In Defence of Dogs

by John Bradshaw

  In short, there is no direct evidence that breed differences in aggression have much to do with genetics. A very high percentage of individual dogs in any breed, including those held to be the most ‘dangerous’, are not involved in attacks (see the table); in addition, the circumstances under which a dog expresses aggression are highly modifiable by each individual dog’s experiences, including but not limited to training. Indeed, none of the statistics on dog attacks distinguish between the ‘genetic’ hypothesis on which the legislation is based, and the possibility that some breeds are much more likely to be kept by irresponsible owners.

  Numbers of dogs involved in attacks on people and dogs in New South Wales, Australia, in 2004/514

  * * *

  Breed Number % of breed (as registered)

  German shepherd 63 0.2

  Rottweiler 58 0.2

  Australian cattle dog (‘Kelpie’) 59 0.2

  Staffordshire bull terrier 41 0.1

  American pit bull terrier 33 1.0

  Others 619

  * * *

  * * *

  By contrast, genetic factors are much more evident in the inherent aggressiveness of wolf hybrids or ‘wolfdogs’. Potentially more dangerous to their owners and the public than pit bulls and other fighting dogs, these crosses between wolves and dogs have achieved cult status over the past quarter-century, especially in the United States, where there may be as many as half a million of them. Wolves and dogs are adapted to such different environments that such extreme out-crossing was certain to produce animals that fit neither the wild niche nor the domestic one, and indeed wolfdogs are renowned for the unpredictability of their behaviour.

  Wolfdogs have been held responsible for a disproportionate number of attacks on humans; for example, in the United States between 1989 and 1994 they were believed to be accountable for more human fatalities (twelve) than pit bulls (ten). There appear to be two distinct motivations behind such attacks. Some seem to originate in challenges over resources, as when a person tries to remove a wolfdog’s food. Other attacks seem to stem from the wolfdog’s perception of humans (especially children) as potential prey items, at which point they express their full range of predatory behaviour right through to the kill. Accordingly, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Dogs Trust, the Humane Society of the United States, the Ottawa Humane Society and the Wolf Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission all consider wolfdogs to be wild animals and therefore unsuitable as pets. Although the way a wolfdog is kept will undoubtedly affect whether it is dangerous or not, the wolf-type genes that it carries are undoubtedly the major influence on its behaviour.

  But apart from these hybrids, the lack of any firm genetic basis for much ‘dangerous dogs’ legislation makes it unfair to dogs. On top of this, the slow-grinding machinery of the legal system can mean that enforcement of such legislation will make a bad situation considerably worse for dogs ‘arrested’ for biting. Most of these dogs are housed in kennels for months or even years while they wait for the courts to decide their fate, making retraining and rehabilitation all the more difficult or even impossible.

  Aggressive dogs are clearly an issue of public importance, yet paradoxically they may not be the greatest threat to dog welfare that has been posed by selective breeding. Whenever dogs are selected for special aspects of their behaviour, there is a risk, as yet only dimly perceived, that they might suffer. This is because the choices that animals frequently have to make between one response to a situation and another are often driven by emotion. Natural selection keeps these connections functional. A wolf that is hyper-anxious or fearful or angry – or was over-attached to its mother in puppyhood – would be handicapped in its relationships with other wolves, and thus unlikely to become the breeder in a pack. Breeding dogs for specific segments of their behaviour has the potential to distort such checks and balances inherited from their wild ancestors. How do collies feel when they are unable to chase something? Wolves would not be bothered, because they feel an acute need to chase only when they are hungry. But in collies the connection between chasing, hunting and hunger must have been broken; otherwise, we could not get them to work safely with sheep. Since these connections have been broken, can we be sure that collies do not perpetually feel the need to chase something? The ease with which they become frustrated when not allowed to work, to the point of displaying stereotypical repetitive behaviour, suggests that this is entirely possible. Equally, it is plausible that protection dogs, bred and trained to have heightened sensitivity to challenges, feel anxious and/or angry much of the time, without necessarily displaying any outward signs. If such distortions are widespread, and the breed-specificity of many behavioural disorders suggests they are, then all breeders, not just show breeders, need to examine what they are doing.

