Training methods of military dog handlers and their effects on the team's performances

While only a few studies have analysed training methods used on working dogs, a recent survey in 303 Belgian military handlers revealed the use of harsh training methods on military working dogs (MWD). The present work aims at analysing the training methods used on Belgian MWD and the behaviour of handlers to objectify the performances of the dog handlers teams (DH teams) and the welfare of the animals.A standardized evaluation, including obedience and protection work exercises, was conducted on DH teams (n = 33). Every evaluation was done twice to assess the reliability of the observation methods. The behaviours of MWD and handlers were recorded on videotape and subsequently analysed. Results showed that handlers rewarded or punished their dogs intermittently. Stroking and patting the dogs were the most frequently used rewards. Pulling on the leash and hanging dogs by their collars were the most commonly used aversive stimuli.The team's performance was influenced by the training method and by the dog's concentration: (1) low-performance dogs received more aversive stimuli than high-performance dogs; (2) dog's distraction influenced the performance: distracted dogs performed less well.Handlers punished more and rewarded less at the second evaluation than at the first one. This suggests that handlers modified their usual behaviour at the first evaluation in view to present themselves in a positive light. During the second evaluation the dogs reacted to this higher frequency of aversive stimuli as they exhibited a lower posture after aversive stimuli. The authors cannot prove that the welfare of these dogs had been hampered, but there is an indication that it was under threat.Low team performances suggest that DH teams should train more regularly and undertake the usefulness of setting a new training system that would rely on: the use of more positive training methods, an increased training frequency, the elaboration of a course on training principles, and an improvement of dog handler relationship.     

Military Veterans and Service Dogs: A Qualitative Inquiry Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

There are over 18.8 million veterans of the United States of America's Armed Forces. After military service veterans may find it difficult transitioning back to civilian life. Veterans reintegrating may experience physical and psychological challenges related to their military service. For many, a successful role change takes considerable time and determination. In order to ease their transition, veterans are using the assistance of service dogs to aid in symptom management and assist with positive reintegration into civilian life. Service dogs are highly trained animals that help individuals perform life tasks to assist with physical and psychological challenges. The purpose of this qualitative study was to give voice to the experiential viewpoints of veterans who utilize service dogs. Guided by the theoretically informed method of interpretation— interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA)—the researchers uncovered the veterans’ perspectives, which provided meaningful insight into their lives with a service dog. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with veterans (n = 21) who utilized a service dog. The interviews lasted approximately one hour and were video or audio recorded. The most salient themes that emerged from the interviews were grouped into four superordinate themes: Procurement, psychosocial functioning, value, and detriments. Results suggest that service dogs improved veterans’ physical and psychological health, provided a coping resource and a form of social support, and supported sustaining their independence. Veterans’ right to privacy and the public's lack of knowledge and understanding of legal accommodation requirements via the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) were perceptible. Implications for policy, practice, and research, are discussed.     

Physical Activity and Welfare of Guide Dogs and Walking Activity of Their Partners

ABSTRACT

Appropriate physical activity is beneficial for physical and psychosocial wellbeing, and it is recommended for people to have 30 minutes of activity on most days of the week, to yield 150 minutes per week. Getting sufficient physical activity particularly challenges people with visual disabilities, and few health-promotion interventions have focused on adults with this disability. Recently, dog walking has been promoted in communities as a way to increase people's physical activity. We surveyed guide-dog partners to assess whether their guide dogs facilitated walking. We also assessed the welfare of these dogs, including their physical activity and social interactions with other dogs and people, especially as there is some concern that these dogs have too little freedom. For comparison, we assessed large and small companion dogs and their handlers, as well. A web-based survey was conducted among people living with guide dogs or companion (pet) dogs: large companion dogs (51 lb or more) and small companion dogs (50 lb or less). Guide-dog partners walked significantly more than handlers of either small or large companion dogs (Guide-dog partners met the healthy standard of 150 min per week of walking, at a level 10 times more than owners of large companion dogs). Guide dogs walked with their partners more frequently and for longer durations per day than owners of companion dogs. Guide dogs with their handlers met more people outside of their homes than did owners of companion dogs, but the groups did not differ in the number of dogs they greeted outside of the house. The frequencies of going to off-leash areas did not differ among the three groups. The findings indicate that having a dog as a guide can lead to a higher amount of walking among guide-dog partners, and that guide dogs have a higher quality of life, in terms of quantity of physical activity and social interactions, compared with large or small companion dogs.     

