Do dogs act in a way that offers no benefit to themselves, but helps out other dogs? A new study called Familiarity affects other-regarding preferences in pet dogs addresses this question. The term “other-regarding” comes from the field of economics. Actions based only on the material benefit to oneself are called “self-regarding.” Actions that take into account the effects on other individuals are called other-regarding, and are often based on kindness or a sense of fairness.

In the experiment, researchers investigated dogs’ willingness to give food to other dogs. Donor dogs had the opportunity to move a tray that put food within the reach of a receiver dog or to move an empty tray instead. The donors did not receive food or any other tangible reward for giving food to the receiver. The major finding of the study was that dogs were more likely to give food to dogs that they know—their friends—than unfamiliar dogs.

The reason this is so interesting is that most research into this sort of social behavior has been conducted on primates. Little is known about cooperation and other prosocial behavior in other groups. Dogs are an obvious choice for such a study because they are social. Social animals often behave in altruistic ways, perhaps because of the possibility of a potential future benefit. In other words, evolution may have led to kindness towards others because of the benefits to individuals of trading acts of giving over the long term. That could explain why donating food to friends was more common. Those are the individuals who are most likely to be in a position to return the favor another time, making it a good investment for the donor dogs.

Somewhere in northern California, a tiny dog is still prancing around on four paws thanks to hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). Unbeknownst to the dog’s owner, a piece of string had become wrapped around his paw, hidden in the dog’s dense fur. As circulation in the paw slowed down, skin and tissue began to slough off. By the time the owner realized what was happening, the paw was in such bad shape that the little dog’s vet, understandably, recommended amputation. The owner, however, wanted to try to save it. After a strict regimen of cleaning and dressing changes failed to promote significant improvement, the dog was referred for HBOT treatment.

Deep-sea and scuba divers have long used HBOT to combat the bends, and in the medical arena, it has been employed for more than 50 years to help people recover from serious infections and hard-to-heal wounds, among other ailments.

Now, this technology is being utilized to help companion animals and horses with conditions as varied as head and spinal-cord trauma, intervertebral disc disease, wounds and burns, infections, and inflammatory conditions.

The general theory behind HBOT is that it promotes healing by raising oxygen levels in the blood, allowing oxygen to diffuse into tissues at distances three to four times further than usual. Gary Richter, MS, DVM, medical director of Holistic Veterinary Care and Rehabilitation Center, Oakland, Calif., is among those who use HBOT in their practices. According to Dr. Richter, “When there’s inflammation, damaged tissues or injury, lack of oxygen is very commonly the limiting factor. By increasing the amount of oxygen delivered to tissues, we are stimulating these patients’ own healing abilities—immune systems, stem cells—to begin the healing process where other types of conventional medicine might not be able to achieve that goal.” (The dog with the damaged paw was treated at Dr. Richter’s clinic.)

Typically, HBOT treatments last about an hour and are given one to two times daily. A patient is placed in a hyperbaric chamber and breathes 100 percent oxygen at 1.5 to 3 times normal atmospheric pressure. The total number of treatments required depends upon the condition and how the patient responds. Being enclosed in the chamber doesn’t seem to distress the dogs or cats who use it; many reportedly go to sleep during treatment. Dr. Richter thinks that for the patient, it’s mainly boring; “as far as the animal’s concerned, nothing’s happening.” The cost and protocol are the same no matter how large or small the patient.

The therapy has essentially no side effects, although Dr. Richter says that it’s also important to select HBOT candidates appropriately. Dogs or cats with some types of respiratory problems or who are predisposed to specific types of seizures need to be evaluated before undergoing the therapy.

And sometimes, says Dr. Richter, the therapy may have positive side effects. Take, for example, the case of a cat with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) so severe that she required a surgically implanted feeding tube. The surgical site became infected with Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections. HBOT was used to help the site heal and resolve the MRSA, but as a side effect, her IBD improved to the point that she no longer required intensive medical monitoring.

Despite being approved for use in humans for an array of medical conditions, HBOT is not without its skeptics, who say that the lack of clinical trial data supporting its claims puts it into the realm of experimental. However, based on the human experience, it would seem that HBOT has the potential to become another valuable tool in the veterinary health-care toolbox.

A few years ago, dog trainers and behaviorists renewed their love affair with tail-wagging, constantly checking to see whether dogs were wagging their tails higher to the right or to the left. Our awkward attempts at positioning ourselves to observe this behavior were surely entertaining to others. Why were we so eager for the information conveyed by these asymmetrical tail wags? Because they indicate dogs’ differential use of the left and right hemispheres of their brains and are, therefore, a window into their emotions.

