For three years, scientist Chris Bugbee of Conservation CATalyst has been studying a jaguar named El Jefe, first with support from the University of Arizona and now from the Center for Biological Diversity. El Jefe is about seven years old and the only wild jaguar known to be in the United States. Most members of this species live further south, in Mexico and in other Latin American countries, but El Jefe has spent at least three years in the Santa Rita Mountains in southern Arizona. Jaguars are notoriously elusive, rarely seen and can have territories that cover hundreds of square miles, so the study of El Jefe represents a major success story. He’s not, however, the only animal associated with this study who is a success story.

The other one is a female Belgian Malinois named Mayke, who is a working detection dog. She has been trained to bark when she finds jaguar scat, which she can distinguish from the scat of other large cats. (Mayke is also trained to bark when she finds the scat of ocelot, another species of wild cat.)

Mayke was born to do scent work, coming from a program in Germany that has successfully bred many dogs for this purpose. Like her close relatives from the same lines, she has a great nose, can handle heat and is both trainable and intelligent. Even with that background, her first assignment was not a good match. She was originally placed as an explosives detection dog, but she couldn’t handle working around big trucks or gunfire. Those stresses upset her to the point that she was unable to perform the work she was trained to do, but she excels in the wide open, remote spaces where El Jefe lives, and where both dog and jaguar have been videotaped.

Detection dogs can be trained to find a huge range of things from explosives to drugs to people to invasive snails, so why was Mayke trained to find jaguar scat? The answer to that requires an understanding of how scientists view the excrement of their study animals. As a friend of mine who studied patas monkeys in Africa once said, “Most people think of poop as just poop. I think of poop as information.” (FYI, I paraphrased in order to maintain our PG rating.)

Scat is a major resource for people studying wild mammals, but it’s hard for people to find, especially when the animal in question is a jaguar and can travel 30 miles a day. Luckily, dogs are not held back, as people are, by pathetic noses and tiny olfactory lobes. A trained dog can sniff out scat, and therefore allow humans to learn so much more about an animal than would be possible on our own.

Thanks to Mayke and her trainer, biologist Chris Bugbee, it has been possible to map out El Jefe’s home range, learn what he’s eating, figure out a number of places where he likes to bed down during the day, and study his DNA. Mayke found the first genetically verified jaguar scat in the US, which is a big deal because the jaguar has not always been in this part of its historical range. It’s because of Mayke’s work that scientists have been able to place camera traps in places that El Jefe is likely to visit. The jaguar has been photographed and videotaped over a hundred times in the last three years. The understanding of El Jefe’s location and behavior, made possible by Mayke’s unique contribution to the project, have shown that El Jefe is a resident male who lives in Arizona.

According to Randy Serraglio, a conservation advocate with the Center For Biological Diversity who has studied jaguars for years, this is important because people and organizations who are reluctant to use any resources to protect him tend to refer to him as a “solitary wandering male”. That implies that he is just a vagrant temporarily lost and visiting the US. This is a nonsensical classification because males of this species are always solitary except briefly during mating. Females are also solitary except during mating and during the short period they have young with them.

Jaguars are native to Arizona. Both males and females were living and breeding in the area until people shot and poisoned them out, beginning in the early 1900s. The interest in El Jefe is helping to protect 764,000 acres of critical habitat in southern Arizona, and making it more likely that recovery efforts can re-establish a jaguar population in the area. The area is at risk of great damage to wildlife, water and the attractive landscape because of a proposed copper mine. There are many reasons to reject this environmentally damaging project, and El Jefe’s large territory is one of them.

With such a rare species, it’s important to keep as many potential breeding animals in the population as possible to maintain the genetic diversity. Previously, a male named Macho B who spent time in Arizona and was photographed there, returned to Mexico to breed, and it is likely that El Jefe is also a part of that same population.

Arizonans are quite attached to him already. That is especially true of the kids who named him. Children at Valencia Middle School in the Tucson area, whose mascot is the jaguar, picked his name. El Jefe (Spanish for “The Boss”) was the overwhelming choice in the vote among the five names that were finalists.

Perhaps the most important part of Mayke’s contribution to the study of El Jefe is that she enables scientists to learn about this jaguar in a non-invasive way. They are able to get an amazing amount of valuable data without bothering the cat. This matters for any species, but it’s especially critical when working with rare animals. Sadly, there are cases of jaguars being injured or killed because of attempts to radio collar the animal (to monitor the animal’s position) and a bad reaction to the tranquilizer. Mayke can locate signs of the animal’s presence and allow scientists to collect data without any such invasive techniques, which eliminates the risk associated with other methods of study.

