2011 seems to have been an exciting year for research in animal behaviour and welfare.

image from http://www.chickencare.net/

More studies emerged that found evidence of empathy in nonhuman species. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to feel his or her emotions. Scientists in Britain, cited by the Telegraph, found that when mother hens see their chicks experience something scary (having their feathers ruffled with puffs of air), they display the same signs of distress as the little chicks themselves. Meanwhile, a research group from the University of Chicago found that rats not only get “infected” by a trapped cagemate’s anxiety, but also gradually learn how to free their friend, with no training at all, and will choose to open his door rather than eat chocolate.

Animal friendships and other close social bonds are as much a privilege of the great as of the small. African elephants in all-male groups were studied by Patrick Chiyo and an international team of scientists which included Cynthia Moss from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. Among their findings was the central role played by older males, which “suggests that [they] are sources of ecological and social knowledge in all-male elephant groups, just as older females are in family groups.”1

This is significant from the point of view of animal welfare because it implies that poaching and trophy hunting may have a hidden cost that extends beyond the life of the individual animal, even when the victim is not the herd’s matriarch. Recent years have seen an increase in human-elephant conflict in Africa and Asia – attacks on humans and crop-raids – and research has highlighted a few causes besides the obvious one of habitat fragmentation. For example, elephants may remember the trauma of witnessing a massacre in their youth and become vengeful towards people. In addition, with fewer older bulls left (because of hunting), there is no one to keep rough play in check, and young males do not learn to control their own aggressive urges.2

In 2011, animals continued to surprise us with their intelligence. Golden paper wasps recognise each other’s faces, according to an article published in Nature. Dogs watch out for acts of generosity between people to figure out whom to beg for food. (Daily Mail) Humpback whales “globalise” their culture not unlike humans – a few travelling males can spread their unique songs to remote populations, across thousands of kilometres. (BBC) Chimps will give a watch-out warning to those who haven’t noticed a snake coiled in the grass: they use directed, meaningful sound communication, taking into account who their audience is. (BBC) Another chimp study demonstrated that many of these animals are as insightful as to spit water (or even urinate!) into a glass tube in order to raise the water level and reach a floating peanut. This is a tough task; even human children (4-, 6-, and 8-year-old) struggled with it, with the chimpanzees actually outperforming the four-year-olds. Orang-utans (but so far, not gorillas) have also done the feat, and rooks have done it too, by dropping stones into the tube like in Aesop’s fable. (BBC) Wild-caught New Caledonian crows, who are famous for their tool use and problem-solving skills, showed that they could retrieve a hidden food treat just by looking in a mirror. One of the birds got the hang of it immediately, while some of the others needed more time to learn.

Photo: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14897544

Of course, new studies may also show that (just like people) animals who are “experts” in one area can be lacking the brains to excel in another. The crows didn’t recognize themselves in the mirror, or at least the time they spent with that strange new object was not enough for them to grasp its nature. (Magpies have been successful in this task.)3 A series of experiments comparing two closely related species of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands – the tool-using woodpecker finch and the small tree finch (which doesn’t have tools) – suggested that the tool-using ability, so praised by humans, cannot be regarded as some absolute measure of general “smartness,” because the small tree finches did just as well as the woodpecker finches in various cognitive tasks and even outperformed them. Perhaps, the researchers posit, it was shared qualities such as flexibility and the tendency to explore, that allowed one of the species to develop tool use in the first place – because it was the smart thing to do in their ecological niche. To the other finches, using cactus spines to pry grubs out of branches was simply irrelevant.4

Bad welfare may hinder an animal’s natural ability to learn. This was apparent in a recent experiment with broiler breeders, originally aiming to explore their dietary preferences. The parents of chickens slaughtered for meat are always hungry because their genetics are so warped that, were they allowed to eat all they wanted, they would die of obesity, skeletal and heart problems and would have problems with fertility. Says researcher Louise Buckley, “Our findings came as such a surprise. We had originally expected that hungry birds would be able to learn a task that gave them more food. After all, they should have been very motivated to learn a task that made them less hungry! Instead, we found that being very hungry really did make these chickens ‘bird – brained.” 5

The chicken industry is not the only industry whose breeding animals suffer from learning deficits and other psychological problems. American scientists obtained, for the first time, quantitative evidence that the welfare of breeder dogs in “puppy mills” is very poor. (You risk supporting puppy mills if you buy a puppy from a pet shop or another place where you can’t see the mother in a home environment.) They compared hundreds of ex-breeders to pet dogs and found that the former were much more fearful of humans, animals, stairs, and just about anything. Ex-breeders were also less trainable and more likely to soil the house, among other problems. The authors stress, however, that such dogs can be rehabilitated with patience and skill, and should be given the chance to live normal lives in adoptive homes.6

Another dog study examined the effect of various factors on the interactions between dogs during walks, in the Czech town of Brno. Not surprisingly, dogs of opposite genders played with each other more often and threatened each other less than did dogs of the same gender. The gender of the owners also played a role: when both owners were men, dogs were four times more likely to show a threat or bite than when both owners were women. The leash was also a factor, as dogs who were off-leash behaved more benevolently towards each other. Maybe the reason is that some owners transmit their tension to the dog by pulling on the lead when another dog approaches, or maybe a tied dog simply feels more vulnerable.7

Instead of a conclusion, one final nod goes to our own teammate Anna Claxton, who, inspired by her big cat project, published a review article about the value of bonding time between zoo animals and their keepers. The keeper-animal relationship, she says, is actually a form of enrichment for a creature in captivity, and has the potential not only to reduce its fear in the presence of unfamiliar people (zoo visitors) and other ‘strange stuff’, but even to teach it to enjoy them. For more information, I’ve referenced Anna’s article below.8

Photo by Benchill (Wikimedia Commons)

Journal sources:

1 Chiyo, P., Archie, E., Hollister-Smith, J., Lee, P., Poole, J., Moss, C., and Alberts, S. (2011) “Association patterns of African elephants in all-male groups: the role of age and genetic relatedness.” Animal Behaviour 81: 1093-1099.

