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Showing posts with label SPARCS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SPARCS. Show all posts

30 May 2018

Free canine science event, June 1-3: Live streaming world wide! #SPARCS18

Free canine science event, June 1-3: Live streaming world wide! #SPARCS18



It’s Baaack! 

You may remember us talking about the SPARCS conference in 2013, 2014, and 2015. After a 2-year hiatus, it’s baaack! And people who care about dogs all around the world are pretty much losing it with excitement (like on the SPARCS Facebook page!).

SPARCS, which stands for the Society for the Promotion of Applied Research in Canine Science, has been at the forefront of connecting dog lovers to canine science via a free, live streaming conference that actively brings dog people into the conversation #SPARCS18! 

SPARCS returns for 2018, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 1 - 3. This time, it’s all about what’s underneath: canine behavioral genetics. Six canine researchers, behavioral veterinarians, and geneticists bring us ‘The Real Dog: What We Know & What We Don’t (Yet).’

#SPARCS18 speakers and science hosts!
We’re incredibly excited to join SPARCS for the third year as science hosts. The conferences is live streaming from New York's Hudson Valley (EDT), and is now presented by The National Canine Research Council. As we prepare for the conference, here’s what you should know about watching and engaging live, and even how to watch later.


Watch live: 4th SPARCS conference website
June 1 - 3, 2018
9:30am - 5:15pm (EDT)
Each day features two speakers, post-talk Q&A, and an end-of-day group panel discussion 4:30pm - 5:15pm

Friday, June 1
Ádám Miklósi and Kristopher Irizarry kick us off with the evolution of dogs’ close relationship with humans.


Saturday, June 2
Claire Wade and Elinor Karlsson introduce the amazingly complex relationship between genomics and behavior, which in recent years has been clarified with the help of citizen science.


Sunday, June 3
Kelly Ballantyne and Jessica Hekman wrap it up and get really real about the impact of behavioral genetics on dog relationships with humans and the important recognition that genetics don’t necessarily mean predestination.


Get social: Pose questions and comments for speaker Q&As and daily panel discussions. This live streaming conference is anything but passive — unless that’s what you want, in which case sit back in your pajamas and relax! After each talk, we (Mia and Julie of Do You Believe in Dog?) will hold speaker Q&A sessions, and our questions (we hope!) will be your questions! 

Share questions or comments over Twitter DYBID using #SPARCS18, and feel free to post on the Do You Believe in Dog Facebook page too. Remember, SPARCS is also on Facebook and Twitter. 

Watch later: All presentations and panel discussions will be recorded and posted to the SPARCS website following the conference. 

Watch the past: As mentioned, this is the 4th SPARCS conference, and past presentations, speaker interviews, and panel discussions are available, right now, for free, on the SPARCS website. Hear from Marc Bekoff, Michael Fox, Clive Wynne, Ádám Miklósi, Ray Coppinger, James Serpell, Simon Gadbois, Monique Udell, Alexandra Horowitz, Kathryn Lord, Patricia McConnell, Stephen Zawistowski, Michael Hennessey, Bonne Beerda, James Ha, Hal Herzog, Márta Gácsi and others anytime you like. 
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2 April 2015

51 Shades of Grey: Misuse, Misunderstanding and Misinformation of the Concepts of “Dominance” and “Punishment”

51 Shades of Grey: Misuse, Misunderstanding and Misinformation of the Concepts of “Dominance” and “Punishment”


Guest post by: Simon Gadbois, PhD, of the Canid Behaviour Research Laboratory at Dalhousie University (@GadboisSimon & Facebook).


Simon Gadbois at SPARCS 2014
Ha the 80’s… So nostalgic of the eighties. Finishing High School, starting University, the best and the worst music of the past 50 years. Speaking of the things we are not missing: mullets and pony tails (I am so sorry mother, everybody was doing it…), parachute pants and stonewashed jeans (please don’t tell me they are coming back), shoulder pads, blue eye shadow, and punitive/coercive dog training methods…

The 90’s were refreshing. We started the Decade of the Brain (the new fixation and obsession with neuroscience), started to focus on dogs as genuine research subjects, and indulged in pretty radical re-thinking of everything having to do with dogs and wolves. A lot of good came out of the 90’s. But a lot of myths were also created. It was also the start of a new appreciation for science in general. Popularization of science and knowledge translation became the focus of some scientists. Some did it well. Very well. Others confused popularization with oversimplifying and polarizing issues between “right” and “wrong”, and encouraged the idea of a “truth” and the wrong idea that science is about “facts” or about “proving” things.

