Dog Behavior Blog

What Is Your Dog IQ?

Note from Con Slobodchikoff. This is a guest post from Rick Smith, who works with dogs and cats in Japan. He is ex U.S.Navy, has worked with marine mammals extensively, and has evaluated and trained a number of animals (mostly dogs and cats) in basic obedience as well as correcting a range of behavior problems including canine and feline aggression. He studied canine behavior on a serious level for about a decade and currently works with Japanese and Americans in Japan for both training and rescue work. He is passionate about responsible pet ownership and stresses that goal in all of his training. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Here is a little short test I always give to my prospective customers before I start training with their dog. I started doing this a few months ago and I have been amazed at the responses I get and the rationale behind the responses. My purpose is to try and get a feel for how they view their dog and dogs in general, and use it to "break the ice" and start talking about behavior before any actual training starts. It's been a real eye opener for me and I intend to expand on using it in other situations.

When I started training dogs I recognized early on that many times what I was observing and commenting to owners was not being seen by them, and usually the reasons for the difference in interpreting behaviors was the level of "anthropomorphizing” influencing the interpretation - and in many subtle canine behaviors there is no absolute interpretation since often a dog's body language is presented in clusters.

Many behaviors, such as prey instinct and prey drive have been clearly explained in the academic/research communities, but they "morph" into many other interpretations when explained by basic pet owners who don't research and study canine behavior, and often their interpretations are very deep rooted and resistant to change.

Petting is another common example, since 99% of "basic pet owners" see nothing wrong at all in giving nice little pats on the top of a dog's head when they first meet a dog. Since 99.9% of all pets will not clearly demonstrate a reaction that indicates they are not happy with that kind of handling, it's often hard to explain why I never recommend that form of petting during a first time encounter.

I am extremely safety conscious, especially with little children because I have seen the unnecessary trauma that can affect a child for a long time even though the dog did no physical harm to the child. In my experience, when little kids offer food to a new dog they almost always will quickly pull their hand back when the dog takes the food, and many dogs will quickly follow that movement and startle the child. To me it's just not worth taking even the smallest chance for that happening regardless of the odds it would happen at all. Especially when there are simple ways to ensure it doesn't happen, such as holding the child's hand so that although the CHILD thinks they are feeding the dog, YOU are actually doing it for them.

So I focus the test questions on common situations that will happen for all owners:

Dog Facts and Canine Behavior

1. How many teeth does a puppy(P) and an adult(A) dog have ?

a. P/28 A/42

b. P/28 A/28

c. P/42 A/42

2. What is the normal temperature(C) range for a healthy dog ?

a. 36.5---38

b. 38---39.2

c. 39.2---41

3. Trimming a dog with very long fur very short will make it more cool and comfortable during very hot weather

- True

- False

4. A dog's normal weight  for most dogs :

a. gains a little weight in the summer and loses a little in the winter

b. gains a little weight in the winter and loses a little weight in the summer

c. doesn’t change in normal weight from summer to winter

5. Puppies

a. should be taught to control their bite whenever they are biting

b. should be taught to never bite at all

c. should be taught to bite only toys but not humans

6. A dog's nose and his butt will do what?

a. his butt will go in the opposite direction that his nose goes

b. his butt will go in the same direction as his nose goes

c. the two movements (nose/butt) are not related to each other

7. Best way to meet a dog for the first time

a. Walk up slowly, bend down and extend your hand in front of the dog's nose. If the dog seems relaxed, gently pat it on the head a few times. But if it looks nervous, pull your hand back quickly.

b. Walk straight up and look at the dog's eyes closely to see if it is watching you. After a few seconds of watching, if it looks relaxed, you can start petting it.

c. Walk up and kneel down at a 45 degree angle to the dog's front. Don't look at the dog's eyes and wait until the dog moves closer to you before you touch it.

First time meeting situations....How the dog reacts. What does it mean ? What should you do ?

8. The dog looks at you and slowly opens its mouth wide and yawns. This dog is :

a. comfortable and relaxed....ok for you to pet

b. not comfortable and not relaxed.....not ok to pet

c. maybe a bit sleepy or tired....ok but don't bother it

9. The dog looks at you but doesn't turn its face so that mostly only the whites of its eyes are showing. This dog is :

a. a little shy but probably friendly.....talk to it nicely and offer your hand to it

b. scared....don't get closer and don't try to pet

c. not interested in you very much but probably friendly....either petting or no petting is ok

10. The dog is very friendly and starts licking your hand....what does it mean; what should you do :

a. it's happy....allow it to lick you as much as it wants to

b. probably happy but you can't be sure.....allow it to lick but be prepared to pull your hand away quickly if it starts to use its teeth

c. you just don't know......so, pull your hand away quickly and try to pet it instead of letting it lick you

-- answers (and reasons why I chose them)

1. a  (helps to educate and determine how much an owner has studied about dogs in general)

2. b  (good way to introduce the benefits of knowing how to read a thermometer when used on a dog)

3. False (educational, since dogs don't cool by sweating like people do, and in some cases shaving a long hair dog in the summer can lead to skin problems in certain breeds with sensitive skin)

4. b  (of course not an absolute, but helps people see the importance of weighing their dog on a regular basis to help monitor health and become more responsible pet owners)

5. a  (biting is a basic animal behavior; more benefits to control compared to attempting extinction, and in many cases bite control can be an effective play interaction and behavior reward (tugging) when taught correctly)

6.  c  (useful knowledge when luring is used to shape or create desired behaviors ...as opposed to yanking a lead up and pressing a butt down)

7.  c  (simply put, the SAFEST way, even though it may seem overcautious and probably not needed in all cases, and takes into account that all dogs may not want to meet all the people who want to meet them)

8.  b  (safety issue and good example that dogs often don't do things for the same reasons people do)

9.  b  (same as #8, but even more safety related)

10.  a (safer than tensing or making sudden movements that might startle or scare a small child or someone not accustomed to being around dogs)

Can The Shape Of A Dog’s Head Tell Us Anything About Trainability?

