Canine cognition

The database of the National Technical Information Service—an agency of the U.S. Government—shows that as many as 70% of individuals [human beings] living in the United States have experienced at least one serious traumatic event during their lifetime. And according to investigators at Boston University School of Medicine 8% of those people who've experienced some form of trauma have developed PTSD as a result.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a database showing the percentage of dogs who’ve experienced trauma. But given the number of dogs abandoned or brought to shelters every year, plus the number injured in fights with other dogs, and the number who’ve been mistreated by their owners, or mishandled by their trainers, groomers or vet techs (it happens), not to mention those who’ve been struck by a car, gotten lost, were fought over during a divorce, etc, etc, etc, I would be very surprised if the figure wasn’t at least 70%. And I’d also be surprised if the number of dogs who’ve developed symptoms of PTSD wasn’t very close to the figure of 8% found in human beings

Since there are over 75 million pet dogs in America, this suggests the possibility that more than 6 million of them might have Canine PTSD.

The theoretical part, Part 1:
(if you don’t feel you need the “science”, skip these 70+ pages of annotated references, cites and quotes and go right on to Part 2: the practical application)
1) How did Systematic Desensitization (SD) get started and what’s happened to it in terms of research since those beginnings? How effective is it compared to “other” techniques? How is it done today in human fear, anxiety and phobia treatments?
2) How did Counterconditioning (CC) get started and what’s happened to it in terms of research since those beginnings? How effective is it compared to “other” techniques? How is it done today in human fear, anxiety and phobia treatments?
3) What is SD&CC, how did it get started and what’s happened to it in terms of research since those beginnings? How effective is it compared to “other” techniques? How is it done today in human fear, anxiety and phobia treatments?
4) What OTHER evidence based behavior change techniques are there that we could tap into and how effective are they compared to SD or CC?
5) What other aspects of behavior change have been investigated by science with what evidence, and how could they effect/help what we’re doing?

The practical application part, Part 2:
Showing how the product of all of the above can be transferred for use in so-called canine fear reduction/coping strategies. Lots of “new” (for many of us) ideas, steps-by-steps and demo-videos

What’s new in version 4.5?
Expanded the theoretical part to include annotated tie-ins to the following theories and effects, which are at work in many of the procedures, both old and “new”. These are theories which for the most part were conceived with/by direct observations of them in animals and/or hypothesised and tested with animals in lab situations before being entered into clinical trials:
✦ Evaluative Conditioning
✦ Secure Base Effect/Attachment Theory
✦ Social Referencing
✦ Self-Efficacy
✦ Internal vs External Locus of Control
✦ What the concept of Empowerment consists of, and how it can be implemented
✦ Orienting Response
✦ What is resilience, where did it come from and what does that have to do with fear?
✦ Adding a bit of neuroscience to Social (Cognitive) Learning
✦ Aversive Non-Reward and Frustration Theory and why these can be important to consider
✦ How one can combine Social Learning techniques and various other techniques in “the field”

I also completely reworked the practical exercises having to do with Reinforced Practice

A discussion of the important difference between Reward/Reinforcement and Treats (with a shout-out to Jennifer Arnold’s “All You Need is Love”)

Reworked the practical applications of upgrading Relationship with many games which are well known, but do not depend upon the dichotomy of right vs wrong , i.e. reinforcement vs punishment oriented performance.
Included a section on Resource Guarding and why Participant Modeling is NOT recommended for dogs exhibiting this towards their caretaker(s).

In the last two decades scientists have become more and more curious about the dog’s (Canis familiaris) seemingly innate ability to understand human cues. Historically this ability has been overlooked or dismissed in any non-primate species; dogs in particular were dismissed as an “‘artificial’ species.” (Mikolsi, Topal, & Csanyi, 2004) Then, just before the turn of the century, a trend in research began to emerge: dogs were showing ability near or above that of primates in human gaze driven studies. Following an initial study by Brian Hare, Josep Call and Michael Tomasello in 1998, researchers began to attempt to answer the questions: “How much do dogs understand about human cues?”, “What is responsible for the dog’s ability to do this (age, breed, training, domestication)”, and “If this is a learned ability, when do dogs learn this ability?”
Although researchers agree that the domestic dog has an uncanny ability to both interpret and utilize human-given cues, there continues to be debate regarding the origin of this ability. One school of thought posits that the ability to read human cues is a result of the dog’s domestication over thousands of years by humans. This is known as the “Domestication Hypothesis”. Others posit that this is not enough to explain the dog’s ability. This second group favors the “Two-Stage Hypothesis”. This hypothesis suggests that, along with domestication, dogs must have been given opportunities to enjoy positive interactions with humans, and their age and level of training must be taken into account and their lifelong experiences.
This review will cover research in the area of canine cognition from 1998 up to the present year, 2015. Generally each study reviewed was performed with the object choice task and human given cues. An object choice task is one in which an informant indicates the location of the hidden item to the subject (canid) by looking toward or pointing and looking toward one of two opaque containers (Hare & Tomasello, Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris) Use Human and Conspecific Social Cues to Locate Hidden Food, 1999). Scoring was done based on the number of times the dog followed human cues (such as pointing or gazing, or a combination of both) and correctly chose the baited object. Before trials, dogs underwent training (commonly referred to as “pretraining”) with the experimenters in order to learn that the objects placed before them held food (small treats used to reinforce the dogs’ correct behavior; commonly called “reinforcers”). Some studies, where applicable, also included temperament testing in the form of questionnaires filled out by their owners. Most studies done have focused on human-given cues (a point, a gaze, a physical marker or any combination or variation thereof). However, some studies have incorporated conspecifics (others of the same species) and tested dogs’ ability to follow their cues in order to find hidden food.

