get proof—hard data—to show the depth and intelligence and emotional capacities of dogs, then maybe… just maybe… the justice system can catch up, can use that data to actually prosecute in a meaningful way.

There’s more—so much more—about this topic… about how animal abusers usually use animals as their gateway victims before turning to human victims, so stiffer animal abuse punishments might actually prevent human abuse down the line…

About how researchers have redefined the timeline of human evolution based on a redefined timeline of canine evolution…

About how—if it weren’t for dogs becoming our hunting partners and dwelling protectors—we’d probably have evolved quite differently…

Animal behavior research matters.

If you think so, too, you can always enroll your dog in one of the many ongoing studies—just google “citizen science and dogs” to find possibilities. I recently completed this course (it’s free and fascinating)!

Or, if nothing else, give your dog a hug and a good, long walk. Science has proven that he loves you for it.

Pigs and bunnies and horses… oh, my!
A life-changing visit to Best Friends Animal Society: Day 1

05•23•16

There’s an easy way, and there’s a hard way.

The easy way slopes upward, but gradually and the rocks form a natural staircase.

The hard way follows the same path, but it’s a slick, steep rock with few toeholds. There’s a prickly bush that catches your pants and branches too thin to use for balance but thick enough and at just the right height to get you in the face.

We’re going to take the hard way.

Cyrus Mejia, co-founder of Best Friends Animal Society, says the easy way belongs to the rattlesnakes. Each time he hiked Turtle Canyon along the easy route, he encountered the snakes. So, one day, he hiked up and struck a deal with the rattlers: We’ll climb the hard way from here on out as long as you stay on your side, the easy side. The snakes agreed, and so he hikes the hard way… and hasn’t ever encountered a snake on that path.

Anywhere else, from anyone else, I might not have believed it. But Cyrus? I believed Cyrus.

There’s an easy way, and there’s a hard way.

“Save them all” is the hard way.

It’s hyperbolic. Grandiose. Save them all? Really?

Yes, really. If it can be done, Best Friends will do it.

I was elated when I received an invitation to spend a few days at the sanctuary on a sponsored media tour. To be honest, I didn’t read the details of the email; I just said YES! Even if I had read it–tours of Horse Haven and Piggy Paradise, puppy socialization class, a hike to Turtle Canyon with one of the sanctuary’s co-founders, and so much more–I still wouldn’t have believed just how much the experience exceeded every high expectation I had.

The first morning we–there were 6 of us–piled into cars to head to the sanctuary. The refrain was, “I am SO excited.” Everyone was gushing, which is unusual for a media tour when most people (not me… never me…) play it cool. As we passed the giant orange sign marking the entrance, tears filled my eyes (see? never cool).

This is the place that saved all those animals in Katrina and the place that saved the Vicktory dogs–and still cares for 6 of them. This is the place of Dogtown and The Champions. This is the place of Angels Rest.

We arrived, climbed in a tour bus, and rattled off to Horse Haven. As we stepped off the bus, two women called out. One led a miniature pony–Uncle Feather–and the other led an awkward, gangly foal. They yelled for us to stop, led the horses to a pasture, locked the gate, and called us over.

The foal, Little Prince, was four weeks old.

He had that morning been released from quarantine, and we were about to witness his very first moments of play, unrestrained and free.

The woman you see in the pasture is a trainer, and she kept saying that as much as she wanted to snuggle and pat and hug Prince, it wouldn’t help him learn to be an appropriate horse. Instead, she kept shooing him out of her “bubble” so he starts to learn boundaries. It was a common theme throughout the trip: The welfare of the animals factors above everything else, even your desire to snuggle a precious foal with a baby mane.

From there, to the potbellied pigs. I fell in love. They’re hilarious and smart and sweet. I gave a big boy named Jared a belly rub and swooned over the piglets squeaking away in their pen. I could’ve stayed all day, but we were whisked to goats where the cutest little goat tried to eat the zipper off my sweatshirt as I gave him a back massage.

Back on the bus and off to birds. The birds are worth their own post by someone who knows birds better than I, but my impressions: They are loud. And feisty. And also very funny. They’re brilliant; an African grey named Cody kept making fun of us with a fake-polite laugh. We clicker trained cockatiels to touch a target stick and rewarded them with millet. The exercise helps them get weighed without force.