2 Bradshaw, G.A., Schore, A.N., Brown, J.L., Poole, J.H. & Moss, C.J. (2005) “Elephant breakdown.” Nature 433: 807.

3 Medina, F., Taylor, A., Hunt, G., and Gray, R. (2011) “New Caledonian crows’ responses to mirrors.” Animal Behaviour 82: 981-993.

4 Teschke, I., Cartmill, E., Stankewitz, S., and Tebbich, S. (2011) “Sometimes tool use is not the key: no evidence for cognitive adaptive specializations in tool-using woodpecker finches.” Animal Behaviour 82: 945-956.

5 Buckley, L., Sandilands, V., Tolkamp, B., and D’Eath, R. (2011) “Quantifying hungry broiler breeder dietary preferences using a closed economy T-maze task”. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133: 216-227.

6 McMillan, F., Duffy, D., and Serpell, J. (2011) “Mental health of dogs formerly used as ‘breeding stock’ in commercial breeding establishments.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 135: 86-94.

7 Rezac, P., Viziova, P., Dobesova, M., Havlicek, Z., and Pospisilova, D. (2011) “Factors affecting dog–dog interactions on walks with their owners.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 134: 170-176.

8 Claxton, A. (2011) “The potential of the human–animal relationship as an environmental enrichment for the welfare of zoo-housed animals.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133: 1-10.

How to change the world? That is the question! god knows where the answer might lie. A quick glance at the history reveals that progress is always slow, sometimes brutal but progress occurs none the less. It often starts with a small group of people who stand up against a perceived wrong (most often against themselves) and they have to make a lot of noise to be noticed, for example, the suffragettes to acquire the vote for women or the Russian peasants against the monarchy – led by a group of well meaning intellectuals, not forgetting the African-American civil rights movement.

Change starts with an idea, it progresses with commitment, passion and a relentless pursuit of justice.  The animal rights/welfare movement is unique in that people are fighting for individuals of another species against the collective will and accepted norms of their own ’species’. It is sometimes hard to believe that any progress can be made at all when there is still so much racial, cultural and religious prejudice between humans. How can we create justice for other species when we can’t even find the compassion to relate to others of own?

However there is no denying that humanity is becoming a more just, peaceful and open minded group. The ideas behind animal protection started in the 1800s with the immortal words of Jeremy Bentham ‘“The question is not, “Can they reason?” nor, “Can they talk?” but “Can they suffer?” It may seem like we haven’t progressed much in all this time but the words first uttered in the 1800s have propagated and gathered pace over the past 200 years, so that today, they have been explored by modern philosophers like Singer and Regan, they have formed the basis for a new scientific discipline – animal welfare science and they have guided legal protection for animals. People have spread the word and hundreds of animal protection groups have formed, some with influence at governmental level and the power of arrest. In some places it has spread faster than others aided by education, wealth and human rights but there is no longer a place on the planet where someone isn’t doing something to progress this movement.

I was a massive fan of the movie Avatar. It embodied everything that I want for this planet and animal protection. The Navi protected themselves and their planet in bold battle and won. I left the cinema feeling elated and inspired but then it dawned on me that the battle on this planet is much more arduous and cerebral. It involves winning the hearts and minds of 9 billion individual autonomous people in hundreds of different cultures and religions. We can’t win by fighting them. The time for making noise has ended. It’s time to engage in dialogue rather than fight, to include rather than judge. I sometimes feel like we forget that communication is a two way street and the best way to change people is to understand them, just as we would like there to be  no ‘them’ and ‘us’ between humans and animals, we should also remember that there is no ‘them’ and ‘us’ between the animal protection movement and the rest of society. Yes I am angry about things that happen to non human animals but I want to change the world and expressing that anger will do no good. We must take society with us, we must communicate and engage with each and every one of them in a positive, productive manner. We don’t need any more angry jaded people, we need compassionate citizens who believe they can change the world for the better.

Any ideas or comments on the next step forward would be appreciated…..

I am writing an article about recent discoveries in the field of animal welfare and animal psychology. The wealth of new information is staggering; scientific papers are being churned out by the dozen every month. I just have to pick out a few juicy bits here and there: nothing easier than that. And yet, the moment came when I stopped dead in my tracks. “Wait a minute. What if people find this silly? You know, the way you shrug your shoulders at the millionth newspaper article which proclaims that 2+2=4 and calls it science?”

A pause for reflection is in order, then. I have to admit that in animal welfare science, a lot of the new evidence hardly amounts to a discovery but is mere validation of truths we know intuitively – or knew once but have forgotten in our post-industrial age. It is a little sad that we need statistical measurements of heart rates and cortisol levels to accept that cows have friends in their herd and get stressed when the farmer separates them, as reported in the Daily Mail. Another study which measured the heart rates of dairy cows showed that when one cow licks the face of another, the effect is profoundly calming.1

Unnecessary? Maybe so, but the fact is that modern-day people, who consume meat and dairy at unprecedented rates, need to re-learn such simple facts of animal existence. Last year, I went to the cinema to see Emmanuel Gras’s documentary Bovines – a film with no music or words – and I was mesmerised by how blissful a cow could look when her friend was massaging her face with her thick tongue. There was no difference between that so-called “beef cattle” and my street dog Tracy, who could fall asleep during a belly rub, and myself, who will melt like warm butter if anyone plays with my hair. And, as much as the licking, grazing and apple-picking were cute to watch, the documentary left me deeply troubled when it ended with the mother cows mooing in distressed chorus when their calves were taken away. Their anxiety was obvious, and heart-breaking.

Licking and disruption of social bonds – precisely the two things those research projects studied… Why all the science then? Can’t we just get more people to watch films or, better yet, go out in the fields (while cows can still be found in fields) and observe? Unfortunately, the industry stakeholders have powerful lobbies, and in the current zeitgeist “hard facts” seem to fare better than common knowledge or intuition when animal defenders appeal to lawmaking bodies for change. That’s also how the EU supposedly reaches its decisions. Consider their Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, for example:

This independent Scientific Committee gives the Commission high quality scientific advice on animal health and animal welfare issues. The Committee considers all available and up-to-date scientific data and evidence and provides the Commission with a sound scientific basis for the drafting of legislation and other proposals.