The study of asymmetrical tail wagging that prompted our collective interest (Quaranta et al. 2007) found that differences depended on what inspired the wags in the first place. Dogs wagged higher to the right when greeting their guardians. The same right-side bias was seen in response to unfamiliar people, although the wags were lower overall. In response to cats, there was little wagging, but it was still higher to the right. In the tests, the only stimulus to which dogs’ wags had a left-side bias was an unfamiliar, confident dog.

Left or Right?
Asymmetrical tail wags reflect the way the two sides of the brain process information and affect the body. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls the right side. When dogs wag their tails to the right, they are engaging the muscles on the right side of their body more actively than those on their left; this demonstrates greater involvement of the left hemisphere of the brain.

The left hemisphere is activated when the brain is processing positive experiences associated with emotions such as happiness, affection and excitement, as well as anything familiar. The right hemisphere takes precedence when processing sadness, fear, other negative emotions and novel things.

This link between emotions and sides of the brain came to light in studies of humans. Ahern and Schwartz (1979) found that people who were asked questions that elicited either positive or negative emotions responded in accordance with this principle. They looked to their right (showing left brain hemisphere involvement) in response to questions that elicited positive emotions, but looked to their left (showing right brain hemisphere involvement) in response to questions that evoked negative emotions.

Individuals—canine or human—who favor the left paw or hand more often use the right hemisphere of their brain, while right-pawed and right-handed individuals have a more active left-brain hemisphere. Studies have shown differences between right-pawed and left-pawed dogs. They have also revealed that dogs who are ambilateral—who don’t have a paw preference—are different in predictable ways from dogs who strongly prefer one paw over the other.

Lateralization research, an active area of study, informs our understanding of emotions and behavior. Though dogs and people are common study subjects, similar patterns have been found in fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and primates and other mammals.
We now know that the significance of brain lateralization, handedness and paw preference extends far beyond matters of scissors and can-openers (people) and learning to shake (dogs). There are strong links between paw preference, the strength of that preference, and the behavior and emotional life of dogs.

Determining Paw Preference
In humans, we identify hand preference based on which hand a person uses to eat, write and so forth or by seeing who keeps their arms tucked in tight when eating at a small round table. (It’s the lefties, because they are used to colliding with the righties next to them if they don’t act to prevent it.) In dogs, most determinations are based on the “Kong test,” in which dogs are observed extracting food from a Kong. Every time the dog uses a paw to stabilize the Kong, the observer records which paw was used. If the dog uses both paws simultaneously, that is also recorded. From these data, researchers determine a dog’s paw preference as well as the strength of that preference. There are approximately equal numbers of left-pawed, right-pawed and ambilateral dogs, which is different than the preponderance of righties in humans.

Paw Preference
Our dogs’ paw preferences provide insight beyond knowing which paw is used to steady a Kong. Batt et al. (2009) reported that being right-pawed was associated with lower arousal and calmer responses to novel stimuli and strangers. Schneider et al. (2013) found that dogs who were left-pawed exhibited more stranger-directed aggression than dogs who were either right-pawed or ambilateral. Many potential guide dogs fail their training—usually for behavioral reasons—and Tomkins et al. (2012) documented higher success rates of right-pawed than left-pawed dogs in training programs.

Strength of Lateralization
In addition to the effects of paw preference on emotions and behavior, the strength of those preferences also has an effect. Branson and Rogers (2006) demonstrated that dogs without a paw preference were more reactive to loud noises than dogs with a paw preference.

Batt et al. (2009) showed that dogs with stronger paw preferences were bolder and less cautious than dogs with weaker paw preferences. They were more confident, less prone to arousal and anxiety, quicker to relax or become playful in new environments, and exhibited calmer responses to novel stimuli and strangers. It turns out that we humans are similar to our best friends in this regard: People with weak hand preferences are more likely to suffer high anxiety levels and are more susceptible to both PTSD and psychosis than those with a strong handedness.

Just as being right-pawed predicted guide-dog training success, dogs with a strong lateralization (either left or right) and a low rate of using both paws in the Kong test fared better in these programs (Batt et al. 2008). The authors hypothesize that this may be because strongly lateralized and right-pawed dogs are less likely to experience high reactivity and distress responses, which are detrimental to success as a guide dog.

