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Showing posts with label Paul McGreevy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul McGreevy. Show all posts

8 June 2013

The touching things about dogs

The touching things about dogs

Hi Julie,

(source: The Blue Dog)
WOW! May was a seriously jam-packed month for dogs! I'm just as amazed as you are that it's already June. I think I'm in denial, although June means lots of fun things happening, like the SPARCS conference, so maybe it's actually OK that it's here.
I loved your last post. So much great information - thank you for sharing! You mentioned how you avoid touching dogs if they don't want to interact and that got me thinking about a sense I haven't written about yet. 
We've covered views, smells, music and now, I'm going to touch on, well... touch. 
Not the bitey kind of touch, but the soothing, calm, stroking kind.

 The outside of a dog is good for our insides...
It's true. Patting a dog is something we enjoy. The tactile experience of touching something soft and warm is inherently pleasing. 
Research has shown that human oxytocin (=happy/social/feel good/"love" hormone) levels rise when we interact with our dogs. Our blood pressure and heart rates lower when we pat dogs, as do our cortisol (=stress hormone) levels.
(source)
These are just some of the reasons there is so much interest in researching further benefits of human-animal interactions and animal-assisted therapies.

 ...and we can be good for a dog's insides too!
(source)

Interestingly, other studies have shown that dogs' heart rate, cortisol levels and blood pressure can lower when we groom and pat them. Of course, this is not universal. Dogs are individuals and their preferences will vary.

 Not all pats are equal
Research suggests that dogs prefer to be patted in a soothing way. Not really surprising - think of how we like to be touched and compare a back slap with a gentle stroke. I know which would be more likely to lower my heart rate and relax me!

A study that examined the reinforcing value of physical contact by grooming to dogs showed that length of grooming (longer=better) was more important than location of grooming in reducing heart rate.

What are you doing this week? I'm off to Sydney for a few days to meet with loads of different working dog groups to talk Action Plan. I'll be sure to tell you all about it next time. 

 Right now, I'm going to go give my dogs a nice long pat!

 Mia
(source)
Further reading:

McGreevy P.D., Righetti J. & Thomson P.C. (2005). The reinforcing value of physical contact and the effect on canine heart rate of grooming in different anatomical areas, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 18 (3) 236-244. DOI:

Coppola C.L., Grandin T. & Enns R.M. (2006). Human interaction and cortisol: Can human contact reduce stress for shelter dogs?, Physiology & Behavior, 87 (3) 537-541. DOI:

Hennessy M.B., Voith V.L., Hawke J.L., Young T.L., Centrone J., McDowell A.L., Linden F. & Davenport G.M. (2002). Effects of a program of human interaction and alterations in diet composition on activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in dogs housed in a public animal shelter, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 221 (1) 65-91. DOI:

Bergamasco L., Osella M.C., Savarino P., Larosa G., Ozella L., Manassero M., Badino P., Odore R., Barbero R. & Re G. & (2010). Heart rate variability and saliva cortisol assessment in shelter dog: Human–animal interaction effects, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 125 (1-2) 56-68. DOI:

Odendaal J.S.J. (2000). Animal-assisted therapy — magic or medicine?, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 49 (4) 275-280. DOI:

O'Haire M. (2010). Companion animals and human health: Benefits, challenges, and the road ahead, Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 5 (5) 226-234. DOI:

© 2013 Mia Cobb
(source)
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28 September 2012

Today's favorites: Paul McGreevy's Books and Some Great Operant Conditioning Blogs

Today's favorites: Paul McGreevy's Books and Some Great Operant Conditioning Blogs

Paul McGreevy and his trio. Love that relationship!
Hello hello Mia! 

A of all -- so glad you brought up Paul McGreevy’s book, Carrots and Sticks! I love carrots, although I eat them way too quickly and often choke. Maybe carrots are my sticks...

B of all -- I have been obsessed with McGreevy’s books ever since watching the trailer for his book, A Modern Dog's Life: How to Do the Best for Your Dog.