The scientific method has another practical value in contemporary animal protection: it is good at yielding numbers. When an animal welfare problem is also a production problem, such as feather pecking in barn and free-range hens, the farmers may want the problem “quantified” in order to decide if it will be profitable to do something to solve it. How many hens die in these aggressive incidents that wouldn’t otherwise die in the battery cage (or, post 1-1-2012, the “enriched cage”)? If there is a solution to reduce deaths without going back to the cage system, what does it cost – and just how effective is it?

Anyone who looks at a flock of content house chickens can notice things they have that most of their commercially-farmed relatives, even the free-range ones, do not. Not only more space, but space filled with stuff: grass and litter to explore, suitable nests (hens are very picky about them), perches to feel safe, a rooster – harem bodyguard … And – if allowed to roam around freely – bushes and trees. Domestic chickens evolved from the wild jungle fowl, and to this day they need to feel the safety of the “jungle,” the way you and I need clothes in public even when the weather is fine.

A few years ago, McDonalds UK required all of its egg suppliers to plant trees for their laying hens. Then last year, scientists published the results of a project done in collaboration with McDonalds, which showed how much the birds’ injuries were reduced in proportion to the canopy cover. The more shady trees, the better, it turned out – in terms that even the profit-minded businessman would understand. In contrast, merely increasing space was not very effective.2

Instead of a conclusion, I think it worthy to mention that sometimes behavioural research does yield results that are curious and counter-intuitive (to some people at least)… even when the subject is a familiar domesticated species. An article published last spring revealed that with dog training, repetition is not necessarily the mother of learning. Dogs who are trained by the ‘crash course’ method, daily and/or in more than one training session per day, learn the task more slowly than dogs who are trained at a more leisurely pace – just once or twice a week, and not more than once a day. It appears that their minds need enough time – including nights full of dreaming – to process the new knowledge in peace…3

Journal sources:

1 Laister, Simone; Barbara Stockinger, Anna-Maria Regnera, Karin Zengera, Ute Knierim and Christoph Winckler (2011). “Social licking in dairy cattle—Effects on heart rate in performers and receivers.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 130: 81-90.

2 Bright, A., Brass, D., Clachan, J., Drake, K.A. and A.D. Joret (2011). “Canopy cover is correlated with reduced injurious feather pecking in commercial flocks of free-range laying hens.” Animal Welfare 20: 329-338.

3 Demand, Helle; Jan Ladewig, Thorsten J.S. Balsby and Torben Dabelsteen (2011). “The effect of frequency and duration of training sessions on acquisition and long-term memory in dogs.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133: 228– 234.

Lika Yanko - Self-Potrait with a Dog, 1962

Contributed by Alina Lilova

It is no secret to anyone who has ever lived with a pet dog that man’s best friend is a highly social, adaptable and intelligent animal. Both scientific studies and countless personal anecdotes demonstrate without a doubt the canine capacity for experiencing a wide range of emotions, and also for reasoning – and none of it is a surprise, given the dog’s unique position over the millennia as a responsive companion and working partner. Dogs may lack the problem-solving abilities for survival in the wild (compared to wolves, e.g.), but they possess excellent acumen for thriving in their particular ecological niche: the human jungle.

Dogs and Wolves

In the well-publicized recent work by Adam Miklosi and his colleagues in Hungary, dogs were shown to be better than hand-raised wolves at reading human social cues. For example, they tend to understand that when you point a finger at an object, it means “hey, look at that!” Both wolves and dogs have developed an analogous signal for communicating with their own species – they orientate their whole body in order to point to a certain direction – so that alone cannot explain the difference that was observed. It seems more likely that dogs have evolved to understand the human way of pointing, and wolves have not because they sort of don’t care.

In a similar vein of findings, dogs gaze at people when in need of help – but wolves do it far less. Miklosi et al. also showed that their hand-raised wolf pups generally preferred the company of a dog over that of a human, while the opposite was true of dog pups. It is also worth noting that people, in turn, seem to be instinctively proficient in telling apart the different kinds of dog barks. Scientists speculate that the reason why dogs bark in so many situations has to do with their co-evolution with humans – “the other ‘noisy’ terrestrial mammal on Earth.”

Theory of Mind

American psychologists Kundey et al. devised an interesting experiment to test whether dogs take into consideration what people around them can or cannot hear. The results were published last year in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science. Twenty shelter dogs and twenty private pets each had to choose food from one of two plastic containers – one ‘silent,’ the other ‘noisy.’ The dogs were first taught that the humans didn’t want them to ‘steal’ food from a plate (using “No!” or a similar command). Then they were presented with the containers, which were filled with tasty treats. The containers looked exactly the same: transparent, open at the front, with brass jingle bells hung across the opening. However, the ringers from the bells had been removed in the silent container. With the dog watching, the experimenter would place the treats into each container and carefully demonstrate which one made noise and which one didn’t. Then she would either sit between the two containers looking straight ahead, or hold her head between her knees, facing the ground. Each dog was then given 30 seconds to approach the containers.

The results showed that when the experimenter was looking, less than half of the dogs approached the silent container. In other words, it didn’t matter if the woman was going to hear their transgression because she could see it anyway.  However, when the experimenter wasn’t looking, almost all dogs went up to the silent container – 19 out of 20. They paid attention to what the human would hear and tried to be stealthy.

Findings like these provide evidence that animals have some “theory of mind” – the ability to imagine what others know or believe. The brass bells and the whole set-up of the experiment were new to the dogs. They wouldn’t have been able to calculate in a robotic fashion what’s likely to happen if bells go “jingle-jingle” when you swallow a salami. The authors point out that various species – primates, goats, members of the crow family – have demonstrated a similar ability to benefit from Knowing If Others Know.

The Stray Way

The shelter dogs in Kundey’s study were all found as strays, rather than surrendered by their owners. Yet they did just as well as the pet dogs in deciphering the signals (contrary to what some previous studies had found). The authors suggest a possible explanation – that stray animals, including dogs, often need to find food without being noticed by nearby humans.