Let’s examine some of those ideas. First, science does NOT prove anything. Science can only be “quite sure” (at best) about something. Mathematics (a tool of science) can offer “proofs”, but the scientific process itself is not about proving anything. It does not matter if you used null hypothesis significance testing, Bayesian statistics, or any other method. If there is one thing we know about research as scientists, it is about what we are not 100% sure about. Unfortunately some scientists and non-scientists want to be convincing, and use very strong language to make their points. Many would defend that strategy by arguing that they have to convince trainers that they are doing it wrong. It seems that there is a new movement now going to rectify some of those created myths and misunderstandings. Some of us engaged in some of these comments (e.g., Roger Abrantes, Marc Bekoff, Monique Udell, myself) are often getting criticized for appearing to go against the current. Interestingly, from a scientific perspective, we are with the current. I will expand on this below.

One thing that plagues the knowledge translation process in canine science is the fact that the public has access mostly to books (albeit written by scientists). A little known fact is that most scientists don’t write books (or blog posts, or Facebook comments)… They write scientific papers, present posters and give talks to peers at scientific conferences. Why? Because many, if not most, are not interested in sharing with the public what they do. They do not have the time to write books, because, after all, peer-reviewed papers, not books, will get you tenure, other promotions, and scientific funding. The result is interesting: Most non-scientists in the dog world have a very biased perspective of who is actually well-known in the canid science world. They will name Coppinger, Klinghammer, Miklósi, Mech, etc. (all truly great scientists, for the record, along with some much less well known ones in scientific circles), and overlook other giants in the field. It always baffles me that individuals interested in wolves do not know Carbyn, Fentress, Frank, Ginsburg, Harrington, Moran, Murie, Paquet, Peterson, Pimlott, Zimen, and so many others that are unavoidable contributors of the field (in number of publications as much as scientific contributions and reputation). Although most of them have not written books, or at least not after the 90’s, they have undeniable clout in the field of wolf research (one of my PhD supervisors, John Fentress, is finishing a book as I write this).

So what are examples of confusions that arose from some popularized canine science? Here is a short list of myths. Let me just comment right away that anybody I know that a) actually worked with wolves or studied animal learning, and, b) actually read the scientific papers, would not make the statements below:

1. Punishment does not work and is always cruel.

2. Dominance does not exist in wolves.

 3. Dog evolution has nothing to do with wolves.

There is quite a bit to say on each of these items. Note also that, on purpose, the statements are very black or white. In fact, especially with the corrections, clarifications, and even retractions of the past few years from some individuals, many of you will think I am unfairly dramatic. Well, I agree to some extent, but considering what I read on Facebook and elsewhere, this is at least the “dark” end of the spectrum.

You see, science is about shades of grey. Science seeks a consensus. Science seeks converging evidence. That rarely translates into “black or white” statements. Science is about synthesis, open-mindedness, even compromises. Pitting theories against each other is part of the process. But the point is to get to a golden middle. To that idealized “truth” that some promise you. Regardless of what they say, scientists are idealists (and human). Sometimes they get carried away by their convictions and opinions. My father gave me a gift early in my life as a young scientist. In the 50’s, he was a graduate student of Jean Piaget at La Sorbonne. From what I understand, my father struggled very much in trying to reconcile North American and Continental European psychologies. In the process though, he became quite a dialectician, something he taught me through his careful consideration of any argument I would try to make or idea I would put forward (although I was not fully aware of it at the time). The process is simple: State a thesis (e.g., “punishment does not work”). Find the “evidence” for it, argue for that point. Then, state the antithesis (e.g., “punishment works”). Same process, gather the data, argue for that point. Finally, and most importantly, formulate the synthesis. It likely won’t be black (thesis) or white (antithesis), it will be something in the middle, in the shades of grey. His gift was to teach me to be a relativist and never accept dogmatism, in science, or in anything else in life.
Source: Flickr/Col and Tasha Two
Very quickly, the statement, “punishment does not work”, is easy to deconstruct. Obviously (and sadly) punishment (mostly) works. If any of you try to use science to make the statement “punishment does not work”, you are in trouble. There are literally thousands of scientific papers and hundreds of scientific books (e.g., the classic Handbook on Operant Conditioning, Honig & Staddon, 1977; Domjan, 2003*) that will confirm this: Using punishment can suppress, if not inhibit completely, behaviours (it is, after all, the definition of the term). The question in this case is about the statement itself. The statement misses the point: What are the side-effects of punishment? That is the question! And as I often argue, then we fall into ethical arguments more so than scientific ones. I often find scientists and dog trainers not courageous enough in just making an ethical statement. My approach is to ask the question “what kind of relationship do you want with your dog, one based on coercive and punitive interactions, or one based on friendship, communication and mutual understanding?”. There is another important issue associated with the arguments against punishment. Not all punishment is “punitive” and coercive. The scientific definition simply suggests that a punishment will at least reduce the frequency (count per unit of time), duration or intensity of a behaviour. Nothing here suggests the necessity of using shocks, or hitting, kicking, yelling, etc. Somehow, the connotation of the scientific term took a dark turn.