  Indeed, if dogs are to continue to remain popular as pets, they need some focused selection for the specific qualities that make them rewarding companions; it is no longer enough to put these in third place, after external appearance and behavioural traits that reflect the original working role. Selection for such behavioural traits may be complex, but is achievable, as evidenced by the many dogs that (perhaps more by accident than design) comfortably fit into this niche today.

  Prospective owners, however, often select dogs more by appearance than by personality. Perhaps if dogs were not so variable in appearance, thereby offering owners so much choice on the ‘outside’, more emphasis might be placed on the ‘inside’. Breed often determines how active a dog needs to be, and hence whether that type of dog will suit the owner’s lifestyle. But personality and the likelihood that a lasting bond with the owner will develop are much less influenced by genetics than by environment, so owners would do well to focus instead on whether the environment in which the dog was raised has given it the best possible start for life as a pet.

  11

  Dogs and the Future

  Dogs have been man’s best friend for thousands of years, and maybe that is why we take them so much for granted. They have shown themselves to be supremely versatile, carrying out a vast range of tasks in addition to being rewarding social companions. But do they have the capacity to continue reinventing themselves as human society changes ever more rapidly? In my opinion they do, but they will need help along the way, help that canine science is ready to provide. Dogs and humans have rubbed along pretty well so far without either completely understanding the other. As I see it, we humans – as the senior partners in this arrangement – must take primary responsibility for ensuring that the relationship continues effectively into the future. Indeed, we should be working to improve the understanding between humans and dogs, using the most up-to-date science, so that dogs can continue to live harmoniously alongside us.

  Dogs provide mankind with many benefits. Not only do they continue to work for us in the old, traditional ways, but we are continually finding new roles for them – tasks for which their agility, intelligence and ability to interact with the world are superior to our own. They also bring us the psychological benefits of companionship, providing relationships that complement those we have with members of our own species. Moreover, if we understand them properly, they can provide us with a fascinating glimpse into a different world, physically the same but perceived through different senses.

  Canine science has brought us rich new insights into dogs’ uniqueness. Until about a hundred years ago, man’s understanding of dogs was no more than a branch of folk psychology, a tradition built up over thousands of years of trial and error. Science began to intrude towards the end of the nineteenth century, on two fronts: several of the early comparative psychologists, Thorndike and Pavlov among them, used dogs as convenient experimental animals, while Victorian naturalists and zookeepers provided the first comparisons with the wolf. A further burst of activity in the mid-twentieth century, an exchange of ideas between wolf biologists, canine geneticists and the first veterinarians to
take an interest in behaviour, led to the first systematic understanding of the socialization process, yet also contributed a misinterpretation of wolf behaviour that has dogged canine biology ever since.

  Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a new opportunity has arisen to integrate concepts pertaining to wolf and dog behaviour, modern animal welfare science and new knowledge about learning and cognition, thereby allowing us to update our understanding of dogs and how they would like us to care for them. As is always the case with science, this understanding will need constant revision in the light of new information, but we know vastly more now than we did a hundred years ago about how to treat our canine companions. For one thing, dogs are recognizably canids, but they do not behave much like wolves. Superficial comparisons between any wild animal and the dog, which is perhaps the ultimate domesticated animal, are rarely helpful. Second, dogs have a unique capacity to form attachments to humans, and it is to people that their primary allegiances are directed. But it is only the capacity to form such attachments that is inborn: these have to be nurtured, primarily during the first three to four months of the dog’s life. Third, dogs’ sense of smell is much more sensitive than ours, and should be respected as such, not simply exploited.

  These ideas are no-brainers, notions that any dog lover should find straightforward to accept, provided they have respect for the science that created them. As the scientific research becomes more widely disseminated through both the academic and mainstream media, it will be incorporated increasingly into the folk psychology of dog-keeping.