In 1994 Dr. Stanley Coren wrote a landmark book, The Intelligence of Dogs, where he sampled the opinions of a large number of obedience judges on the trainability of different breeds of dogs (see Dr. Coren’s blog post from June 10, 2009 on our blog here).  Dr. Coren identified the breeds that were most and those that were least trainable, and related this to the relative intelligence of the different dog breeds, at least as far as their general trainability went.

A recent article (Helton, W. F. 2009. Cephalic Index and Perceived Dog Trainability. Behavioural Processes 82:355-358) attempts to connect the shape of dogs’ heads to their trainability. By looking at the ratio of the width to the length of the skull (a cephalic index), dogs can be categorized as dolichocephalic (having a short skull width with respect to the length, as in Greyhounds), mesocephalic (having a medium width of the skull with respect to the length, as in Poodles), and brachycephalic (having a large skull width with respect to the length, as in Staffordshire Bull Terriers).

These groups of dogs differ in their morphological specializations. Dolichocephalic dogs are specialized for running, while brachycephalic dogs are more specialized for fighting.

Interestingly, the eye morphology of the two types of dogs differs. Brachycephalic dogs like the Staffordshire Bull Terrier have a lot of the retinal ganglions concentrated in a central area, like the human fovea, allowing them to focus better on single objects, such as other dogs they might need to fight. Dolichocephalic dogs like the Greyhound are like wolves in their retinal morphology. They have a visual streak of retinal ganglia, distributed like a line across the retina, allowing them to best see moving objects such as prey on the horizon rather than focus in detail on single objects. (for details, see McGreevy, P. et al. 2004. A strong correlation exists between the distribution of retinal ganglion cells and nose length in the dog. Brain, Behavior and Evolution 63: 13-22; DOI: 10.1159/000073756).

Curiously enough, the Helton article in Behavioural Processes finds that the breeds that are the most trainable are those that fit into the mesocephalic category, with neither a very long or a very short nose, and a skull width that is intermediate between narrow and wide. This includes breeds such as the Border Collie, Poodle, Labrador Retriever, and Golden Retriever.

What isn’t clear to me is why this should be so. The author of the article speculates that the mesocephalic brain shape represents a compromise between a brain adapted for running and a brain adapted for fighting. So, if this is true, then maybe the breeds in the other categories are so specialized that they don’t need to learn to do new things. They either run or they fight. But the dogs in the middle can’t run as fast and can’t fight as hard, so maybe they have to be more flexible in learning how to get by in the world.

And as long as I am speculating, let me take this a little bit further. If there really is a relationship between the shape of the skull and trainability, maybe we can use this as a way of predicting the trainability of mixed breeds.  When we look at shelter dogs of mixed parentage where it isn’t obvious which breed contributed the most to the genetic makeup of the dog, maybe we can get an idea of how easy the dog is going to be to train from the shape of the skull.

In my book, all dogs are wonderful. Some just require more work than others. If we can predict how much work might have to go into training a mixed-breed dog, maybe there won’t be as many dogs returned at shelters.

--Con Slobodchikoff

 

Dog Breeds And Genetic Relatedness

Although by now most people accept that dogs and wolves are closely related genetically, a question still remains about which breeds are most related to wolves and to other breeds.  A recent study published in Nature magazine (vonHoldt, B. M. et al. 2010, Genome-wide SNP and haplotype analyses reveal a rich history underlying dog domestication, Nature 464 (8 April 2010): 898-903 DOI: 10.1038/nature08837) has examined this question.

The  experimenters used a technique called Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms(SNPs) to study the genetic relationships among samples from 912 dogs representing 85 breeds, as well as samples from 225 grey wolves from 11 different geographic areas around the world.

I was surprised to see that wolves from the Middle East contributed a significant portion of genetic variation to most of the modern dog breeds.  Of the dog breeds that were examined, the Basenji had the highest genetic relatedness to Middle Eastern wolves.  Other breeds that were more closely related to wolves included the Akita, Chow Chow, Dingo, Shar-Pei, Alaskan Malamute, Siberian Husky, Afghan Hound, Saluki, American Eskimo, and Samoyed.

Breeds that had higher genetic relatedness with European wolves included Greyhounds, Whippets, Miniature Pinschers, and Staffordshire Bull Terriers.  The Akita and Chow Chow had higher relatedness with Chinese wolves, as might be expected.

Also as could be expected, Old World wolves had higher genetic relatedness to dog breeds than New World wolves, suggesting that domestication of dogs took place in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia, rather than in North America.

Some of the genetic relationships between the breeds surprised me. For example:

·         the Chihuahua was relatively closely related genetically to the Pomeranian and the American Eskimo,

·         the Papillon was relatively closely related to the Pug, Brussels Griffon, Shih-tzu, and Pekinese,

·         the Portugese Water Dog was relatively closely related to the German Shepherd,  Standard Schnauzer, Giant Schnauzer, and Doberman Pincher

·         the Newfoundland was closely related to the  Labrador, Flat-Coated Retriever and Golden Retriever,

·         the Rhodesian Ridgeback was relatively closely related to the Great Dane and Rottweiler. 

 

These relationships suggest that our conventional categories of dogs (e.g., Working Dogs, Herding Dogs, etc.) are groupings that we make for our convenience, rather than groupings that reflect the relatedness of the different breeds.

One thing, however, does not surprise me: We humans are pretty good at coming up with different breeds of dogs.

--Con Slobodchikoff