Inhibitory Control,but Not Prolonged Object-Related Experience Appears to Affect Physical Problem-Solving Performance of Pet Dogs

Human infants develop an understanding of their physical environment through playful interactions with objects. Similar processes may influence also the performance of non-human animals in physical problem-solving tasks, but to date there is little empirical data to evaluate this hypothesis. In addition or alternatively to prior experiences, inhibitory control has been suggested as a factor underlying the considerable individual differences in performance reported for many species. Here we report a study in which we manipulated the extent of object-related experience for a cohort of dogs (Canis familiaris) of the breed Border Collie over a period of 18 months, and assessed their level of inhibitory control, prior to testing them in a series of four physical problem-solving tasks. We found no evidence that differences in object-related experience explain variability in performance in these tasks. It thus appears that dogs do not transfer knowledge about physical rules from one physical problem-solving task to another, but rather approach each task as a novel problem. Our results, however, suggest that individual performance in these tasks is influenced in a complex way by the subject’s level of inhibitory control. Depending on the task, inhibitory control had a positive or a negative effect on performance and different aspects of inhibitory control turned out to be the best predictors of individual performance in the different tasks. Therefore, studying the interplay between inhibitory control and problem-solving performance will make an important contribution to our understanding of individual and species differences in physical problem-solving performance.     

Physical size matters in the domestic dog's (Canis lupus familiaris) ability to use human pointing cues

Researchers have reported differences between breeds of dogs in their ability to utilize human gestures (Wobber et al., 2009). These reports could either be the result of underlying differences in inherent communication abilities or differences in physical capacities amongst breeds. One physical difference between breeds which may make a difference in using visual cues is relative size. Larger dogs should, all other things being equal, have greater inter-ocular distances and this may improve their visual abilities for some tasks. This hypothesis was tested in the present study by comparing the performance of larger (>22.7 kg) and smaller (<22.7 kg) dogs on a pointing choice task. Larger dogs did perform better on this task than smaller dogs (P = .03). Researchers need to be careful when making comparisons between breeds to first consider physical differences before assuming any inherent cognitive differences.     

Interactions between Handler Well-Being and Canine Health and Behavior in Search and Rescue Teams

ABSTRACT

This study reports on three years of prospective, longitudinal data on the psychological well-being of the human handlers and the health and behavior of the search and rescue dogs deployed in New York City and Washington, DC in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Eighty-five human handlers (63 deployed and 22 controls) and ninetyfour dogs (66 deployed, 28 controls) were assessed at multiple time points including 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years after the 9/11 attacks. Humans were assessed for psychological health by structured clinical interview and self-report. Dogs were assessed for physical health and behavior by veterinary records and handler report. For humans, deployment after 9/11 did indeed represent a relatively short-term risk factor for developing symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). By and large, however, the sample showed remarkable resilience as a whole, and overall rates of DSM-IV diagnoses were quite low. By year 3, 9/11 deployment no longer conferred any special risk. On the other hand, long-term employment in an emergency profession did emerge as a significant risk factor for symptoms of PTSD by year 3. With respect to the interaction between handler emotional well-being and canine health and behavior, we found that physical illness and/or death in the dog was prospectively associated with greater symptoms of depression in the handler. We also found that symptoms of depression and PTSD in the handlers prospectively predicted behavioral problems in the dogs over time. Separation anxiety, attachment/attention seeking, chasing, and excitability emerged in the dogs at 1 year. Behavioral problems escalated to aggression towards other dogs at year 2 and separation anxiety, aggression towards other dogs, and aggression towards strangers at year 3. Like any relationship, the partnership between a handler and his or her working dog can confer both protection—when the relationship is going well and both members are healthy—and vulnerability—when either member is physically ill or psychologically or behaviorally distressed.     