But I feel for those birds. I can see how people get in over their heads thinking a bird will be an easy pet, and those birds were anything but easy. And the noise… My ears rang for an hour after! Their caretaker was fabulous. She loved and doted on them. She knew each bird individually, their quirks and personality traits. And she told us all about bird breeding, how it’s akin to puppy mills, and the problem–the crisis, she called it–is confounded by how long the birds live. We met a Mealy Amazon named Paco who was born in 1957. It was gut-wrenching to see the birds who, in their homes, had been so stressed that they plucked out all their own feathers, leaving their bodies looking like a plucked chicken while their vibrant, expressive plumes showed the bird they were before. One even sported a leather vest because he was addicted to self-mutilation. {To learn more}

We then went to the bunnies, which was the literal opposite of the birds: quiet, calm, peaceful. Their caretaker was adorable. When she talked for the bunnies–as we all do with our own pets–she had this adorable affectation. It was clear how much she adored the bunnies (and Guinea pigs) in her care. It illustrated so perfectly the ethos at Best Friends: every single life matters. By the way, the bunnies are also clicker trained!

At lunch–the sanctuary has a vegetarian cafeteria–we ate with a handful of the co-founders. I was thrilled to sit and chat with Gregory Castle about all sorts of things, but mostly reactive dogs.

Then, we met Cyrus for the most spectacular hike of my entire life. One of my new friends on the media tour made the point that none of our photos were turning out because they’re just not immersive. You can’t get the sense of being engulfed by 200-million-year-old rocks.

We climbed–the hard way–to the top of Turtle Canyon. We saw the remaining elements of a home of basket dwellers, people who pre-dated pottery. Protected by the elements in a small cave, the home structure, hearth, and cooking stones are entirely enact (as is Mormon graffiti from 1919). We saw petroglyphs carved in the walls: a shaman holding a snake, circles, waves, another snake.

We arrived at Angels Rest. I can’t do it justice. It’s beauty and magic. I cried. A lot. If we hadn’t been in a group on a tour, I would’ve sat on a bench and wept.

The hike down felt easy compared to the way up, but I was so emotionally drained after Angels Rest that it felt slower, too. At the bottom, exhausted, we climbed back into the cars. Covered in dust and filled with hope and love, we went back to the hotel for a rest before dinner.

And all that?

All that was before we met a single dog.

The “pit bull problem” isn’t a pit bull problem

02•23•16

It’s an all-dog problem.

Or, I should say, it’s a problem for all dogs.

Because what the “pit bull problem” really is, is a complete and utter misunderstanding of what dogs are and how they behave. (And how they should be treated, but that’s part of the what dogs are question, too.)

Did you guys see this?

Toronto’s pit bulls are almost gone. So why are there more dog bites than ever?

Honestly, this is what pit bull advocates have been shouting from the rooftops for forever, right?

Breed-specific legislation will never be the answer. Never ever.

Ever.

Here’s the thing: We are a dog-driven, dog-heavy, dog-saturated society. Even if you’re not a dog person, if you live here among the rest of us, you probably can’t go a day without seeing at least one dog. In your neighbor’s yard, walking past your office building, jogging in the park, on television, in advertisements, in statues and on greeting cards and on and on.

Dogs are everywhere.

That’s wonderful, of course, because they sure make life great.

But it’s also damaging (to dogs) because it’s all-too-easy for us to forget: Just because they’re part of human life around every twist and turn, they are a whole other species with a whole other set of needs, behaviors, and quirks.

Right? We can all agree to that, right? Dogs aren’t people.

So, here’s where the dog problem comes in: By forgetting that they’re a separate species, we (I’m using “we” generically, here, so please don’t take offense… I’m sure you’re a lovely dog person) treat them unfairly. We (again, generically) turn them into shelters because they bark too much or jump on our granny or–gasp–bite our children.

Our expectations–dogs are part and parcel of human life, so obviously they’ll know the rules we want them to know because obviously they’re dogs, duh–do not align with the reality of inviting another species into our homes.

Dogs languish in shelters, dogs lose their lives, dogs get sentenced to a life chained in the backyard because our expectations do not align with the reality of having another species woven into the fabric of our lives.

And that isn’t breed-specific.