Maybe there are a lot of non-pet animals living in close association with humans who are able to read us with surprising skill. It would be nice if we had urban “Jane Goodall’s” venturing out to the many so-called less developed cities and villages of the world to do field studies of the behaviour of free-ranging dogs. We could learn a lot about the evolution, cognitive capacities and psychological needs of our companions.

Of course, some studies have already been done, and scientists usually divide free-ranging dogs into several categories based on their dependence on humans – from owned dogs allowed to roam without supervision to completely feral animals. In my home town of Sofia, the most conspicuous street dogs are probably community pets who live near apartment blocks and on parking lots. They are generally well socialised and attached to certain people but don’t lavish attention on strangers. There are also feral dogs who have to make it on their own in abandoned factory yards or remote wooded areas. They are wary of humans and avoid contact, more like urban foxes in the UK, coyotes in American cities, and pariah dogs in Asia.

However, there is another broad class of dogs that I feel would make a very interesting object of behavioural observation: the street-savvy downtown dwellers who live in the most crowded places of the city. What beggar tactics do they employ towards the large variety of people they meet? How do they cope with the traffic? Are they less territorial? How big are their home ranges? And how about those few who learn to ride on public transportation? A docile temperament, flexibility and high sensitivity to human social cues would all be necessary for success in such an environment.

Cute metro rider in Moscow:

A Personal Story

A month ago my friend and I had a hilarious encounter with just such a smart and hypersocial four-legged citizen. She was a chubby, spayed female who apparently went by the name Siamese (no, she was not a cat!). She bumped into our bench in Borisova Garden while playing with another dog. It took only one word and a brief stroke, and she was all over me: she hopped on the bench, onto my lap, nearly climbed on my head, licking my nose and wagging her tail frantically – behaving as if we were old friends. It was a total assault, and most unexpected! (I have to say my friend was quite startled by this extreme display of affection ). The dog was well versed in people behaviour and knew, on the basis of my one-second signals, that her tactic would pay off. It immediately made me feel as if we were old friends indeed, and Siamese gained 15 minutes of company for her walk and even a little food treat.

Together with her playmate, she followed us around and ran up to other benches to say hello. The dogs’ antics seemed to be well tolerated by some people and not so much by others, but the animals acted as if fully aware when it was going to “work” and when it wasn’t. When told off, they did not persist, yet did not appear to lose their good spirits. Siamese strutted around like she owned the place. The second dog vanished, but she followed us right to the end of the park and into the downtown area. There she waited patiently at two very busy streets, and from experience I knew not to worry about her. She would stand on the sidewalk with her head tilted slightly sideways, perhaps watching the cars go by, and would start crossing just before the traffic light changed to green. My friend, a psychologist, wondered if she was going along with the crowd, but then noticed that Siamese was putting her feet on the street before any of the human pedestrians. The dog paid attention to the cars, the people – to the traffic lights.

Behind me, a boy was telling a girl the story of a dog who had taken to riding on trams: “They learn,” he said to her, and he was right. We don’t see a lot of downtown strays who lack the ability to dodge traffic or cross the street along the shortest route. The reason is simple and sad – those who cannot learn, often do not make it to adulthood…

Cars are surely a new evolutionary pressure for the domestic dog as well as for the cat and many other animals, both in towns and in the countryside – almost as if a new super predator has appeared on the face of the Earth – and if not for the widespread use of dog leashes and the restriction of cats indoors, perhaps the entire dog and cat populations would be turning “traffic smart” by now. I do advocate keeping your dog on a lead when out in the streets (not just the busiest streets), but observing free souls like Siamese reminds me that everything has pros and cons.

This is like the debate over children’s right to play: how safe is too safe? The kids of both human and nonhuman mammals love a good game, and they learn a lot of vital physical and social skills in play situations that involve some risk and danger. Parents as well as pet owners, and society as a whole, need to be creative and think up environments that are both challenging and safe enough, so that young minds can develop to their full natural potential.*

*For more on that, you can read the article “Play, Play, and Play Some More: Let Children Be the Animals They Have the Right to Be” on ethologist Mark Bekoff’s blog.

Sources:

Kundey, Shannon, et al. “Domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris) react to what others can and cannot hear.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 126 (2010), pp. 45-50.

Miklosi, Adam. “Human-Animal Interactions and Social Cognition in Dogs.” In The Behavioural Biology of Dogs, ed. by Per Jensen, CAB International 2007.

In this inspirational TED lecture Zoe Weil, the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (www.HumaneEducation.org) talks about the value of humane education. She is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement, which provides people with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be conscientious choicemakers and engaged changemakers for a better world.

Two researchers – Matthew Cole and Kate Stewart  recently produced a paper that examined how movies encourage children to conceptually distance the animals they eat from those which they form an emotional bond such as pets. This post examines some of the points made in the paper.

I have often wondered why Disney films which frequently feature stories about animals don’t encourage more empathy and respect amongst children. For example ‘Finding Nemo’ appears to convey the message that fish belong in the sea and deserve their freedom. Yet sales in tropical fish,  rocketed after the film indicating that the wider audience did not take home that message.

Cole and Stewart argue that  in most films animals only become important when they transcend their species typical behaviours and take on human qualities. The characters become exceptions to the rules that define our relationship with that species. For example, Babe finds acceptance as a sheep dog-pig not as a pig (it is acceptable to care about dogs) or Nemo is special because he speaks like a human. In Happy Feet the Penguins are saved by dancing and in Chicken Run the Chickens conquer flight to escape their fate as food animals. The animal characters in these films are essentially humans in animal bodies and I think this is what limits our capacity to learn the lesson of empathy and respect for other animals.

Both Charlotte’s Webb and Babe have been cited as being responsible for a decrease in pork sales.  However this trend was fleeting and consumer behaviour returned back to normal soon after. Perhaps this was because in the eyes of the viewer Babe was a special pig and eventually they dissociated the character from the food they eat.

