Animals in Translation

by Temple Grandin

  Fear memories are permanent. Since animals do not have language, fear memories are stored as pictures, sounds, touch sensations, or smells. An animal may become scared if he or she sees, hears, touches, or smells something that is associated with a painful or frightening experience.

  Although fear memories are permanent, desensitization programs can help. Example: a dog’s fear of thunderstorms may be able to be desensitized by playing a sound effect recording of a thunderstorm with gradually increasing volume.

  Some fear-motivated behaviors may require a veterinarian’s prescription for either antidepressant medications or anti-anxiety medications.

  Combining medications with behavioral methods such as desensitization is more effective than using medication alone.

  Rage- and Anger-Motivated Behavior

  Examples

  A stallion colt reared alone in a stall is vicious toward other horses. This is because he never had the opportunity to learn how to interact with other horses. He does not know that once he has become dominant he no longer has to keep fighting.

  A dominant dog bites its owner. In some cases the dog will be dominant over one family member and subordinate to others. Some examples of dominant behavior are growling when told to get off a couch or refusing to obey commands he has already learned such as “sit” or “stay.”

  A dog guarding its owner bites the mailman or a veterinarian.

  A bull charges people in a pasture.

  A dominant dog bites a subordinate dog. Dogs are not democratic: feed and pet the dominant dog first to prevent attacks on subordinate dogs.

  A dog who has not been socialized to small children when he is a puppy bites a toddler. To prevent attacks on small children, puppies must be socialized to many different toddlers.

  A bull calf hand-reared away from other cattle attacks a person when he becomes mature. This occurs because he thinks he is a person and he views the person as a subordinate who needs to be dominated. Aggression toward people can be reduced by rearing young bulls and stallions in a social group with their own species.

  Animals fight over access to food.

  A horse or dog bites for no obvious reason. This is most likely to occur in low-fear animals who have been beaten into submission.

  A dog or horse who has been raised without contact with other animals gets into vicious fights with other animals.

  Principles of Troubleshooting

  Rage- and anger-motivated behaviors are more likely to occur in confident, active, assertive animals and less likely to occur in flighty, shy, fearful animals. This applies to all species of animals.

  Rage- and anger-motivated behaviors are more likely to occur in animals who have not been socialized to other animals and people.

  In some cases, punishment might be appropriate especially with low-fear animals.

  Anger and rage are the motivators of a dominant animal fighting a subordinate animal over food or mates.

  Obedience training and teaching a puppy that people control its food helps prevent and control aggression toward people.

  Dog biting problems in adult dogs must be handled by a behavior professional.

  Aggression problems will often get worse if nothing is done to correct the behavior.

  Castration of grazing animals such as bulls and stallions at a young age will reduce aggressive behavior. Castration has less predictable effects on dogs, although it does reduce fighting between strange male cats.

  Dogs with a dominant personality need to be taught that if they want something they have to work for it. Example: make the dog sit before petting him or giving him a treat.

  A dog should be trained to obey every member of the family to prevent him from dominating one family member and being subordinate to another.

  Predatory Chasing

  Examples

  A dog chases cars or joggers.

  A dog chases a cat when the cat runs.

  A cat chases birds.

  A cat chases the red dot of a laser pointer around the house.

  Monticore, a pet tiger, attacked trainer Roy Horn when Horn fell down. The tiger’s prey chase drive was triggered by sudden rapid movement.

  A dog attacks when a person tries to run away.

  Principles of Troubleshooting

  Predatory aggression is totally different compared to other types of aggression. The circuits in the brain are separate.

  Predatory chasing is a hardwired instinctual behavior triggered by rapid movement. Dogs who chase cars or joggers are exhibiting predatory chase behavior.

  Stopping predatory chasing may require the use of a shock collar. I do not like shock collars, but this is one of the few situations where a harsh correction may be required. The dog should wear the shock collar for a few days before the first shock is administered so that he will not associate the shock with either the collar or his owner, but with the behavior.

  Young animals can be taught through socialization and learning what to chase and what not to chase. Socializing puppies to young children will help prevent dangerous prey drive behavior toward children. Remember: the chasing behavior is hardwired, but the sign stimulus that triggers it is learned.

  Sociality-Motivated Behavior

  Examples

  Cattle prefer to graze with the cattle they were raised with.

  Dogs run in packs.

  A dog cries when separated from people.

  Lambs raised by nanny goats will attempt to breed goats when they mature.

  A high-sociality Labrador stays off the furniture when she is praised for staying off the furniture.

  A puppy who is socialized at an early age with many different people and animals is more likely to become a friendly adult dog.

  A dog chews up the house when he is alone. Gradually teach the dog to tolerate longer periods alone or get another dog for a companion.

  High-sociality purebred Brahman cattle will seek more stroking from people than low-sociality Hereford cattle.

  A pair of geese stay “married” for life.