  Dog training is one area in which the new canine science has met with strong resistance, to the point where some trainers and self-proclaimed ‘behaviour experts’ have openly and deliberately attacked the credentials of those trying to disseminate reliable, science-based information. The idea that the majority of dogs are continually trying to take over control of the households in which they live is proving very slow to die. So indeed is the use of physical punishment: shock collars, already widely available in the United States, are catching on in some quarters in the United Kingdom.

  However, the situation is not simply one of punishment to prevent dominance versus rewards to encourage attachment. Some trainers decry the use of any kind of physical punishment, others see it only as a last resort, and still others as an essential and everyday part of the trainer’s armoury. Disagreements over methods have sometimes spilled over into personal attacks. Those who decry physical punishment portray it as unnecessarily cruel, sometimes going so far as to suggest baser motives in those who use such techniques.1 On the other side, some trainers accuse their opponents of actively promoting bad behaviour in dogs.2

  All this polarization and recrimination may obscure the fact that there are several humane methods for training dogs, though their relative effectiveness has yet to be evaluated. There are probably as many ways of conceiving how to train a dog as there are dog trainers, but there appear to be four specific different facets of dogs about which trainers and behaviour experts disagree most vehemently.

  The first is whether or not to portray dogs as ‘pack animals’. Those supporting the ‘pack’ notion often appear to use it as a wake-up call for owners who over-anthropomorphize their dogs, treating them as little people. Since dogs are not little people and, indeed, can suffer if treated so, such reminders may be salutary, if applied in moderation and not to justify physical punishment.

  The second is an ethical and philosophical dimension, related to welfare and well-being. Some trainers place no emphasis on the question of whether or not physical punishment will cause suffering, rationalizing it as an experience that the dog, as a barely reconstructed wolf, will expect to receive as part of its upbringing. At the opposite extreme are those trainers who abhor all forms of punishment, on the grounds that it will – by definition – cause suffering for the dog. Still others adopt a more moderate approach, maintaining that a certain amount of suffering can be balanced against the longer-term benefits that will accrue to the dog if it corrects its behaviour. They usually regard physical punishment as a last-resort technique, justified only when the dog’s long-term well-being would otherwise be threatened.3 For example, some justify the use of shock collars to punish livestock chasing, on the grounds that if the dog continued to engage in this behaviour, it would run the risk of being shot by a farmer, or euthanized. Bear in mind here that it is almost impossible in any training regime to avoid all negative feelings in dogs – even just ignoring them when they are performing unwanted attention-seeking is likely to make them anxious. Where these trainers may disagree is in where to balance the trade-off; suffering now versus benefit later.

  Third, trainers make very different assumptions about dogs’ cognitive abilities. Paradoxically, perhaps, trainers who work within the dominance framework have to presume an almost Machiavellian level of canine intelligence: the dog needs to be very smart indeed, smart enough to hoodwink its owner and thereby attain ‘dominant’ status in the household. In the other camp, reward-based pet dog trainers rely on quite straightforward associative learning, both because it works, and because it is easy for owners to understand how to implement it. Their methods tap into some of the most primitive parts of the dog’s brain; they essentially sidestep the issue of how smart dogs may or may not be, relying on learning methods that evolved many millions of years ago. The point here is not that reward-based trainers think dogs are dumb, but rather that simple training methods are easier to teach to owners than complex ones. Guide-dog training, for example, while reward-based, makes much fuller use of the dog’s cognitive abilities.4 But ideally, all training could take advantage of these abilities, including, for example, the dog’s capacity for social learning which canine science is still in the process of revealing. Exploring such possibilities should be more profitable in the long run than pursuing ideas for which science has found no supporting evidence.