I will not disagree with those of you who cry out that there are some dogs who do not belong with families, who are unsafe to be in our homes. Yes, there are some. They are oh-so-few, though, and many labeled as such (Lucas.) can be incredible family pets if treated, trained, fed, exercised, etc. correctly.

And that isn’t a breed-specific distinction, either.

Let’s set aside the emotion of breed-specific legislation for a sec, that intense, gut-wrenching pain of family dogs being taken from their homes or never even given a chance to have a home because of how they look.

Set that aside for just a sec.

Looking at it from a purely logical standpoint: Wouldn’t it make far more sense to focus on teaching people how to understand and how to train dogs? Wouldn’t it make far more sense to focus on behavior–of both dog and human–than outward appearance? Heck, we humans learn from the youngest age never to judge a book by a cover or a person by their skin, so how can we not apply that same logic to dogs?

It makes no rational sense.

I get that this is an oversimplification. I do. I get that it entails all sorts of things like how to actually deliver that education and how to overcome our culture of violence and how to (finally) link domestic abuse and animal abuse and, taking that even further, how to focus on rehabilitation not just a punitive approach (again, dogs and humans) and on and on.

I get it. It’s complicated.

But I also think we’ve so over-complicated some of the most basic issues with “the pit bull problem” that we’ve ignored the fundamental problem: a lack of understanding of dogs. Just dogs. Any breed.

Because, at the end of the day, we can all acknowledge that BSL doesn’t work. (And, by “we” I’m still generalizing because there’s a small subset of the population that refuses to acknowledge data and science over fear and emotion.)

So, let’s stop talking about breed, eh? (<— Canadian reference as a nod to the Toronto data!)

Let’s use our heads and start talking about the things that really matter, the things that will keep dogs happy and healthy in homes, the things that will decrease dog bites.

Because it sure isn’t a breed ban.

The cost of pet ownership: Should animal adoption be restricted by income?

06•29•15

It’s been a while since I climbed onto my soapbox, so lemme dust this thing off and climb on up here…

In 2013, I wrote a post asking should pet adoptions be free, and the discussion on the blog and on Facebook included varied opinions, but it seemed that the general consensus opposed my opinion that, yes, pet adoptions should sometimes be free.

Then, a year later, I wrote a post asking what should I feed my dog, and the discussion was largely in agreement that you just have to do the best you can do, anywhere on the spectrum of grocery store brands of kibble to a whole foods, organic, raw diet.

I find those opinions fascinating, and stick with me here, pretty please, because I’m going to circle around to that.

Over the weekend I volunteered for a mobile, low-cost vaccination clinic in our area. The idea is to take the mobile clinic to “resource deserts,” areas where pet owners can’t access veterinary care (if you rely on the city bus to get to and from work, you certainly can’t take your dog to and from the vet on the city bus) and to provide affordable basics. Anyone on government assistance qualifies for discounted services. This is basic stuff; we’re not talking blood chemistry or urinalysis, but rabies shots and nail trims. The 16-year-old cat in the pic above was getting her nails trimmed, her rabies shot, and the owner had some concerns about fleas that the vet discussed with her and provided some recommendations.

These are services that we–and by “we” I suppose I mean animal lovers–deem worthy. We understand the value of providing low-cost services to animals who need to be up-to-date on rabies. We attend fundraisers and donate our time to these services. But if anyone asks the question–“Should animal adopting be restricted by income?”–we recoil. That flies in the face of the American dream where anyone from any background can supposedly do and achieve anything, pet ownership not excluded. And yet…

And yet we judge.

It goes back to what Christie Keith over at Dogged said years ago: “There is almost always at least a hint of judgment that poor people will be bad pet owners in a myriad of other ways, too.” Like in the discussion about free adoptions, there was a resounding cry that people who can’t afford an adoption fee can’t afford to take care of their pet. Who defines the “take care of” standard? Is attending a low-cost clinic in your impoverished neighborhood to get the rabies shot not taking care of your pet? Yet, oddly, we’ve gotten into the cultural habit of sharing Buzzfeed photo roundups of how much the homeless love their animals, and we praise and cry over that, but we somehow judge the people in between socioeconomic strata.