Carnivourous animals often  enjoy more complex characterisations where as prey animals are represented as a homogenous faceless mass. Cole and Stewart cite the Lion King as prime example of this. Pumba and Timone are  prey species but they are given special ‘companion animal’ status by the Lion. Stewart and Cole argue that where animals are allowed to transcend their fates as food it is because they have been given special consideration by the characters that the audience identify with (most like humans). Of course in more recent films like Madagascar the prey and the predator become friends and the predator fights against his nature to stop himself preying on other animals. In the end he eats sushi because in this film at least, fish don’t matter because they haven’t been given a human-like personality and therefore their feelings don’t matter – if they have any at all!

Stewart and Cole also argue that childrens fiction  has a tradition of associating the loss of sympathy or empathy for animals with growing up. For example in the Jungle book, Mowgli is tempted away from Baloo by the lithe water carrying girl in the local village.

Whilst this review is far from exhaustive, I do think that personifying animals in childrens literature does very little to foster respect and understanding for other species and this may account for why children don’t take home the messages that the films convey to me. This begs the question: How do we produce childrens fiction that doesn’t personify animals and encourages respect and empathy for other species independently of  the human relationship with them? Answers please!

Reference: Stewart, K., Cole, M. (2009) The Conceptual Separation of Food and Animals in Childhood. Food, Culture and Society 12(4): 457-476;

Temple Grandin is a wonderfully acted, engaging biopic about the famous autistic scientist who changed the lives (and deaths) of farm animals in America and around the world. The HBO production, which won multiple Emmys this year, is a must-see for animal lovers and for anybody with a voyeuristic penchant for minds that are “different, not less.”  The subject matter is very camera-friendly because Temple’s thinking is visual. She may have trouble with languages or facial expressions, but when the movie reveals the complex geometric plans inside her head – or when the phrase “waking up with the roosters” triggers a picture of her aunt and uncle crowing on the roof – you know you’re in for a great TV treat that’s not going to leave you depressed.

What I love about this film is the clever way it constructs a sort of empathy chain. We can see the world through the eyes of a high-functioning autistic person, and Claire Danes’ Temple in turn can see it through the eyes of a cow, or a horse. So we can feel for cows and horses too. Even though Temple eats meat, she doesn’t want to be like a wild predator – because predators can’t put themselves in a cow’s shoes (or hooves), but she can. “Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be” is a phrase heard more than once in the film, and it will resonate in your head, like the mooing of distressed cattle in a feedlot, long after you’ve switched off the TV. Ditto for the other, more lyrical question Temple keeps asking whenever a human or an animal dies: “Where do they go?” Where, indeed? The movie gives no answer, but the question itself is stunning in its simplicity and earnestness, especially when Grandin shouts it out amidst the noise of a macabre slaughterhouse.

Temple bores fellow party goers with her chatter about the horribly designed head restraints for cattle. Yet a topic that can easily become tiresome to ordinary folks, or even scare them away, becomes important and fascinating here because the film challenges you to shift your perspective. The heroine of the movie is no longer a sad little psychiatric case, but an intelligent and compassionate person whose phobia of sliding doors and fondness for weird-looking “squeeze machines” have – by an irony of fate – proven a gift to farm animals in America. Cows are no longer simple burger robots, but individuals with feelings as real as yours or mine, animals who know pain and fear and comfort. This exercise in empathy is why Temple Grandin succeeds – why it is so beautiful and humane.

*If you’re interested in Grandin’s unique insight into animal minds, you can also get a hold of her international bestseller Animals in Translation. I actually haven’t read that one, but I can recommend her newest book, Making Animals Happy.*

Contributed by Alina Lilova

Summer is great for the elderly pooch, especially with a light T-shirt on for sun protection

But winter feels just miserable... Can't we breed iggies who are more heat-efficient?

I believe that the best, fastest way to change the status quo is if everybody who has a favourite breed could try to identify, honestly, both the positive and the negative welfare aspects of this breed—and accept the possibility that its appearance may have to change in the future. Confronting ourselves in this manner may be hard, but one day our dogs will be thankful that we did it. Just like our choices as farmers or consumers affect the lives of billions of sentient farm animals, our choices as breeders or members of the dog-buying public matter greatly to the world’s dogs.

With this belief, I will start with myself. I adore sighthounds – especially the smallest among them, the Italian greyhounds. My computer and drawers are full of “iggy” and greyhound pictures: photographs, old paintings, calendars. For 13 years, I owned a wonderful male Italian greyhound called Ernesto, or “Nesto.” Fortunately, despite the rarity of these dogs and the inbreeding atrocities visible in Nesto’s pedigree just four generations back, he didn’t suffer from the ailments commonly listed in breed descriptions – such as Progressive Retinal Atrophy or von Willebrand Disease. He did have epilepsy, though (and a family history of epilepsy), but he was lucky to be relatively unaffected by it, as it occurred only a few times in his life – which is not the case with all epileptic dogs.

However, Nesto had to endure a few “minor” sources of discomfort that are extremely common in the breed yet apparently not a concern to breeders, unlike retinal atrophy, for example. Dogs love to chew on hard objects, but Nesto’s ability to chew bones, carrots and toys gradually diminished due to his severe gum disease. By the end of his life, his jaw bone had so disintegrated that he had developed an oronasal fistula – a little hole between the mouth and the nose that lets the saliva get into the dog’s nostril, so he would constantly sniffle. Other toy breeds – but also the large greyhound types – often suffer from bad gums, too. That’s why many believe that in such dogs, periodontal disease is aided by the relatively large and crowded teeth and by the tight cheeks and insufficient saliva. In other words – it’s quite possible that the problem might be alleviated through selective breeding, by allowing the dog’s muzzle to become more powerful.

Italian greyhounds are also very sensitive to the cold and wet, with their sparse body fat and short fur lacking undercoat. Unless they live in a very hot climate, they need to sleep in their owner’s bed or in a special ‘snuggle bed’ at night. They will use every opportunity to squeeze between cushions and lie on top of the biggest, softest pillow in view – and their antics are awfully cute to watch. They’ll be fine as long as they have access to similar luxuries and, above all, a warm coat and possibly boots in the winter. Just watch this videoclip of an iggy who’s learnt some great acrobatics to minimise the amount of time his feet spend on the snow. Nesto could only do the three-legger thing, but this guy’s a champion!