Environmental Factors Associated with Success Rates of Australian Stock Herding Dogs

This study investigated the current management practices associated with stock herding dogs on Australian farms. A parallel goal was to determine whether these practices and the characteristics of the dog handlers were associated with success rates. Success rate refers to the proportion of dogs acquired by the farmer that were retained as working dogs. Data on a total of 4,027 dogs were obtained through The Farm Dog Survey which gathered information from 812 herding dog owners around Australia. Using logistic regression, significant associations were identified between success rate and seven variables: dog breed, housing method, trial participation, age of the dog at acquisition, electric collar use, hypothetical maximum treatment expenditure and the conscientiousness score of the owner''s personality. These findings serve as a guide to direct further research into ways of optimising herding dog performance and welfare. They emphasise the importance of not only examining the genetic predispositions of the working dog but also the impact the handler can have on a dog''s success in the workplace.     

Is Working Memory Training Effective? A Study in a School Setting

We tested the effectiveness of an intensive, on average 17-session, adaptive and computerized working-memory training program for improving performance on untrained, paper and pencil working memory tasks, standardized school achievement tasks, and teacher ratings of classroom behavior. Third-grade children received either a computerized working memory training for about 30 minutes per session (n = 156) or participated in regular classroom activities (n = 126). Results indicated strong gains in the training task. Further, pretest and posttest transfer measures of working memory and school achievement, as well as teacher ratings, showed substantial correlations with training task performance, suggesting that the training task captured abilities that were relevant for the transfer tasks. However, effect sizes of training-specific transfer gains were very small and not consistent across tasks. These results raise questions about the benefits of intensive working-memory training programs within a regular school context.     

Protected species and predator detection dog use in New Zealand wildlife conservation projects

In many New Zealand threatened species (birds, lizards, frogs, invertebrates) recovery programmes dogs are a significant conservation management tool. Protected species detection dogs have regularly been used to locate rare birds since the 1970’s and more recently lizards. They have been used to detect, but not capture, kakapo, takahe, kiwi, whio, pateke, taiko, skinks and geckos, for monitoring and translocation purposes. Kakapo would possibly be extinct today if dogs had not been used to locate birds on Stewart Island and Fiordland for translocation to predator-free islands before predators and old age eliminated these original remnant populations. Use of these dogs on the kiwi recovery projects has advanced the progress of these projects by about ten years. Predator detection dogs support threatened species recovery programmes and their role is to enhance other predator control methods. They have been regularly used since 2002 following a successful three-year pilot project to prove their usefulness. These dogs are used to detect the presence of mammalian predators including rodents, mustelids, cat and hedgehog. They are particularly useful when predator numbers are low when other predator detection methods (tracking tunnels, traps, gnaw sticks) have difficulty confirming their presence. Once detected by the dogs the predators are killed using toxins, traps or shooting. Dogs are used for: surveillance of supposedly predator-free sites; as a tool to focus predator a process of handler application and interview, and a two-step assessment and certification system for dogs and handlers guide these Department of Conservation dog programmes. There are currently 11 predator dog handlers and 26 protected species dog handlers in the programmes.     