When I asked Bugbee if there was anything else he wanted to share with me about Mayke, he answered, “Just that she’s a success story—even if you ignore that she’s found the first genetically verified jaguar scat in the US—because she found her confidence and came into her own.” They’ve been working together for three years and have a close relationship. Bugbee knows her well and understands her behavior. He knows the different ways that she reacts to various wild animals. If she finds scat from a puma, she pees on it. If she detects fresh deer scent from the glands in their feet, she points—holding one paw up and leaning in the direction of the deer. She also has her own unique responses to bobcats and bears.

Bugbee talks about her with great affection and respect, sounding like both the professional trainer he is and a loving dog guardian like any other, saying,  “I wish I knew all of the things she picks up on. It would be incredible,” and “She’s a good dog. I like her.”

Pat Shipman, PhD, is a retired adjunct professor of anthropology at Penn State and an internationally recognized expert in taphonomy, the study of how living animals are transformed into skeletons, and then fossils. Her scientific training and boundless curiosity lead her to take on the intriguing question of just why Homo neaderthalensis, one of the most successful apex species of hunters who had thrived for millennium in Eurasia, would almost suddenly, anthropologically speaking, become extinct. Her hypothesis: The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction (The Belknap Press) points to the abilities of both certain wolves and our ancestors to pair up and this gave them the competitive edge in the battle of survival. It is certainly true that this wasn’t done intentionally, but such an evolutionary breakthrough resulted in an alliance that had devastating effects on not just the Neanderthals but on a long species list including the huge woolly mammoth, saber-toothed tigers and Cave bears. Could it be possible “man’s best friend” have been the Neanderthals’ worst nightmare ? Shipman’s thesis starts with Homo sapiens, who in expanding north out of Africa were not only as an invasive species, but the most invasive in history, wreaking ecologically enormous changes throughout continents. The evidence that she relies on, by a meticulous review of the most current archeological research and genomic and genetic studies, can perhaps most readily be seen in the mammoth remains megasites, where the number of kills increases almost exponentially after the first evidence of the wolf-dog–human alliance was discovered. For ten thousand years before the domestication of the wolf-dog, evidence of early humans hunting mega-fauna like mammoth is scant, but with the addition of the superior hunting and tracking talents that wolf-dogs contributed to our projectile throwing ancestors lead not only to more successful kills of large prey but insured the success of our two predatory species. As for the Neanderthal, it wasn’t just simply that humans bested them as hunters but climate change was also a key contributing factor: but the combo of the alliance of the apex predators with the ice age ensured their extinction, so goes evolution. As Shipman notes about the Jagger Principle, “… the immortal words of Mick Jagger (yes that one) and Keith Richards are the best statement I know of to describe evolution. Things don’t stay the same; you can’t always get what you want; but with a little flexibility, you might get what you need to survive.” This is truly a fascinating and thought-provoking book, and Shipman presents a compelling argument for how canines and humans proved their flexibility and how this could have been the main reason that we survived and the Neanderthals didn’t. But drawing upon the wisdom of another ’60s duo, we also got by with a little help from our [first] friends. See the following interview with Dr. Shipman to learn more.

Bark: How long did it take humans, once they migrated out of Africa, to team up with wolves, a species that was unknown in Africa?

Pat Shipman: There were wolves in North Africa, but my guess is that humans did not team up with them but rather, based on genetic information, with European wolves. The earliest humans in Europe date to perhaps 42,000 years ago. The earliest wolf-dogs we know at present show up about 34,000 years ago (or about 37,000, if the raw radiocarbon date is calibrated for irregularity in the deterioration of C-14). Thus, it may have taken 6,000 years, or less—I seriously doubt we have found the first wolf anyone ever attempted to domesticate.

BK: What environmental reasons led to this amazing partnership?

PS: There were many different predators in Europe when modern humans arrived; competition for prey was considerable, and even worse once humans came on the scene. The idea of domesticating any animal was completely unknown, but somehow— probably by accident—some wolves began cooperating with some humans because the alliance benefited both.

They caught more prey, faster, with less risk to canine or human, which meant more energy for reproduction. Wolves had a set of skills for hunting in packs: speed, keen ears, a very keen sense of smell, sharp teeth and claws. Early humans were much slower, had lousy senses of smell and hearing, and blunt teeth, but they had distance weapons that could kill an animal while avoiding injury from close contact. By teaming up with special wolves—wolfdogs they could capture a much wider array of animals with much less risk and less expenditure of energy. They were nearly unstoppable.