  Cats living in a barn are feral and stay away from people because they were not handled by people when they were kittens. Kittens who are socialized to people early in life will be friendlier toward people.

  Principles of Troubleshooting

  Animals are motivated to seek companions.

  Animals prefer the company of the animals or people they were raised with.

  Both genetic factors and early rearing environment will affect intensity of sociality motivation.

  Puppies and kittens form social bonds during a critical period at the beginning of their lives. For puppies the critical period is the first twelve weeks of life; for kittens the critical period is the first seven weeks of life. Handle puppies and kittens with extra gentleness during this period. Failure to socialize young kittens and puppies often results in a fearful adult.

  Sociality has a genetic basis. Example: high sociality enables wolves to cooperate during hunting. Some species are more motivated by praise and companionship than others. You can train a dog using praise, but you must use food to train a cat.

  Cats are more trainable than people realize. Clicker training works well with cats. The reason people often believe dogs are trainable but cats are not is that dogs are tuned into people and want to please, so they do incidental learning. Example: young puppies will bound out of the car the instant the owner opens the door, which is dangerous.

  But by the time a dog is an adult, he will probably have stopped doing this and instead will remain inside the car and look at his owner expectantly. This learning has occurred naturally, or incidentally, over time as the owner has sometimes restrained the dog and on other occasions allowed the dog to get out of the car.

  A mother animal licking and caring for her babies is a sociality-motivated behavior.

  Labrador retrievers seek praise. Rewarding with praise is most effective in high-sociality dogs. There are individual differences in responsiveness to praise. The praise mu
st be given within one second after the desired behavior occurs so the animal will make the correct associations.

  Praise alone may not be a sufficient motivator for training a low-sociality animal. Use a food reward.

  In high-sociality animals use praise and avoid punishment.

  Species with high-sociality motivation such as geese are more likely to pair-bond and mate year after year.

  In general, dogs have higher sociality motivation than cats. Food rewards work well for training cats. Some dogs will respond well to praise and stroking alone and other less-sociality-motivated dogs will respond best to praise combined with food rewards.

  Pain-Motivated Behavior

  Examples

  An arthritic dog reduces activity. Treating the arthritis will result in a more active dog.

  An animal limps after an injury.

  A dog hit by a car bites a person.

  An animal stands still or lies hunched up after surgery.

  A cat with a urinary tract problem eliminates outside the litter box. Medical problems are the cause of 30 percent of cat elimination problems.

  A dog stays away from the boundary of an invisible fence to avoid a shock.

  A dog bites after a child has repeatedly pulled its ear.

  Principles of Troubleshooting

  Never punish pain-motivated behavior caused by a medical problem or an injury.

  Fear or rage motivation is sometimes confused with pain motivation. Pain-related aggression is most likely to occur in direct response to manipulation of a sore body part.

  Animals will avoid places or activities that are associated with painful stimuli.

  When an injured dog bites a person he is less likely to develop a biting problem compared to a dog motivated by aggression or fear to bite.

  Prey species animals such as cattle, sheep, and horses cover up pain-related behavior when people are watching. They do this in the wild to avoid being eaten be predators.

  Research shows that painkilling medications and local anesthetics are effective in animals and they should be used during and after surgery.

  Pain-related behaviors are likely to be most evident when an animal is watched with a video camera with no people around.

  Novelty-Seeking Behavior

  Examples

  A dog runs excitedly from room to room to smell all the new smells in a strange house.

  A horse approaches a flag on a pasture because he is attracted to both the flapping movement and the contrasting color that is different from that of the pasture.

  A pig roots vigorously in a fresh bale of straw or excitedly chews up a paper bag thrown in its pen.

  A horse points his ears toward a novel sound such as a beeping horn.

  A monkey in a laboratory presses a button many times each day to open a door so he can get a brief look outside his cage.

  Cattle in a pasture watch construction crews building a bridge.

  Brahman cattle nose a coat hanging on a fence, while Hereford cattle ignore it.

  Novelty Avoidance Behavior (Fear-Motivated)

  Examples

  A dog panics at a fireworks show.

  Cattle accustomed to cowboys on horseback panic when they first see a person on foot. The cattle perceive the person on foot as a novel new scary thing.

  A horse rears at a show when he sees balloons and flags.

  A cat panics when he sees a dog for the first time. His hair will stand on end and he will hiss and scratch.

  Cattle who were calm and tame at the home ranch ram fences and charge people at an auction.

  A horse who has not become habituated to bikes, balloons, and flags at home is more likely to get scared of these and rear at a horse show.

  An antelope at the zoo panics and crashes into the fence when she sees roofers on top of her barn. The roofers are perceived as novel, but people standing around the exhibit are tolerated because they are no longer novel.

  Principles of Troubleshooting

  New novel things are most frightening when they are introduced suddenly, such as an umbrella opening in an animal’s face.