Over the years, John and I have volunteered for similar clinics wherever we’ve lived, and we’ve seen the tremendous range of wealth disparity and pet ownership. I’d argue, too, that the range of love and dedication to pets has a wide gap that is completely unrestricted by income. There are lots of disadvantaged folks who love their pets and do every single thing they can for them (see: those Buzzfeed posts about the homeless and their pets), and there are lots of advantaged folks with dogs languishing, bored behind privacy fences.

So, how do you measure the cost of pet ownership? If you can’t afford or are unable to get your dog to the vet, does that mean you don’t deserve a dog? Does that mean that dog is better off stuck in the shelter waiting for a more affluent owner than with the person who doesn’t have transportation to affordable services?

I don’t think there’s one right or one wrong answer here, and I fully acknowledge that, yep, my heart bleeds. But I also think this is one pet-savvy, animal-loving, brilliant community, so I think the discussion is absolutely worth having–and if anyone can come up with some solid thoughts and ideas, I firmly believe it’s you guys. I’d love to know what your thoughts are on this cost of pet ownership issue.

Also, I’d strongly encourage everyone to spend an afternoon volunteering at a low-cost clinic. Most areas having something–check with your community shelter. It’s an eye-opening, humbling experience to see the depth of love that everyone at every socioeconomic level has for their pets.

So, there’s this bird…

04•10•15

I haven’t been able to get a picture of him on my slow cell phone – he’s a fast-fluttering little guy – but he’s a robin like this.

Actually, there’s a whole family (horde? flock?) of them, and they have apparently moved into/on our house. It started at roughly the same time that Lucas came home from surgery. This one robin kept slamming head-first into our front door. I was worried that the little bugger would crack his skull open on our doorstep, but then he started to spend more time sitting on the door handle. He just perched right there and looked in.

Then, he started tapping on the glass. He sat on the handle and pecked at the door. Tap, tap, tap.

It would’ve been funny, I guess, if it didn’t get the dogs so riled up. So, before Lucas came home and while Cooper was at doggy daycare, I took action:

Action.

Emmett and Newt parked themselves in front of the storm door, and the bird disappeared.

Then, we brought Lucas home. Fluid pooled around his incision, so he was on strict exercise restriction. I couldn’t leave the door open because Cooper would flip out, and we needed to keep Lucas still. Yet, our robin friend came back, and the bird kept at it. Tap, tap, tap.

Launching out of bed to bark his face off at a robin pecking at our front door was not an approved activity for Lucas.

Over the course of the next few days, I printed out peregrine falcon cutouts from the EPA site. At this point, another robin had started flying into our back window for hours at a time every morning. So, we stuck cutouts in the door and in the back window.

Surely – surely! – the impression of predators would stop this attack.

Nope. In both the side and the front, the robins started attacking the cutouts.

Plan B.

I moved Newt’s cat tree in front of the door.

It worked-ish. She sure liked being up there, but she wouldn’t stay all day. She’d wander off to do Cat Things, and our robin buddy would be back tap, tap, tapping at the glass as soon as she disappeared.

To say I was “annoyed” is like saying the ocean is kind of big.

The scene: Tap, tap, tap. Cooper launches up to bark. Lucas launches up to back up Cooper. I launch up to grab Lucas’ harness and try to settle him down. I sit back at my computer to start working again, and…

Tap, tap, tap.

Meanwhile, another robin showed up in our yard. There were several close calls when Coop would run out, and the little guy would be slow to flutter away. Just what we need. Attacks from all sides. Is my eye twitching?

John was looking out the window. “I think something’s wrong with that bird.”

“You mean other than bashing his face into our house all day long?”

“His leg is broken.”

We watched the little guy hop along the fence line, and sure enough, his little right leg is broken. He holds it tucked under him but doesn’t use it. He’s slower than the others, but he can still viciously attack our back window with the same force as the rest of them. In a weird way, I’m happy about that.

This morning, he was hanging by the screen by his one good leg, flapping his wings a bit to stay balanced, but he was doing it.

Sure, it’s annoying me to no end. But, at the same time, I can’t help but feel like this little guy showed up to… what? teach me something? tolerance? patience? Who knows. Either way, in an act of solidarity, I’m putting out a basket of Lucas’ fur because I’m sure this little guy (or gal – I can’t tell) could use a little boost toward collecting nest material. And, sure, it’s going to annoy me even more when all their little nests are built around the porch, and we can’t go in and out our front door without being attacked by all the mamas, but… I suppose that’s what garages are for.