Any student in experimental psychology has done at least one cognitive computer task where the computer gives feedback for accurate (sound A) or inaccurate (sound B) responses. This is typically done so the subject can update its knowledge of the task and change its response pattern to increase performance. Is it not fascinating that the same idea will repulse many trainers? The idea of saying (softly) “no”, or “nuh uh” or use a non-reward marker (a very fancy terminology to say “punishment”) seems to get people all up-in-arms. Why? Well, technically, if “no” means “that was not the right choice” or “don’t do that again”, and the dog does not repeat the behaviour… it was a punishment. It is actually what I like to call information. Simple. We like information as humans, because it accelerates learning, it helps us make sense of the world, it helps us make sense of a set of rules in a game. When I was learning classical guitar in the 70’s, I was very happy to have my teacher tell me what I was doing right, and what I was doing wrong. It was less frustrating to know about my mistakes, than trying to guess what I was doing wrong. He was paid to tell me this. Why do we deprive our dogs of that information? In my lab we work a lot with border collies. I have seen border collies go nuts if they are told only what they do right, and are ignored when making a wrong choice (for example, in a matching-to-sample task). In fact, ignoring wrong responses becomes very aversive, without really telling the dog what to avoid doing. Interesting, is it not? That will sound familiar. Positive reinforcement-only trainers will often make the argument that punishment won’t tell the dog what to do. Mmmh… that’s right… but it won’t tell the dog what to avoid doing either. This becomes very obvious in some complex tasks with multiple choices, meaning multiple possible mistakes or misses. But again, you are not “punishing” (with the modern, non-scientific connotation), you are informing.

To summarize this discussion on punishment:

1. Punishment works… but if punitive and coercive, it does not make it good or ethical.
 
2. Punishment is not necessarily punitive or coercive.
 
3. Information (feedback) about good choices (positive feedback) and mistakes (negative feedback) accelerates learning and decreases frustration… even if technically the negative feedback part, by definition, is “punishment” (as it gets the dogs to reduce or eliminate responses).

As for dominance… ugh… what a mess that one is… and the confusion between dominance (as status vs. as a trait), dominance hierarchies, aggression, aggressiveness, agonistic behaviours, rank, status, etc. People citing papers that are supposed to reject the dominance concept when they actually simply redefine the alpha role (not roll) and in fact even suggest parents have a firm hold on the pups (i.e., being quite disciplinarians)… yes, that Mech paper (1999). The same author that more recently published on dominance in wolves (e.g., Mech, 1999; Mech, 2000; Peterson, Jacobs, Drummer, Mech, Smith, 2002) because he actually never denied the existence of dominance hierarchies, and the same author that writes to Marc Bekoff about Bekoff’s great piece “Social Dominance Is Not a Myth: Wolves, Dogs, and Other Animals” published in another blog platform in February of 2012: “… a quick scan of the (name removed) article reveals much misinformation attributed to me. This misinterpretation and total misinformation like (name removed)’s has plagued me for years now. I do not in any way reject the notion of dominance.”

In an online essay by Mech, he also writes "Similarly, pups are subordinate to both parents and to older siblings, yet they are fed preferentially by the parents, and even by their older (dominant) siblings (Mech et al. 1999). On the other hand, parents both dominate older offspring and restrict their food intake when food is scarce, feeding pups instead. Thus, the most practical effect of social dominance is to allow the dominant individual the choice of to whom to allot food." Ironically, Mech pointed towards more tension between the breeding male and the breeding female, or between parents and progeny, than I believe we ever saw or documented at the Canadian Centre for Wolf Research (a captive pack in a 4 hectare enclosure; e.g., Fentress et al, 1987; Gadbois, 2002). So much for the idea that captive wolves are more likely to show dominance than wild ones! I am still waiting for the evidence (actual data) suggesting that captive wolves are more stressed than wild ones. So far, I see only the opposite trend, or no difference at all.