  New things are attractive if the animal can voluntarily approach them.

  Allow a horse to approach and sniff a new saddle.

  The paradox of novelty: new things are both the most attractive and the most feared things to animals with flighty, nervous, high-strung genetics. An Arab horse is more likely to spook if a flag is suddenly waved in his face. But he would be more likely than a horse with calmer genetics to approach a flag placed in the middle of a large pasture.

  All animals should be gradually introduced to many new things and new places to prevent panic when they travel to a new place.

  New things must be introduced more slowly to nervous, high-strung animals than to calmer animals to avoid panic and fear. Some examples of new things that frighten animals are: a person on a horse’s back, a trailer, a balloon, flags, bikes, a garage door opening quickly, or a costume for a horse show.

  High-strung, nervous animals are more aware of new things in their environment.

  Horses and cattle are likely to be afraid of novel things that have erratic, rapid movements such as flags and balloons. Dogs are likely to develop a fear of loud noise.

  Animal memories are specific. A horse perceives a person on his back and a person on the ground as two different things.

  Hunger-Motivated Behavior

  Examples

  An animal is trained to perform a new behavior to gain a food reward.

  Animals come in from the pasture at feeding time.

  Lionesses teach their cubs how to hunt and what to eat.

  A cat comes running when he hears the can opener opening his food.

  A dolphin learns to present his tail for blood sampling voluntarily in exchange for a food reward.

  Principles of Troubleshooting

  In order for an animal to make the association between a food reward and a desired behavior the food must be given within one second after the desired behavior occurs.

  The advantage of either target training or clicker training is that it is much easier to use the correct timing for the reward. The animal associates the click of a handheld clicker with food. When target training is used, the animal learns to associate either touching or following a short stick with a ball on the end with a food reward. Many good books are available that give step-by-step instructions on how to clicker-train or target-train.

  Grazing animals prefer the forages they ate when they were young.

  Prey chasing and killing behavior is not always food-motivated. Young animals are taught what to hunt by their mothers. Both dogs and lions must learn that the things they kill are good to eat.

  Examples of Sex-Motivated Behavior

  Examples

  Normal mating behavior such as copulation.

  Intact male dogs congregate on the doorstep of the house where there is a female dog in estrus.

  A dog “humps” a person’s leg.

  A male bird performs a mating display toward a person and refuses to mate with his own species. He will strut and fan out his tail feathers.

  A stallion is overly aggressive during mating and will suddenly rush and mount a mare without greeting her first.

  Principles of Troubleshooting

  Neutering animals before puberty will prevent many sexually motivated behaviors later in life.

  Animals who are neutered when mature often keep some adult sexual behaviors. For example: male cats neutered as adults continue to spray chairs and walls.

  Abnormal sexual behavior can be prevented by raising young animals in social groups with their own species.

  Animals will often attempt to breed with the individuals who raised them.

  Single-trait breeding for production or appearance traits such as large muscles can sometimes cause abnormal sexual behavior such as a rooster who injures hens during mating because the normal courting behavior has been bred out.

  Keeping young mal
e animals in isolation may result in abnormal, overly aggressive mating behavior. Young animals need to learn social rules from adult animals of their own species.

  Hardwired Instinctual Behavior, or Fixed Action Patterns

  Examples

  The following behaviors listed in previous sections are hardwired: male cat spraying, normal copulation behaviors, prey chase drive, and bird mating dances.

  Species-specific dominance display behavior such as a broadside threat from a bull or dominance posture in dogs is a fixed action pattern. The dog has an erect posture with staring eyes, ears forward, and hackles raised on its back.

  Dogs have a natural instinct to avoid messing in their sleeping area. This is why putting a puppy in its crate helps to housebreak the puppy.

  A chick raised by people performs its mating dance to a person. The mating dance is instinctual but the sign stimulus that turns it on is learned.

  A dominant pig who bites people becomes submissive after a human shoves a board against the neck area where another dominant pig would bite. This approach is effective because it imitates the instinctual fighting behavior of the dominant pig. Slapping the pig on her hindquarters is not effective because it does not imitate the instinctual fighting behavior of a pig. Exerting dominance does not mean beating an animal into submission. Exerting dominance means using the animal’s natural method of communication.

  Prey drive in dogs is triggered by the sign stimulus of rapid movement. This is why dogs chase cars and joggers.

  A dog performs the killing bite to a squirrel’s neck.

  Nursing and sucking in infant animals are fixed action patterns. The sign stimulus that triggers nursing is an object placed in the infant’s mouth. Calves will suck on a person’s finger.

  A submissive dog rolls over in front of a dominant dog to stop him from attacking. The submissive dog voluntarily rolls over and is not pushed down by the dominant dog. When you are establishing dominance over a dog, teach him to roll over on his back using food and social rewards. Do not throw the dog down.