BK: You write that proto-dogs were like “living tools” to humans. Was this a mutually beneficial arrangement?

PS: Absolutely. You cannot force any animal to cooperate if it does not want to. You cannot force an animal not to be hostile to humans or to cooperate with humans if there is no benefit to the animal.

BK: Wolves are highly territorial, and may kill other wolves who come into their area. Since this was well before human settlements, humans and wolf-dogs would have traveled great distances, through other species’ (i.e., wolves’) territory. Could the advantage to the wolfdogs come from the protection offered by their human partners?

PS: Both wolf-dogs and humans were more efficient hunters through cooperation— the wolf-dogs by having hunters kill the prey from a distance after they had found it, isolated it and stressed it through charging and holding it at bay.

For wolf-dogs and humans to travel together, they must have cooperated to drive off or kill the wolf packs through whose territories they passed. Indeed, there is a marked rise in the number of wolf bones in human sites after wolf-dogs appear. I think wolves were deliberately targeted by humans in order to protect the wolf-dogs, and to protect the remains of their kills from scavengers.

BK: Why do you think that Neanderthals did not also have wolf-dogs?

PS: One quite real possibility is that modern humans had adaptations that fostered better communication with wolf-dogs and possibly (we don’t know) Neanderthals did not. For example, humans are the only primates with whites to their eyes, which makes communicating the “direction of gaze”— where you are looking—very obvious. This is a huge advantage in silent cooperative hunting. We do not yet know if Neanderthals had this adaptation or not. Assuming that they saw humans working with wolf-dogs, why Neanderthals did not steal them or make their own is unclear. Humans undoubtedly prized the canines and may have gone to great lengths to prevent them from being stolen. Maybe Neanderthals did not have the empathy and ability to understand wolf-dogs that is so necessary to a good working relationship. Maybe Neanderthals tried and just couldn’t figure out how to handle them.

BK: What do you think inspired humans to see that teaming up with wolves might give them a competitive edge? Did it have to do with their diet perhaps?

PS: I don’t think humans set out to domesticate wolves into dogs; I think it was an accident based on taking in orphaned puppies and raising them. Before working with wolf-dogs, humans were rarely able to kill mammoths or other very large game; afterward, there are sites with dozens of mammoth kills. I suspect that killing mammoths efficiently and regularly required the help of wolf-dogs, so mammoths weren’t really a preferred human food until humans had wolfdogs to help.

BK: It was interesting that the primary protein source in the bones of both wolfdogs and humans can be detected. What does that tell us?

PS: First, this sort of study tells us that, at the same site, wolf-dogs and wolves ate different prey animals predominantly. (That is a very surprising finding if my colleagues and I are mistaken and the wolf-dogs are really wolves, that would make them a very odd and distinctive group.) Second, this type of study shows us that humans may have provisioned wolf-dogs, rather than letting them simply eat whatever was left over.

BK: You say that wolf-dogs were a first, but unsuccessful, attempt at domestication; and that domestication happened several times in different areas. Are you concerned that their mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) evidence hasn’t been found in modern-day canids?

PS: Not at all. There is as much mtDNA evidence that these identified wolf-dogs were wolves as there is that they were dogs: none. The mtDNA we have so far from wolf-dogs is unique, previously unknown. What that means is uncertain.

This particular genetic material is passed from mother to daughter to granddaughter and so on; the father’s mtDNA is not. This means that if you have a small population with an unusual mtDNA, the probability that it will go extinct in 1,000 years—much less 35,000—is very, very, very high.

It could be as simple as a few females who don’t reproduce successfully or have only males due to random chance. Also, athough we have several thousand mtDNA lineages from living animals, there are millions of dogs and wolves whose mtDNA is unknown. Maybe the sample sizes of living animals are too small and the wolf-dog mtDNA is still out there somewhere. Maybe it is simply extinct.

The standard calculation is that 99 percent of all mtDNA lineages go extinct, so we can’t conclude too much from that. I am not at all worried that the mtDNA information from wolfdogs has not yet been matched in any other group. Also, the entire wolf-dog group may well have gone extinct, with a still-later domestication of wolves into dogs. We just don’t know.

Are dogs smart like people are smart? That is the question posed by researchers at the London School of Economics. They weren’t looking into whether dogs are as smart as people, but rather if they are smart in a variety of ways like people are.