For my part, I adhere at least partially to “role theory”, proposed by scientists like Bernstein, Fedigan, Gartland, and Mech (Mech, 1999 writes about “division of labour”, a similar concept). In wolves, it is clear that the dominance hierarchy is in place to determine the breeding pair (as only the formerly labelled “alpha male” and “alpha female” typically breed; wolves are “technically” monogamous). This is clearly seen via noticeable peaks in aggression in (captive and wild) packs during the breeding season (January to March). Our main captive pack at the Canadian Centre for Wolf Research rarely displayed significant aggression or dominance conflicts outside of the breeding season (with some exceptions over the 30 year life of that pack). And even during the breeding season, my Master’s student Barbara Molnar re-analyzed my PhD videotapes to find that they still engaged in almost 3 times more affiliative behaviours (e.g., play) than agonistic behaviours during that more “conflictual” time of year!
Photo: Dennis Matheson

We also forget that not all packs (captive or wild) are the same. Some form nuclear family groups (mom, dad, pups of the year). In those groups you are less likely to find any dominance hierarchy. Why? Well, for one, wolves don’t “enter” the dominance hierarchy until they are sexually mature (at puberty). In principle this is not until their first Winter/Spring, and often not until the following breeding season, in other words, well into their second year. So those “nuclear” or immediate family units (like the Arctic wolves of Ellesmere) cannot compare to wolves that form extended family groups that are multi-generational (with cousins, uncles, aunts, even grandparents, being part of the group). In those family units, there will be individuals interested in breeding beyond the breeding pair. This will create conflicts (note that in principle, in larger packs, some subordinates could end-up never having a chance to breed unless they challenge the breeding individuals).

Another forgotten characteristic of dominance hierarchies, in wolves, humans, or any other animal, is that they are in place in order to avoid conflict and aggression, not contribute to it. In fact, wolves use mostly ritualized aggression, not contact aggression.

To summarize this discussion on dominance:

1. Dominance and dominance hierarchies exist in wolves.

2. It is not all about dominance, in fact, they would rather have fun with their buddies.

3. Dogs are not wolves.

Well, that last point raises yet another issue… Actually, modern molecular genetics is pretty clear about this: They kind of are the same… In the past decade, the debate is more about when and where the “split” occurred. But to play the dialectical game here again… they kind of are “not the same”. We spent centuries working on selectively getting rid of aggressive behaviour in wolves and purposively making them more docile… Why insist on still seeing them as wolves? Have we failed our artificial selection (selective breeding) experiment, or are we just obsessed ourselves with status and rank (think corporations, the military, academic ranks, sibling rivalries)? And again, what kind of relationship do you want with your pet? Personally, I would rather have a friend than a competitor or slave. I don’t get the paranoia, or the servitude angle. That is why I pick dogs as pets, and not grizzlies or wolverines.

To summarize our current knowledge on the origin of dogs:

1. Dogs: They are virtually undistinguishable from wolves, genetically speaking. It is certainly easier to see the similarities than the differences. Somehow these days it is trendy to talk about the differences.

2. Dogs and wolves: They are at the very least extremely close in evolutionary terms. Coppinger discusses this in terms of genealogy, Fentress used to refer to the evolutionary bush (as opposed to an evolutionary tree). Great metaphors in both cases.

3. Obviously domestication induced changes. That was the whole point. Pointing out differences to advance the idea that they are different species is forgetting what artificial selection is about (e.g., inducing neoteny).

For people that may have followed some of my posts on the internet over the past 20 years (Facebook, the old “applied ethology listserv”, “human ethology” list, etc.), I know I will sometimes exasperate some with my relativist attitude and (now you know) my dialectical style… But science is NOT about all-or-nones and black or white judgements, at least, not for long. Science is not infallible, nor is it dogmatic. Science is an attitude, a cognitive style, a method. And I do not accept the idea that the popularization of science and knowledge translation mean that you need to oversimplify the information, especially when communicated to people that will educate others about behaviour, dogs and wolves. Maybe some scientists think that the public is not smart enough to be given all the information and nuances necessary. I would rather give the public the benefit of the doubt and let them decide.

As Spring is upon us, wolves already think about dens, pups, play and fun and leave the politics behind for another year. I wish you the same, until next time.
;-)


Waiting for the testing room to open
Simon Gadbois, Ph.D.
Canid Behaviour Research Laboratory
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
@GadboisSimon
Lab Facebook Page
Lab Facebook Group 

Note: The Dalhousie University Canid Behaviour Research Team uses force-free, positive methods of training dogs for olfactory detection, discrimination, identification, tracking and trailing. All dogs are pets volunteered by their owners and are selected for temperament, trainability, scent abilities, and play drive (i.e., “work” drive). For that reason, 95% of our volunteers are border collies or border collie mixes.



