Canine Science Forum 2010 rundown

I recently attended the 2nd Canine Science Forum, held last month in Vienna.  Apart from greatly enjoying my first time in that fabulous city, I found it very informative, and it provided lots of food for thought. Here I will provide a basic summary of the highlights.

The invited speakers all gave interesting talks. First up was David Parsons, who spoke about the decimation and re-introduction of the wolf population the US West.  There is probably not a chunk of wildlife conservation land in one place big enough to fully support a healthy wolf population, so a new plan has emerged.  There will be several wildlife conservation parks joined together by corridors of land, which will allow wolves to travel in relative safety throughout a broader territory. 

Simon Gadbois gave a talk about how natural behaviour is compromised when using invasive methods in Canid research.  I was giving a talk shortly thereafter, however, and I was so nervous that I couldn't really focus on his talk. Sorry Simon. I'm sure it was excellent.

Peter Savolainen gave further evidence to his hypothesis that dogs originated approximately 15,000 years ago, from a small population of wolves only in Southeast Asia. He has a huge database of dog DNA from all over the world, and the results all point to this hypothesis.

Pauleen Bennett stressed the importance of breeding dogs for temperament as well as beauty.  The average dog in the Western world has but one job: companionship.  Unlike in the past, when dogs were bred for particular behavioural traits that would lend themselves well to things like herding and hunting, dogs today are bred for the show ring without enough consideration for temperament. It is probably possible to have both, and many breeders do look for both. But, as a rule, the way we look at dog breeding should focus more on producing good pet dogs.

Daniel Mills explained a study in which vets in different parts of Europe were asked give a diagnosis of particular behavioural symptoms in dogs. Alarmingly, the diagnoses were not always the same between vets from different regions, and not always the same even between vets from the same region.  Furthermore, drugs designed to alter negative behaviours (e.g. anti-depressants) may or may not be effective, depending on the hormonal 'source' of the problem. That is, a dog with separation anxiety that constantly barks when the owner is away, may be barking at: a. frustration at not having access to the owner, b. anxiety at being left alone, c. anger that the owner is gone (less likely), among others. All of these have different sources within the brain, so figuring out the underlying psychological mechanism can help vets prescribe the right medication to help.

Juliane Kaminski told us all that it was not helpful to take the debate over why dogs can understand human pointing gestures so well, all the way back to nature vs. nurture. She also discussed a study that she did with dogs, to see if they would 'tell' their owner where an item of no interest to the dog was located.  This is based on studies of human infants.  When an adult is interested in locating a hidden item that s/he needs, but is not interesting to the baby (such as a stapler or credit card), the baby will point at the item to help the adult locate it. There is no obvious reward for the baby doing this, because the baby doesn't want the object, but they still do it. Dogs, however, do not. They are entirely selfish! Based on a previous study, however, if an item that is of interest to the dog is hidden, it's another story [1]. Then they will shift their gaze from the owner to the location of the item.

The public talk was given by John Bradshaw.  He discussed the fallacy of the domination theory in describing dog-human relationships and dog training. So there, Cesar Millan!

I will provide a summary of some of the interesting submitted talks at a later time. I think this blog post is long enough already.

Reference
1. Miklósi A., Polgárdi R., Topál J., Csányi V. 2000. Intentional behaviour in dog-human communication: an experimental analysis of "showing" behaviour in the dog. Animal Cognition. 3(3).