Are Chimpanzees Really So Poor at Understanding Imperative Pointing? Some New Data and an Alternative View of Canine and Ape Social Cognition

There is considerable interest in comparative research on different species’ abilities to respond to human communicative cues such as gaze and pointing. It has been reported that some canines perform significantly better than monkeys and apes on tasks requiring the comprehension of either declarative or imperative pointing and these differences have been attributed to domestication in dogs. Here we tested a sample of chimpanzees on a task requiring comprehension of an imperative request and show that, though there are considerable individual differences, the performance by the apes rival those reported in pet dogs. We suggest that small differences in methodology can have a pronounced influence on performance on these types of tasks. We further suggest that basic differences in subject sampling, subject recruitment and rearing experiences have resulted in a skewed representation of canine abilities compared to those of monkeys and apes.     

Factors affecting behavior and welfare of service dogs for children with autism spectrum disorder

The use of service dogs for children with autism spectrum disorder is a relatively new and growing assistance-dog application. The objectives of this article were to identify and describe the factors influencing an autism service dog's performance and the impact of this type of placement on the dog's welfare. A qualitative approach uses interview and observational data to characterize the dogs' behaviors and welfare with relevancy to the dogs' home environments. Identification of potential physical stressors included lack of rest or recovery time after working, unintentional maltreatment and prodding by children with autism, lack of predictability in daily routines, and insufficient opportunities for recreational activities. Results revealed that these dogs formed social relationships primarily with the parents and second with the children with autism. Failure to recognize and respond to the identified physical, emotional, and social needs can have serious impacts on the behavior, welfare, and performance of these autism service dogs, as well as parental satisfaction. As applications of service dogs expand to new domains, there is a need to assess and understand factors and variables affecting the relationship between family and service dog to ensure continued success of these programs.     

Brain Deactivation in the Outperformance in Bimodal Tasks: An fMRI Study

While it is known that some individuals can effectively perform two tasks simultaneously, other individuals cannot. How the brain deals with performing simultaneous tasks remains unclear. In the present study, we aimed to assess which brain areas corresponded to various phenomena in task performance. Nineteen subjects were requested to sequentially perform three blocks of tasks, including two unimodal tasks and one bimodal task. The unimodal tasks measured either visual feature binding or auditory pitch comparison, while the bimodal task required performance of the two tasks simultaneously. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results are compatible with previous studies showing that distinct brain areas, such as the visual cortices, frontal eye field (FEF), lateral parietal lobe (BA7), and medial and inferior frontal lobe, are involved in processing of visual unimodal tasks. In addition, the temporal lobes and Brodmann area 43 (BA43) were involved in processing of auditory unimodal tasks. These results lend support to concepts of modality-specific attention. Compared to the unimodal tasks, bimodal tasks required activation of additional brain areas. Furthermore, while deactivated brain areas were related to good performance in the bimodal task, these areas were not deactivated where the subject performed well in only one of the two simultaneous tasks. These results indicate that efficient information processing does not require some brain areas to be overly active; rather, the specific brain areas need to be relatively deactivated to remain alert and perform well on two tasks simultaneously. Meanwhile, it can also offer a neural basis for biofeedback in training courses, such as courses in how to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.     

Inhibition training in wolves and dogs

A theoretical model previously proposed by the first author hypothesizes that dogs (C. familiaris) should perform better than wolves (C. lupus) on training tasks in which (1) cues are arbitrarily selected by the experimenter, (2) reinforcement is administered by the experimenter, and (3) the to-be-learned behavior has no perceptible, functional connection with the reinforcement. To test this hypothesis, four Eastern wolf pups (C. l. lycaon) and four Alaskan Malamute pups (C. familiaris) were administered a passive inhibition task at seven weeks of age and an active inhibition test (leash training) at 11 weeks of age. Significant differences in the predicted direction were obtained for all task variables.     