Authors discussing their books has the potential to be, well, incredibly awkward, but there is nothing awkward or weird about this book trailer! Watching McGreevy and his dogs makes me want to (A) be McGreevy, or (B) at least get inside his relationship with his three dogs.
Three great dogs (Wally, Tinker & their son Neville) a la Paul McGreevy
While (A) is not yet possible, (B) is highly attainable with the help of Modern Dog's Life and Carrots and Sticks. McGreevy explains that A Modern Dog's Life is geared toward helping, “the dog see the whole world as an opportunity and [helping] the dog offer the behaviors and the responses that we want rather than the ones we find unwelcome or unpleasant.” This gets at what you were talking about: We as humans have the power to impact how non-human species view the world. We can create associations that are fear-based or fear-ridden or, we can create associations where animals see the world as filled with opportunity. Quality Operant Conditioning Blog Posts I want to stick with this topic of learning theory and share the below blog posts. They explain the ins and outs of positive punishment, positive reinforcement, negative punishment and negative reinforcement. I'm a 150% visual learner, and I worship their explanations because they come with tables! God bless tables...
I'll get back to the way dogs look next time. In the meantime, I love that picture of you -- and is that a "gentle giant" -- on facebook?

Bye for now! 

 Julie 

 Further Reading: 

 Dr. Sophia Yin, The Art and Science of Animal Behavior Blog

 Dr. Roger Abrantes, Life is great!  

 © Julie Hecht 2012
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24 September 2012

The science of carrots and sticks

The science of carrots and sticks

This is not Kate. (source)

Hi Julie,

Today I want to tell you all about the great time I had last week. But first, you have to know about my lovely friend, Kate. We originally met through our research group at Monash University. We’re colleagues who have completing our PhD’s (both aiming to complete SOON) in common, but we also share a background in Zoology and the fact we have been juggling our research with our work for the past few years. Kindred spirits!

This is Kate!
Kate works primarily as an animal behaviourist (you can check out her business website, or follow her on facebook), but she is also a media personality, experienced freelance writer and delivers professional and public training workshops. The Melbourne Aquarium asked Kate to come and present to their staff about the ‘Science of Animal Behaviour and Training’ and Kate asked me to come along to help out.

Hello penguins!
I said yes.

Kate’s presentations comprised of theoretical (learning), observational (watching) and practical (doing) exercises. It is always so good to see ongoing professional development in any workplace and the aquarium staff were really engaged and enthusiastic participants. I took lots of fun video footage that you would have seen on our facebook page.

Kate’s a great presenter and someone who believes in the fact we (as people) never stop learning. She lives this belief and engages in lots of ongoing professional training opportunities in furthering her understanding of animal behaviour and how we can influence it. For example, she just got back from learning with Ken Ramirez at Shedd Aquarium and over the past few years has also been to Natural Encounters Inc and done chicken camp with Terry Ryan.

So what does this have to do with dogs? So much!

Animal training specialists understand about animal behaviour (taking into account the individual animal’s history and the effect of the current environment) and the science of learning theory. They use this knowledge to help shape animal behaviour to improve things like animal welfare, enrichment goals and human safety.
Divers do group fish feeds in the large aquarium in front of the public. There are big sharks and stingrays in there.
(source)
What’s the most exciting thing about learning from people who train marine mammals, exotic parrots and chickens? They are able to do this using positive reinforcement training methods! Without force. Because good luck trying to train a 1200kg (that’s 2500lb) walrus or 1500kg beluga whale (that’s closer to 3000lb) using aversive techniques. They don’t do prong collars or choke chains that size.


One of the key findings in the Australian Working Dog Survey in 2009 was that the use of aversive training techniques (such as using electric shock collars and correction methods rather than positive reinforcement) was correlated with lack of formal certified education in dog training. If we can help spread information about the practical applications of scientifically established learning theory, we can help to improve training success, the human-animal relationship and animal welfare outcomes – what’s not to like?
 
If you’d like to find out more, check out the links of the places Kate has done her training courses. I also really like this book by McGreevy and Boakes called ‘Carrots and Sticks: Principles of Animal Training’. It contains two parts, the first is about the general principles of learning theory (including positive reinforcement, fear, punishment and avoidance training and a chapter about animal intelligence) and the second is a whole bundle of case studies (focussing on companion and performance animals, exotic animals and working animals). It’s easy to read, gives you plenty to think about and the use of real life case studies helps to illustrate how the theory can be applied in so many different contexts.