Fonzi the Italian Greyhound on YouTube

Unfortunately, the problem exacerbates in old age, when the body becomes less energy-efficient. The dog enjoys his walks less and less and may grow more vulnerable to disease. The solution may be some sort of full-body suit or, more likely, short to nonexistent winter walks. It was obvious that my elderly dog’s welfare was thus compromised in the name of breed fashion.

I have read articles in two different magazines which assured the reader that when Italian greyhounds tremble, it has nothing to do with being cold. The trembling is instead attributed to their nervous excitability. I would ask the breed experts to show me some evidence for that. As Nesto didn’t tremble on hot summer days, it’s logical to assume that when he did shiver on cooler days, he was indeed trying to adjust to the weather. Overwhelming emotion could be the clue to the “mystery” in some cases, but clearly not in all. So why not breed for a coat that’s a little bit thicker? I’m not talking about a long-haired version, for the very long and dense coats can be as uncomfortable as the very short and fine. But an iggy could do with some undercoat, which would also provide sun protection on the beach – canine skin can’t get darker like human skin, and Italian greyhounds are prone to sunburns and various types of solar-induced moles and blemishes.

Other aspects of the breed’s current look that score low on the welfare scale include fine bones predisposed to breaking and the danger of dwarfism if small size is obsessively pursued (which can cause eye problems among others).

There is a silver lining, of course. The breed’s cleanliness and modest proportions make it an ideal dog for tiny flats in high-rise buildings. The dog is small enough to be exercised in a room if the weather outside prohibits a walk. Airlines may not require you to fly your pet in the cargo compartment, which means less stress for him and less danger from overheating. He’s easy to carry on public transportation, which in some cases might ensure better access to vets or parks. The dog’s sight and hearing are unobstructed, and most canine communication abilities are not impaired due to some inherent flaw in the ears, tail, posture or face (although the short coat means iggies can’t raise hackles as efficiently).  His square, light-weight body frame translates into the healthiest hips of all breeds ranked by the USA’s Orthopedic Foundation for Animals. His superb speed allows him to escape from dogs who are threatening him (though in my opinion the extreme attention to speed, when it negatively affects important body features, is unwarranted). Last but not least, the dog is trainable but no workaholic, very affectionate with his humans while reserved with strangers, and not prone to fighting and jealousy: these characteristics appeal to people and mean that the breed’s temperament, as it is, makes it a very good pet.

I hope that Italian greyhound enthusiasts will hold on to that silver lining but not use it as an excuse for the cloud. As long as people do selective breeding and ‘mess with nature’, they have a duty to put animal welfare first. For a start, they could begin by expanding the gene pool of the breed. With so few of the dogs around, how idiotic is it that iggies from English-speaking countries (who come in all colours) are kept apart from the iggies in FCI-member countries (who are banned by Italy from sporting any coat colour other than fawn and grey)! Once we move beyond issues of tradition and fashion, we can give these animals a better chance to live life to the fullest, and to make their owners happy.

Unless the winds of change blow strong in the world of dog breeding, I wouldn’t purchase another Italian greyhound puppy, or any other purebred puppy. I would much rather adopt a needy dog. No one would ever replace Ernesto anyway – and I have to live up to my philosophy as animal lover. I owe as much to him who taught me the joys and responsibilities of living with a dog.

–Paul McGreevy, comment in The New Scientist (“We must breed happier, healthier dogs,” 8 October 2008)

Irish Wolfhound Sam, photo by Tirwhan, Wikipedia

Contributed by Alina Lilova

In my early teens, I used to worship the world of the dog fancy, which I was familiar with through hobby magazines and occasional direct contact. I could recognise dozens upon dozens of breeds, I would read their entire standards, I thought dog shows were fascinating, and I dreamt of studying “cynology,” or canine science.

How disenchanted I am today. Over the years, I slowly came to realise that canine science rests on shaky biological grounds because it is not dog-centric as its name implies. The individual dog doesn’t matter as much as the frozen ideal of the breed. Selective breeding isn’t used to create happy and well-adjusted family pets, but to improve “breed quality,” i.e. match ever more closely what the dog looked like in a mythical past or will look like in a utopian future, as laid out in the sacred books of the kennel club.  Other concerns exist, but they are secondary.

Obsessively pursuing the Breed Standard like a pack of hounds, breeders risk losing sight of the animal welfare problems that come with their quest. The first problem is inbreeding, or the crossing of related individuals. While many laypeople believe that pedigrees serve to make sure no close relatives are mated, in fact the opposite is often true. The second problem is exaggerated physical traits: dog shows, like those fashion shows with super-skinny models, don’t always have the participant’s welfare in mind. In this article, I’m going to discuss the two issues as well as give my amateur opinion on the historical roots of the problem.

I hope that the attention this problem is getting these days (after Pedigree Dogs Exposed aired on BBC a couple of years ago) will change the way we breed and buy puppies, not just in Great Britain, but over here in Bulgaria and all over the world. The current situation is unacceptable. Dividing littermates into “pet dogs” to be spayed or neutered, or in any case not bred, and “show dogs,” then using traditional dog show results to further limit the gene pool, is a very dubious practice. This is the system for many purebred dogs: they either come from “reputable breeders” who provide well for their dogs but breed strictly to type with the aim of producing champions, or they come from pet shops and markets, which often means they were born in puppy mills where their parents are overbred and kept in filthy conditions, with little human company. Of course, the best solution for the puppy buyer is to adopt a shelter dog. But as long as we have domestic dogs, we’re going to have artificial selection, and I believe it’s worth it to discuss the ways forward.