When people take IQ tests, they tend to perform at a similar level across various tasks. If they do well in one area, they typically also shine in others. Are dogs the same way, showing a similar structure to their intelligence? By creating a dog IQ test of sorts with several components, the authors of, A general intelligence factor in dogs sought an answer to this question. They study was done with 68 working Border Collies to eliminate breed differences and to minimize differences in upbringing.

The tests performed on the dogs investigated their abilities to navigate barriers to get to food, to determine differences in quantities of food, and to follow a human gesture indicating the location of food. The combined tests took about an hour for each dog.

The general conclusions of the study suggest similarities between the structure of human and canine intelligence. Specifically, just like in people, there was individual variation and dogs who did well on one test were more likely to succeed at other tasks. Dogs who were quick at solving problems were also more accurate.

I think it is very interesting that we have moved away from the idea of “intelligence” as a single factor in humans, but researchers are searching for such a unified concept in dogs. Years ago, people spoke of general intelligence in humans as a separate thing than talents such as social skills, emotional connectedness and athletic or musical or artistic abilities. Now, we are more inclined to discuss people’s emotional or social intelligence or musical IQ, and more likely to discuss factors that are included in intelligence (like problem-solving ability) by being specific about them.

The main result of this study—that certain abilities in dogs such as negotiating detours, assessing quantities of food, responding to human gestures and solving problems quickly tend to be linked—is very interesting. I wish the authors would have focused on the links between the specific tasks they studied instead of generalizing to the point of putting every ability into one category called intelligence. What is going to happen if future studies suggest that a particular trait or ability is found to have no correlation to the others? Will it be considered irrelevant to intelligence, in its own special category or will it pose a problem to the concept of a general intelligence?

That said, I consider this an excellent study. It clearly shows that some individual dogs consistently have better success when asked to solve problems to accomplish various tasks. Very few studies have looked at how dogs differ from each other in this way. More studies on individual differences in cognitive ability are needed and I look forward to learning more about how dogs’ minds work as researchers continue to pursue studies comparing individuals’ abilities.

“Tell me about your mother.” This phrases, so common in therapy, all but assumes that whatever is going on with someone can be traced back to the mother. Was she a good mother—attentive, patient, nurturing? Was she less than stellar—harsh, uncaring, neglectful? Whatever she does, you can bet her offspring’s behavior will be considered a result of her actions, and that doesn’t just mean in people. It’s old news that maternal care affects primates and rodents, but a new study investigated the phenomenon in dogs.

The authors of “Levels of maternal care in dogs affect adult offspring temperament” investigated the influence of the mothers on the behavior of adult dogs. Researchers looked at 22 litters of German Shepherd Dogs bred to become Military Working Dogs with the Swedish Armed Forces. The 94 puppies in the study were all continuously videotaped with their mothers during the first three weeks after birth. Videotapes were analyzed for many variables, such as the amount of time that the mother had her paws in the box with her puppies, time that she was in physical contact with at least one puppy, time she spent nursing, time she spent licking puppies, and the number of times she sniffed, poked or moved a puppy around using her nose. (Litter size was accounted for in the statistical analysis.)

When the puppies were 18-months old, they were evaluated with the Swedish Armed Forces’ standard temperament test. Dogs were assessed for their reactions to a number of situations, including social and cooperative ones with humans as well as potentially scary stimuli such as loud noises. Not surprisingly, the main result of the study is that researchers found an association between the mothers’ behavior and the behavior of her adult offspring.

Mothers were consistent over the course of the study regarding the time they spent interacting with their young.  The amount of interactions that mothers had with their puppies was a really important factor associated with the behavior of these individuals as adult dogs. Specifically, puppies whose mothers had a large number of interactions with them were more socially engaged with humans as adults, more physically engaged with them, and scored higher on tests for aggression. Based on the paper, it's not clear what is meant by "aggression" or whether the association with maternal care is a positive or a negative one. (It's also not clear whether "aggression" was considered a desirable trait for these working dogs.) Confidence of the adult dogs was the fourth category of behavior measured, but no association was found between confidence and level of maternal care.

There are many factors to consider when choosing which dogs to breed in any situation, including working dog programs. This study suggests that there are benefits to paying attention to maternal care behavior when choosing which females to breed. That is, more attentive mothers are an important piece of successfully breeding dogs with desirable traits, and females who are good mothers should be considered an asset to any breeding program.