 I saw you got some interesting feedback when you asked the peanut gallery what it is about their dogs' looks that prompt them to attribute personality traits. The M.C. commenter wasn't me (just in case you though maybe it was) I do have a big dog though, and he does get called a gentle giant ALL the time. I tend to always fall in love with floppy eared dogs. 

 Why is that?!
Please tell me MORE!

 Mia


 Further reading:

McGreevy, PD & Boakes, RA. Carrots and Sticks: Principles of Animal Training. Darlington Press, Sydney, 2011.

 Frear, L. (2009). Carrots and Sticks: Principles of Animal Training. Paul McGreevy and Robert Boakes., Integrative and Comparative Biology, 49 (4) 471. DOI: 10.1093/icb/icp016

Haverbeke, A., Laporte, B., Depiereux, E., Giffroy, J.M. & Diederich, C. (2008). Training methods of military dog handlers and their effects on the team's performances, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 113 (1-3) 122. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2007.11.010

© Mia Cobb 2012
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16 September 2012

AAWS-struck: effecting change in animal welfare

AAWS-struck: effecting change in animal welfare

Absolutely loving the Real Gosling tumblr - this made my week!
Hey Julie!
Yes, I swear I'm not ignoring you or your questions and I will get back to you about all the juicy things you raised in your last post. But now I'm home from Canberra, I really need to tell you about the AAWS National Workshop while it's all fresh.

As I mentioned in my previous AAWS post, I’ve been part of the AAWS ‘working dog working group sub-group’ since 2007. At this year’s workshop I presented about the two working dog welfare research projects that AAWS have funded over the past few years. 
read the report here
The first-ever Australian Working Dog Survey in 2009 (you can read the full report here) and the follow up Australian Working Dog Industry Action Plan that was submitted to government mid-year (and as of Friday, I’m happy to report it’s also available online: the summary and full report are available here). 

The ‘Survey’ was the first of its kind in the world and gathered benchmarking data about the sourcing, breeding, raising, assessment, training, trainer education, housing, health care and end points of 4,195 of Australia's working dogs. As you know, it's a really diverse industry including dogs from private (e.g. farm), government (e.g. military & police), assistance/service (e.g. guide/seing eye) and sporting (e.g. racing greyhounds) sectors.
Access the full Plan here

These preliminary findings were then extended in the ‘Action Plan’ to provide a three year strategic plan that will aid to unite and engage the various Australian Working Dog Industry sectors to advance the welfare and productivity of Australia’s iconic working dogs. 



I've been very fortunate to collaborate with Dr Nick Branson and Professor Paul McGreevy on these two research projects and it was really fun to share the project outcomes with the extended AAWS stakeholder group. It was a great feeling to receive lots of positive feedback and interest in the projects. 

There were lots of great questions and even expressions of interests from other animal sector groups (cows! horses!) wanting to learn more about the process to be able to apply a similar approach to help break down their big picture goals into achievable targets and strategies.

Working at the interface between research and industry has lots of challenges, but I have always enjoyed problem solving. I feel that these kind of initiatives make the best use of my background and also feeds that passion of working 'like a dog' to make a difference. And I like that - a lot.

So getting back to our Real Gosling buddy up there - you like my slides, huh?
Well OK - you might as well see them all and hear my talk then!

 You still need to tell me about those pink pads Julie - I haven't forgotten them! 

 Mia

 Referenced:

 1. N. Branson, M. Cobb, P. McGreevy (2010). The Australian Working Dog Survey Report 2009. Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. 

2. N. Branson, M. Cobb, P. McGreevy (2012). The Australian Working Dog Industry Action Plan 2012. Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. 

If you'd like to know more about the work of Nick and Paul, here are a few (randomly) selected articles of theirs to check out:
Branson, N.J. & Rogers, L.J. (2006). Relationship between paw preference strength and noise phobia in Canis familiaris., Journal of Comparative Psychology, 120 (3) 183. DOI: 10.1037/0735-7036.120.3.176

McGreevy, P. D. (2007) Breeding for quality of life. Animal Welfare, 16 (1) 125. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ufaw/aw/2007/00000016/a00102s1/art00018

McGreevy, P.D., Starling, M., Branson, N.J., Cobb, M.L. & Calnon, D. (2012). An overview of the dog–human dyad and ethograms within it, Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 7 (2) 117. DOI: 10.1016/j.jveb.2011.06.001

© Mia Cobb 2012
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