Sensory Processing
In studies of sensory processes and lateralization (Siniscalchi et al. 2008, 2010), dogs were simultaneously presented with identical stimuli on both their left and right sides while eating from a bowl. The direction in which they turned their heads indicated which side of the brain was involved in processing and responding to the stimulus, revealing the dogs’ emotional reaction to it. Dogs consistently turned to the right (involving the emotionally positive left-brain hemisphere) in response to the social cues of canine isolation or disturbance calls and canine play vocalizations, but tended to turn left (showing the activation of the emotionally negative right-brain hemisphere) when they heard thunder.

Dogs also turned left in response to images of cats and snakes but not to images of dogs. With repeated presentations, there was a change toward right-turning behavior, indicating that the left side of the brain and its associated positive emotions were involved. This suggests that novelty may be a factor in fear and other intense negative emotions that tend to be processed by the right side of the brain.

To understand the role of lateralization in processing olfactory stimuli, it is essential to know that each side of the brain processes the information received on the same side: the right nostril goes to the right hemisphere, the left nostril goes to the left hemisphere. Dogs started to sniff novel but non-aversive stimuli (food, lemon, dog secretions) with their right nostril and then shifted with repetition to using their left nostril, showing a change from negative to positive emotions. When presented with adrenaline and sweat from their vets (really!), dogs demonstrated a consistent bias toward the right nostril, suggesting that their emotions started, and remained, negative in response to these odors (Siniscalchi et al. 2011).

Practical Applications
Our understanding of lateralization has potential to improve our dogs’ quality of life, our relationships with them and even our success in training them. We may be able to reduce stress by approaching dogs from their right side in exams, during greetings or in any stressful situations. We can quickly see how dogs react emotionally to a variety of stimuli by attending to which way they turn, and we can observe the asymmetry in their tail wags to ascertain their emotional state. It’s possible that we can even minimize the development of noise phobias by placing dogs whose lateralization suggests vulnerability in quieter homes. We can minimize the substantial investment of time and money spent on training guide dogs by training only those dogs who have the greatest chance of completing the program.

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Love and understanding compound one another with our dogs, and lateralization is a case in point. A dear dog friend of mine is strongly right-pawed; it was pitiful to watch him attempt to learn to give a left high-five, or use his left paw to hold his Kong when he briefly had a bandage on his right paw. I used to find how hard it was for him to do anything with his left paw somewhat comical. Now I understand that this trait is part of the package that makes him the unflappable, happy, don’t-care-about-the-power-tools-running-all-day-during-the-kitchen-remodel, playful and exploratory, nothing-fazes-him kind of dog I love so much. I’m honored and overjoyed that when he greets me, his tail wags are as one-sided to the right as the rest of him.

When and how much our dogs sleep matters to us because it affects our own sleep. Most people who have ever raised a puppy know the horror of sleep deprivation, and many people caring for elderly dogs or those who are unwell are facing the same problem. Even dogs who don’t need to be taken out in the middle of the night or in the wee hours of the morning often work against the goal of an uninterrupted stretch of eight hours of restorative sleep each night.

I once had a dog who slept in every morning, and I valued that quality in him immensely.  Though I made many attempts to figure out how to transfer this quality to all dogs, I suspect he just came into the world that way. True, we did feed him healthy food and give him lots of exercise, but that surely hasn’t worked on a large number of other dogs. Still, I maintain a strong interest in learning about the variables that affect dogs’ sleep patterns, with the eventual hope that dog guardians everywhere can apply it to their own dogs for the benefit of all.

Because I am interested in canine sleep, I was interested in a study that investigated some basic aspects of dogs’ sleep patterns. The research looked into the effects of age and feeding frequency on dogs’ sleep patterns. Dogs were in one of three age ranges (1.5-4.5 years, 7-9 years, 11-14 years) and were fed either once or twice daily.

The researchers found that older and middle aged dogs slept more during the day than young adult dogs, but that was because they took more naps, and not because their naps were longer. Older and middle aged dogs also slept more at night than younger dogs because they had a longer total sleep interval at night (waking up later) and woke up fewer times during the night.

Dogs of all ages were affected in a similar manner by being fed twice daily as opposed to once a day. Dogs who were fed more frequently took fewer naps during the day, but the naps lasted longer. Dogs fed twice a day fell asleep earlier at night, but woke up earlier, too with a decreased total time sleeping at night. (The earlier waking time more than compensated for the earlier bedtime.)

>The take home message to me is that if you want more sleep, just wait until your young dog ages a little. That’s interesting when you compare dogs to humans, because we sleep considerably less as older adults than as young adults.

Have you noticed a change in your dog’s sleep pattern with age or with changes in feeding schedules?