The pet dogs ability for learning from a human demonstrator in a detour task is independent from the breed and age

There are many indications and much practical knowledge about the different tasks which various breeds of dogs are selected for. Correspondingly these different breeds are known to possess different physical and mental abilities. We hypothesized that commonly kept breeds will show differences in their problem solving ability in a detour task around a V-shaped fence, and also, that breed differences will affect their learning ability from a human demonstrator, who demonstrates a detour around the fence. Subjects were recruited in Hungarian pet dog schools. We compared the results of the 10 most common breeds in our sample when they were tested in the detour task without human demonstration. There was no significant difference between the latencies of detour, however, there was a trend that German Shepherd dogs were the quickest and Giant Schnauzers were the slowest in this test. For testing the social learning ability of dogs we formed three breed groups (“utility”, “shepherd” and “hunting”). There were no significant differences between these, all the breed groups learned equally well from the human demonstrator. However, we found that dogs belonging to the “shepherd” group looked back more frequently to their owner than the dogs in the “hunting” group. Further, we have found that the age of pet dogs did not affect their social learning ability in the detour task. Our results showed that the pet status of a dog has probably a stronger effect on its cognitive performance and human related behaviour than its age or breed. These results emphasize that socialization and common activities with the dog might overcome the possible breed differences, if we give the dogs common problem solving, or social learning tasks.     

A Potential Spatial Working Memory Training Task to Improve Both Episodic Memory and Fluid Intelligence

One current challenge in cognitive training is to create a training regime that benefits multiple cognitive domains, including episodic memory, without relying on a large battery of tasks, which can be time-consuming and difficult to learn. By giving careful consideration to the neural correlates underlying episodic and working memory, we devised a computerized working memory training task in which neurologically healthy participants were required to monitor and detect repetitions in two streams of spatial information (spatial location and scene identity) presented simultaneously (i.e. a dual n-back paradigm). Participants’ episodic memory abilities were assessed before and after training using two object and scene recognition memory tasks incorporating memory confidence judgments. Furthermore, to determine the generalizability of the effects of training, we also assessed fluid intelligence using a matrix reasoning task. By examining the difference between pre- and post-training performance (i.e. gain scores), we found that the trainers, compared to non-trainers, exhibited a significant improvement in fluid intelligence after 20 days. Interestingly, pre-training fluid intelligence performance, but not training task improvement, was a significant predictor of post-training fluid intelligence improvement, with lower pre-training fluid intelligence associated with greater post-training gain. Crucially, trainers who improved the most on the training task also showed an improvement in recognition memory as captured by d-prime scores and estimates of recollection and familiarity memory. Training task improvement was a significant predictor of gains in recognition and familiarity memory performance, with greater training improvement leading to more marked gains. In contrast, lower pre-training recollection memory scores, and not training task improvement, led to greater recollection memory performance after training. Our findings demonstrate that practice on a single working memory task can potentially improve aspects of both episodic memory and fluid intelligence, and that an extensive training regime with multiple tasks may not be necessary.     

Personality Consistency in Dogs: A Meta-Analysis

Personality, or consistent individual differences in behavior, is well established in studies of dogs. Such consistency implies predictability of behavior, but some recent research suggests that predictability cannot be assumed. In addition, anecdotally, many dog experts believe that ‘puppy tests’ measuring behavior during the first year of a dog''s life are not accurate indicators of subsequent adult behavior. Personality consistency in dogs is an important aspect of human-dog relationships (e.g., when selecting dogs suitable for substance-detection work or placement in a family). Here we perform the first comprehensive meta-analysis of studies reporting estimates of temporal consistency of dog personality. A thorough literature search identified 31 studies suitable for inclusion in our meta-analysis. Overall, we found evidence to suggest substantial consistency (r = 0.43). Furthermore, personality consistency was higher in older dogs, when behavioral assessment intervals were shorter, and when the measurement tool was exactly the same in both assessments. In puppies, aggression and submissiveness were the most consistent dimensions, while responsiveness to training, fearfulness, and sociability were the least consistent dimensions. In adult dogs, there were no dimension-based differences in consistency. There was no difference in personality consistency in dogs tested first as puppies and later as adults (e.g., ‘puppy tests’) versus dogs tested first as puppies and later again as puppies. Finally, there were no differences in consistency between working versus non-working dogs, between behavioral codings versus behavioral ratings, and between aggregate versus single measures. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.     