Inbreeding

Inbreeding is a breeder’s primary tool for ‘fixing’ desired traits. For example, in cocker spaniels spotted-coloured coats are recessive, which means that the puppy must have the right copy of the gene (“allele”) from both mum and dad in order to be a Spot. Under normal conditions, the colour would be quite rare. But if a breeder wants to produce an exclusive line of Spots, the task might be easier if he crosses dogs who are related to each other – say, a spotted female to her solid-black grandfather who is known for passing down the rare allele to some of his descendants. Many breeds and breed lines started from just a handful of dogs and wouldn’t exist if not for inbreeding.

Is inbreeding bad? After all, even in humans, though we speak of an “incest taboo,” the practice is not uncommon in various cultures and historical periods. According to my Human Evolutionary Psychology book, “Inbreeding may… be an acceptable risk under a wide range of circumstances” – for example, if one is faced with the prospect of failing to have any children, or of dissipating the family wealth. Yet, for dogs, are purported beauty and the ideal of the standard an acceptable risk? Especially given that inbreeding is a permanent hallmark of the pedigree dog system?

The dangers of excessive inbreeding are two-fold. When you fix traits that you fancy in a population of dogs, you also risk fixing the deleterious alleles that the parents happen to be carrying. You may eventually weed them out through genetic screening, but often at the cost of tragic mistakes. For instance, you find out that a quarter of the dogs you breed show symptoms of a blood disorder by age five. Being a conscientious breeder, you employ all the available DNA and other medical tests and remove from your programme the dogs and bitches who are likely to pass down the disease. You are lucky because it turns out that the blood disorder gene isn’t linked to the traits you select for in your dogs. Ironically, though, what you have done is shrunk the gene pool even further, and unless you introduce some fresh blood (e.g. from a related breed), you may well uncover other previously hidden diseases… sooner or later. That’s why biologists speak of “inbreeding depression,” which means reduced litter size and reduced longevity of the inbred animals.

Even if you manage to solve all the genetic problems in your breed and have a healthy population of dogs, they will be too identical, just like the inbred cheetahs of East Africa. Cheetahs tend to do quite well when they are not persecuted by humans, but conservationists are still worried. In theory, the lack of genetic variation means that the animals as a whole are more susceptible to parasites and disease-causing viruses and bacteria. For a microbe, it’s easier to evolve the means to outsmart a genetically identical host population than a more diverse one. With pedigree dogs, that should be of concern when they are mixed with other dogs of the same kind, e.g. in breeding kennels or at specialty shows.

Lack of diversity in the region of the MHC genes (major histocompatibility complex) is thought to be particularly bad.* MHC proteins on the surface of cells work like a password for our immune system, so it recognises the cells as our own and not as something foreign. Natural selection favours very high MHC diversity so that our “passwords” are harder to crack, and our bodies less prone to invasion. Think of a bunch of humans or a bunch of dogs as your set of credit cards: wouldn’t you use a unique password for each card? It’s hardly a surprise, then, that mammals – including us – can actually smell differences in MHC, and it’s one of the reasons why they tend to avoid mating with close relatives. I wonder if that couldn’t explain what a fellow dog lover told me about her male Dachshund, who absolutely disliked female Dachshunds but was attracted by ladies of other breeds!

*However, an article published last year by Radwan et al. points out that some of the species that have lost their MHC diversity are doing OK, though they might be rare examples. The article also says that it’s hard to separate the ill effects of losing MHC diversity from the effects of inbreeding in general.

Exaggerated Traits

Pugs in the 18th. century apparently didn't have "pug noses"! You can bet they breathed a lot easier...(William Hogarth, The Painter and his Pug, 1745, Tate Britain)

What traits are relevant to welfare? First, some behavioural traits. In today’s world, dogs must make good pets. Ideally, even working lines such as guard dogs should make decent pets because otherwise it would be hard to find homes for retired or “surplus” dogs. Traits such as fear, aggressiveness and obedience are important. Specific traits such as a dog’s requirement for exercise or play can vary between breeds – but few people nowadays really need vicious dogs, and few dogs benefit from a low threshold of aggression. Secondly, there are harmful morphological features which, unlike the genetic diseases resulting from inbreeding, have been deliberately selected for in some of today’s purebred animals. A very serious effort should be made to weed them out by changing club rules and breed standards and by educating owners, breeders and show judges to put welfare considerations ahead of aesthetic ones.

That should be easy if people knew the consequences for health and wellbeing that such traits entail… and if they could put themselves in the dog’s place. All of us know what a cold or allergy feels like, when you can’t draw enough air when you breathe – well, that is daily reality for many Pekingese and pug dogs with “charmingly” flat faces! Walk past one of those animals, and it’s likely you might be able to hear his or her breathing… Now, if you have long hair, comb it so it falls over your face and you can’t see, and you’ll know what it feels like to be a komondor. Sure, you can get accustomed to it and probably won’t go bumping into things, but if somebody forced you to wear your hair like that, how would you feel about them? Among the many other issues are walking difficulties and hip dysplasia in German shepherds as a consequence of their specific body frame, kidney problems and deafness in Dalmatians – both of which seem to be genetically tied to the Dalmatian colour – and syringomyelia (which can be an agonisingly painful condition) in Cavalier King Charles spaniels due to inadequate skull size.

The 19^th Century

The problem is also linked to the current idea of the Nation and the sources of national pride. It is not by coincidence that the rise of the nation-state occurred at about the same time as the rise of the dog fancy. (The first recorded dog show in history took place in London in 1850 and was a small event described as a “Great Exhibition of the Pugs of All Nations.”) Some people need to keep “national breeds” unique just like they need to keep nations unique – even closely related ones. For example, the standard of the Bulgarian Karakachan dog lists as a disqualifying fault a dog’s resemblance to other Mollossian flock guardians of the Balkans such as the Sharplaninets. Never mind, of course, that the climate and the mountains of these countries are similar, that livestock keepers share the same traditions and face the same predators, and that state boundaries on the peninsula have always changed.

Flipping through Muriel Bremner’s Wolfhound Guide to the Irish Wolfhound, I am fascinated by the myriad testimonies – in the text, the photos, the illustrations – to how similar the cult of a national breed can be to the cult of cultural creations as diverse as folk tales, costumes or regional dialects. The historic moment can’t be mistaken, nor can the socio-psychological needs of the people who took the ‘majestic giant’ out of his dusty drawer and turned him into a living and breathing legend. How much is he a real animal, and how much is he Hyperbole?