Human relationships with dogs extend into the deep past, just as they strongly endure in myriad forms in the present. New research in Siberia indicates that humans may have established relationships with wolves as early as 27,000 years ago, and this relationship blossomed into an undisputed case of domestication at least 14,700 years ago (Skoglund et al. 2015). Currently, most research indicates that wolves first joined human society when we were small hunter-gatherer bands around 14,000 years ago (Janssens et al. 2018). After millennia of living in close proximity to humans, a subset of wolves diverged from the larger gene pool as they were physically and cognitively changed by their growing relationships with humans. These became the ancestors of modern dogs. Given that the specific origins and benefits of this relationship are still poorly understood, scientists, as well as dog enthusiasts, continue to wonder how and why humans began sharing their lives with dogs in the first place. Researchers can use ethnographic data in eHRAF World Cultures to better understand how hunter-gatherers use and live with dogs. That being said, the environment, societies, and dog phenotypes have all changed dramatically since ancient times (for a complete description of the theoretical issues involved see Hayter 1994). The ecological relationships recent hunter-gatherers groups have had with dogs may shed light on the use and impact of dogs in ancient societies with similar environments. With this consideration in mind, let’s look at some examples of dog use in recent hunter-gatherer societies living in a few different environments. Exploring the utility of the human-dog relationship may help us understand why we first invited them into our lives.

I argue that the standard paradigm for understanding cognition - namely, that thoughts are representational, internal, and propositional - does not account for a large number of genuinely cognitive processes. Instead, if we adopt a more radical approach, one that treats cognition as a cooperative, dynamic, and interactive process, accounting for shared meaning making and embodied thought becomes much more plausible. To support this thesis, rather than turn to the debate as it has been ongoing among philosophers of mind pertaining solely to human thought, I examine our interactions with other animals, and thus, I take a more biological approach to how thought evolves and emerges. Chiefly, I look at the ways in which human-canine interaction 1. ought to count as producing genuinely cognitive phenomena that 2. cannot be properly explicated under a standard model of cognition, and 3. that these sorts of interactive and dynamic pairings between us and our dogs can serve as models for human minds, which I argue are much more shared and cooperative than competing accounts of cognition would have us believe.

Several studies have shown that domestic dogs respond to human social cues such as pointing. Some experiments have shown that pet dogs outperformed wolves in following a momentary distal point. These findings have lent support to the hypothesis that domestication is responsible for domestic dogs’ ability to utilize human gestures. Other studies demonstrating comparable performance in human-socialized wolves suggest this skill depends on experience with relevant human stimuli. However, domestic dogs lacking thorough exposure to humans are underrepresented in the comparative literature. The goal of this study was to evaluate pet and kennel-reared research domestic dogs on their ability to follow two types of point in an object-choice task. This study used young adult, intact male research dogs (n = 11) and a comparison group of pet dogs living in human homes (n = 9). We found that while pet dogs followed the momentary distal point above chance levels, research dogs did not. Both groups followed the simpler dynamic proximal point; however, pet dogs outperformed research dogs on this task. Our results indicate that ontogenetic experiences may influence a domestic dog's ability to use human gestures, highlighting the importance of testing different sub-populations of domestic dogs.

To prove that dominance does exist, Dr. Abrantes says, “It is absurd to argue that dominance does not exist when we have so many words to describe whatever it relates to.”

I’m not sure that’s a cogent or reasonable argument. After all, there are thousands or words to describe the concept of God or some form of deity. Does that stand as a rational, scientific argument that such deities exist?

I would argue that there is a recognizable form of social behavior, seen primarily in humans and (perhaps) primates, that may properly be described as dominance. It relates to the use of force, power, or some other form of influence to control the behaviors of group members that rank lower on the social scale. Schools, governments, and the military are top-down systems. However, there are many other systems—in humans on down—that don’t operate through dominance. And while we certainly see similar types of behaviors in canines and primates, the motivations for these behaviors may be quite different.

The digital game Dog's Life attempts, by means of its "Smellovision" feature, to communicate the alterity of canine perception. At the same time, it encourages players to identify with the game's protagonist: you 'are' Jake, digging up bones, marking territory and chasing chickens. In this essay I argue that Dog's Life effectively comprises an "anti-environment" of the sort described by McLuhan, which altercasts players as dogs and thereby prompts them to notice conventional, anthroponormative assumptions regarding the pre-eminence of human modes of perception. By insisting on an experience both of alterity and identity, the digital game medium here combats clichéd notions of animality and subjectivity, whilst requiring players to reconsider the complex and uneven nature of interspecific, interpersonal control.