The Effect of Domestication on Inhibitory Control: Wolves and Dogs Compared

Inhibitory control i.e. blocking an impulsive or prepotent response in favour of a more appropriate alternative, has been suggested to play an important role in cooperative behaviour. Interestingly, while dogs and wolves show a similar social organization, they differ in their intraspecific cooperation tendencies in that wolves rely more heavily on group coordination in regard to hunting and pup-rearing compared to dogs. Hence, based on the ‘canine cooperation’ hypothesis wolves should show better inhibitory control than dogs. On the other hand, through the domestication process, dogs may have been selected for cooperative tendencies towards humans and/or a less reactive temperament, which may in turn have affected their inhibitory control abilities. Hence, based on the latter hypothesis, we would expect dogs to show a higher performance in tasks requiring inhibitory control. To test the predictive value of these alternative hypotheses, in the current study two tasks; the ‘cylinder task’ and the ‘detour task’, which are designed to assess inhibitory control, were used to evaluate the performance of identically raised pack dogs and wolves. Results from the cylinder task showed a significantly poorer performance in wolves than identically-raised pack dogs (and showed that pack-dogs performed similarly to pet dogs with different training experiences), however contrary results emerged in the detour task, with wolves showing a shorter latency to success and less perseverative behaviour at the fence. Results are discussed in relation to previous studies using these paradigms and in terms of the validity of these two methods in assessing inhibitory control.     

Abstracts

Abstract

The training of dogs usually involves the building of an association between a command word and a given behavior through reinforcement. Whilst the importance of applied learning theory in this process is widely recognized, there has been less emphasis in the scientific literature on the equally important role of interspecific communication in the learning of an instruction. A command is not a simple discriminative stimulus, and involves both verbal and non-verbal signals. It is also frequently offered in a variety of environmental contexts, which affect its contiguity and the perceived contingency between the verbal element of the message and its consequences during learning. Species-specific behavioral tendencies in human trainers, and perceptual biases in the canine trainee have been shown empirically to affect performance. There are many paralingual aspects to the communication which is involved in the training process; vocalics refers to the non-verbal vocal sounds involved, and it has been shown that short rising, higher pitched notes are more effective at eliciting motor activity during dog training. Other aspects of non-verbal communication at this time including kinesics—body language (especially oculesics—eye position and activity), physical appearance and proxemics—the structuring of the space at the time of instruction, and they have also been shown to affect canine performance. In addition, it would seem that dogs may not generalize the learning of commands as readily as is frequently implied in many texts. This has obvious implications for both the welfare and training of dogs, and deserves consideration in the training of other species.     

Affiliative and disciplinary behavior of human handlers during play with their dog affects cortisol concentrations in opposite directions

It has been shown that cortisol concentrations change characteristically in the course of agonistic interactions; our aim was to find out how a playful situation may affect concentrations of this hormone in the saliva. We studied dogs' behavior and the changes of cortisol concentrations in a play situation, where the dogs played with their handler for 3 min with a tug toy. In this experiment working dogs were divided into two groups by the type of their work, namely police dogs and border guard dogs. We found that the cortisol concentrations of old police dogs significantly increased, while the adult border guard dogs' hormone levels decreased, which shows that playing with the handler has an effect on both groups, but interestingly this effect was opposite. Behavior analysis showed differences only in the behavior of the human handlers during the play sessions, while the behavior analysis did not reveal significant differences in the two groups of dogs, except that old border guard dogs generally needed more time to begin playing than old police dogs. During the play sessions police officers were mainly disciplining their dogs, while the border guards were truly playing with them (including affiliative and affectionate behavior). Our results are in accordance with those of recent studies, which show that behaviors associated with control, authority or aggression increase cortisol concentrations, while play and affiliative behavior decrease cortisol levels.