On page 3, there’s a reproduction of an old drawing which clearly depicts two generic greyhounds. Yet lo and behold, the caption reads, “The female figure of Hibernia, accompanied by a brace of Irish Wolfhounds.” Yeah, right. It only takes one to flip twenty pages further and spot the difference between the “brace of Irish Wolfhounds” and today’s dogs. Modern Irish wolfhounds are shaggier, larger and more imposing because breed fanciers are much more concerned with the dogs’ visual appeal than with adapting them to some utilitarian function.

The history of the breed is directly compared to the history of the Irish people: “… like his adopted people, though tested and tried by the terrors of time, he survived.” What long centuries of hardship couldn’t erase, though, the 19^th century supposedly could. Just like the traditional songs of the peasantry, the dogs were thought to be degenerating and in danger of imminent extinction. Only the urgent action of passionate collectors could restore their ancient glory. The Irish wolfhound had his own version of the Brothers Grimm in the face of a certain Captain Graham. Graham sought out the last remaining “authentic” specimens and tried to restore the breed’s “original” look.

Ironically, the latest research on pedigree dog breeding gives us reason to believe that what may really threaten purebred dogs with extinction is just that preoccupation with authenticity and looks that became so fashionable 150 years ago… I personally find it hard to believe that the doggies before that were degenerating. Maybe the wolfhound type had really undergone a decrease in size following the extinction of the wolf in Ireland/the potato famine/etc. But that evolution was therefore natural, not a tragedy to be lamented and reversed. The fast growth rate of giant dogs is bad for their musculoskeletal health and longevity anyway.

In the 21^st century, we’re still living with the ideals of perfected 19^th-century things which are supposed to reflect our very ancient heritage. Many of our breeds are no more than a frozen photograph from the 1800s that has been Photoshopped for top-level appeal. Once we realise that, maybe we’ll be able to let go of outdated attitudes and allow our dogs to move on.

The Way Forward?

To some extent, many breed clubs are actively involved in improving the welfare of their favourite dogs. For example, they work with rescues, they try not to breed animals with some inherited diseases, and they do temperament assessments. A few factors are, however, a barrier to success, and these include the desire to “produce” (this ugly word is often part of the professional jargon) champions in the show ring, as well as the reluctance to outcross, to modify breed standards or to merge some of the existing breeds. On the contrary, sometimes whole lines are excluded from breeding and branded as “not genuine” because one dog several generations back passed down a tail that’s curved instead of straight.

Some diversity of dog breeds is essential because people have different tastes and lifestyles, and still keep dogs in rather different environments (e.g. urban vs. rural). However, the entire focus of selective breeding must shift towards the well-being of the animals. Animal welfare must be a top priority; physical appearance (and working performance) comes second.

The breeding pool can be kept large enough if more individual owners breed their pets – but fewer times per pet. Kennel club and breed club rules must change to discourage the excessive breeding to type that’s central to their philosophy today. Breed standards must be relaxed for the traits irrelevant to welfare. We can still have many recognisable dog breeds – just not as many. Periodic outcrossing with other breeds must be practiced as needed. It can do wonders to eliminate genetic diseases, and not necessarily at such a great cost to looks (when you mate the hybrids back to your original breed, you can restore the desired look quite rapidly).

It’s complicated, yet simple. To make the dogs and the dog-buying public happier, we don’t need miraculous advances in genetics or veterinary medicine. All we need is a shift in attitudes.

Bibliography:

Barrett, L., Dunbar, R. and Lycett, J. Human Evolutionary Psychology. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002 (ch. 9).

Bremner, M. The Wolfhound Guide to the Irish Wolfhound. Wolfhound Press, Dublin, 1998.

Galis, F., van der Sluijs, I., Van Dooren, T. J.M., Metz, J. A.J., Nussbaumer, M. “Do large dogs die young?” Interim Report IR-06-072. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2006.

McGreevy, P.D. and Nicholas, F. W. “Some practical solutions to welfare problems in dog breeding.” Animal Welfare 1999, 8: 329-241.

Radwan, J., Biedrzycka, A. and Babik, W. “Does reduced MHC diversity decrease viability of vertebrate populations?” Biological Conservation, 2009. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2009.07.026

Ricklefs, R. The Economy of Nature. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, 2001 (ch. 16).

Sayer, A. The Complete Dog. Prion, London, 1988.

Thiesse, A.-M. La Création des identités nationales. Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 2001.

Further Reading:

“Independent Inquiry into Dog Breeding” by Patrick Bateson of the University of Cambridge. The inquiry was commissioned by two opposing parties in the matter: the Kennel Club and the Dogs Trust, after the airing of a BBC documentary called Pedigree Dogs Exposed provoked an unprecedented public reaction. The full report was published in 2010 and can be downloaded from www.dogbreedinginquiry.com.

Leaf Cake

Ingredients

• Lots of Leaves
• Honey or Jam or Marmite or Peanut butter
• Dry dog food or peanuts
• A large plastic container e.g. a bin/trash can

Serves: 2 sunbears

Instructions

1. Start by putting  a layer of leaves in to the container. Compact them down dense.

2. Sprinkle bits of dog food

3. Add more leaves and compact

4. Drizzle honey over the leaves

5. Add more leaves and compact

6. Repeat this process until the container is full

7. Take to the enclosure and gently turn the container upside down and shake out the cake

As you may have guessed this cake is not fit for human consumption but I know a couple of sun bears that enjoyed it muchos. The leafcake is excellent environmental enrichment and could be adapted for other species.  It allows the bears to express their motivation to forage and use their senses of touch and smell to find the food.  It also prolongs the feeding process and gives them something to do. Animals in captivity can become very bored and it is important to provide environmental enrichment that allows them to express their natural internally motivated behaviours. These bears spent ages delicately sifting through the leaves to find the food and licking the honey coated leaves. They really seemed to enjoy themselves.

Tuck In!

I think I had a bit too much honey

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