Studies

Studies & Research

What makes dogs howl, yawn and hide under the bed? Researchers plumb the inner workings of dogs.

Karen B. London, PhD | 6/21/2017

“We found that across all behaviour categories, including trainability, dogs from less responsible breeders had significantly less favourable behaviour and temperament scores than puppies from responsible breeders.”

First Dog Breeders

JoAnna Lou | 6/15/2017

Last month I wrote about how studying dogs gives scientists a unique view into genetics because of the way they’ve been bred by humans. So who were the first people to breed dogs?

Recent evidence now points to the hunter-gatherers of a Siberian Island known as Zhokhov. Populated nine thousand years ago, these people lived in an unforgiving land, hunting polar bears and reindeer in year-round freezing temperatures.

Easing Dogs’ Stress During Veterinarian Visits

Karen B. London, PhD | 6/10/2017

Veterinary examinations are stressful for dogs, and being stressed is counterproductive to general well-being. We don’t want our dogs to suffer, especially when the purpose of seeing the veterinarian is to help them. Another issue is that the effects of stress—both the behavioral and physiological responses—can make it harder to examine the dog thoroughly and properly diagnosing the dog becomes harder as well.

Standard Tick Advice May Put Us At Risk

JoAnna Lou | 6/9/2017

Earlier this year I wrote about how 2017 is expected to be a risky year for Lyme disease, particularly for the mid-Atlantic and New England areas. If my last hike with my Border Collie, Scuttle, was any indication, ticks are going to be the bane of our existence this summer and fall!

Should we call these canine behaviors calming signals?

Karen B. London, PhD | 6/2/2017

“Calming signals” is a term coined by Norwegian dog trainer Turid Rugaas to group a large number of behavior patterns that she says dogs use to avoid conflict, to prevent aggression, to calm other dogs down and to communicate information to other dogs and to people.

Understanding Canine Growls

Karen B. London, PhD | 5/23/2017

Research in recent years has shown that our brains can process the emotional content of vocalizations based on acoustic structure, and that various mammalian species share the same brain structures used for such interpretation. That means that we ought to be able to interpret the emotional nature of vocalizations from other species much like we understand those of other people.

Interpreting Growls

JoAnna Lou | 5/20/2017

I would think our dogs are better at understanding us since they devote so much time to studying our every move... and are much better at picking up on the subtleties we are too busy to notice.

There has been an increasing amount of research in recent years on canines and their ability to understand humans. But relatively little has focused on how well people understand dogs.

Researchers at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest set out to study our comprehension of canine language. They chose to focus on growls since they may be the most preserved mode of communication.

New Canine Genome Map

JoAnna Lou | 5/14/2017

A study published last month details one of the most diverse canine genome maps produced to date tracing the relationship between breeds. In examining the genomes of over 1,000 dogs, the map provided insight into two interesting findings.

The first showed that canines bred to perform similar functions, such as dogs from the herding or working groups, don’t necessarily share the same origins.