  Fourth, some trainers – especially those who train gundogs, sheepdogs and guard dogs – come from traditions that portray dogs primarily as tools. One method they advocate is to keep the dog in a kennel, away from what they view as excessive human influence. Others see the dog’s natural place as an integral part of human society, and insist that training should first and foremost serve to reinforce that bond, even if the dog also fulfils a function. For example, the security services in the United Kingdom are currently divided over whether patrol dogs can be kept at the handler’s home or must be confined to kennels when off duty. Given that such dogs need to be acutely attuned to people when they are working, it seems unlikely that this ability would be refined by long periods of isolation; moreover, no evidence has yet emerged that the kennel-housed dog is actually the more effective worker.

  The differences between various schools of dog training are thus much more complex than the question of whether punishment is considered cruel or not, or whether or not trainers conceive of dogs as wolves. Their underlying philosophies and ethical standpoints are also different, so it is perhaps not surprising that they so often misunderstand, even misrepresent, one another. This is not helpful at a time when society expects dogs to be under the control of their owners to a greater extent than perhaps ever before.

  Discipline in the sense of control, not discipline in the sense of punishment, is what is needed. Clearly a dog is not going to learn how to behave well simply and solely because it is loved, even though I suspect that is what many owners would like to happen – and may even expect to happen. Today, as I went jogging in the park near my house on the first sunny day of the year, I encountered nine dogs being walked off-leash by their owners. Only one out of the nine responded immediately when their owners wanted to recall them. The others all caused mild embarrassment for their owners, bouncing up at children, chasing cyclists, getting in the way of walkers, trying to scrounge food from picnickers, and so on. Assuming this very small sample is typical, such behaviour must contribute to giving dogs a bad name.

  I do not know w
hat methods, if any, these owners had used to try to train their dogs to come back to them on command, but I am willing to bet that many had tried punishment. Certainly I saw several owners remonstrating with their dogs once they were able to prise them away from whatever they had been doing. Although this may have been more for the benefit of the people their dogs had been annoying than for the dogs themselves, it is unlikely to have promoted the idea in dogs’ minds that coming back to their owners is a pleasant thing to do. It is more logical and straightforward to train dogs to come back to their owners because they want to, rather than because they are scared not to, so there is clearly still a big gap between the ideal and the realities of dog ownership.

  Proper understanding of training techniques and their diligent application are not only essential from a social perspective, but also good for the dog–owner relationship. Moreover, it has been known for nearly two decades that attending training classes results in a more fulfilling dog–owner relationship.5 Most dogs and their owners, whether they know it or not, desperately need easier access to better standards of dog training, but at present they are faced with what must be a bewildering variety of claims and counterclaims from the various schools of trainer.

  Unfortunately, there are no universally recognized standards for dog trainers.6 The deep divisions between the various camps within the world of dog training, fuelled by the rise of the Internet, have instead resulted in an explosion of ‘registers’, ‘associations’, ‘guilds’ and ‘institutes’, each claiming to be the last word in training and the treatment of behavioural disorders. Currently, the list of associations in the United Kingdom includes the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, the Centre of Applied Pet Ethology, the Association of Pet Behaviourists and Trainers, the Canine & Feline Behaviour Association, the Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors, the UK Registry of Canine Behaviourists, the Professional Association of Applied Canine Trainers, the British Institute of Professional Dog Trainers, the Guild of Dog Trainers, the Academy of Dog Training & Behaviour Approved Instructors, and the Kennel Club Accreditation Scheme for Instructors in Dog Training and Canine Behaviour. Faced with such a bewildering array of titles and their even more confusing acronyms, how are novice owners to choose a trainer who not only can satisfy their needs but also matches their ethical standpoint? In the United Kingdom, the Animal Behaviour and Training Council is attempting to bring some clarity to this confusion. In the United States, at least three sets of dog-training guidelines exist, one in the mission statement of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), one published by the Delta Society and one disseminated by the American Humane Association. Effective self-regulation of the dog-training industry will be essential if we want to improve the lives of dogs (and their owners) in the twenty-first century.