 * Domjan writes in fact, in this popular textbook (p. 302, 2003, 5th edition) “On the basis of a few experiments Thorndike (1932) and Skinner (1938, 1953) concluded that punishment was not a very effective method for controlling behavior and that it had only temporary effects at best (see also Estes, 1944). This claim was not seriously challenged until the 1960’s, when punishment processes began to be investigated more extensively (Azrin & Holz, 1966; Campbell & Church, 1969; Church, 1963; Solomon, 1964). We now know that punishment can be an effective technique for modifying behavior (Dinsmoor, 1998)."

Images via Canid Behaviour Research Team photo and Facebook pages.

 If you found this interesting, you may also enjoy our guest post by Cat Reeve, a member of the Canid Behaviour Research Team: Cat and Dogs: seeking solutions with sniffing canines and science, or see all of our guest contributors.


 References
Domjan, M. (2003). The Principles of Learning and Behavior. Thomson - Wadsworth.

Fentress, J.C., Ryon, J., McLeod, P.J., & Havkin, G.Z. (1987). A multidimensional approach to agnostic behavior in wolves. In Frank, H. (1987) Man and wolf: Advances, issues, and problems in captive wolf research: Hingham, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Gadbois, S. (2002). The socioendocrinology of aggression-mediated stress in timber wolves (Canis lupus). PhD dissertation, Dalhousie University.

Honig, W. K, & Staddon, J. R. (1977). Handbook of Operant Behaviour. Prentice-Hall.

Mech, D. (2000). Leadership in wolf, Canis lupus, packs. Canadian Field-Naturalist, 114, 259-263.

Mech L.D. (1999). Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs, Canadian Journal of Zoology, 77 (8) 1196-1203. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z99-099

Mech, L.D., Wolf, P.C., & Packard, J.M. (1999). Regurgitative food transfer among wild wolves. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 77, 1192-1195.

Peterson, R.O., Jacobs, A.K., Dummer, T.D., Mech, L.D, & Smith, D.W. (2002). Leadership behavior in relation to dominance and reproductive status in gray wolves, Canis lupus. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 80, 1405-1412.

 © 2015 Simon Gadbois | Do You Believe in Dog?
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14 May 2014

JOIN US! #SPARCS2014 TICKET GIVEAWAY

JOIN US! #SPARCS2014 TICKET GIVEAWAY


WANT TO WIN FREE REGISTRATION TO #SPARCS2014?

SPARCS is an international initiative to promote research & education in dog science. 
Each year, SPARCS holds a three-day canine science conference with each day 
dedicated to a different dog behavior topic. 

This year's topics include: 'Aggression & Conflict,' 'Personality & Temperament,' and 'Science in Training.' Attend in-person or watch via free livestream.

20-22 June 2014 | Newport, Rhode Island | USA

This year's acclaimed speakers include:
Ray Coppinger, Simon Gadbois, Sam Gosling, 
Kathryn Lord, Patricia McConnell, James Serpell, 
Monique Udell, Clive Wynne and Prescott Breeden. 

Enter to win free registration to the 3-day conference
Let us know why YOU want to attend this major canine science event, 
and who will benefit if YOU attend.

You can make your submission here on the blog, or over on Facebook, or Twitter.
Mia and Julie will select who receives a free registration to #SPARCS2014

Tag your comment with #SPARCS2014

Competition closes: 20 May 2014
Winner announced: 21 May 2014

Competition is for SPARCS 2014 conference registration (valued US$499) only.
Travel and accommodation expenses to attend not covered. Judges' decision will be final. 
If selected, but unable to attend, please contact doyoubelieveindog@gmail.com so another person can be selected.

Click to enlarge

Follow Society for the Promotion of Applied Research in Canine Science:
Facebook | Twitter | Website | Sign up for free #SPARCS2014 broadcast


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 © Do You Believe in Dog? 2014
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! PLEASE EMAIL US WITH YOUR CONTACT DETAILS: DOYOUBELIEVEINDOG [AT] GMAIL.COM 
Thanks to everyone who participated - look forward to 'seeing' you on the live #SPARCS2014 broadcast :)



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22 February 2014

Dog Loses Ear at Dog Park and There Was Nothing We Could Do About It

Dog Loses Ear at Dog Park and There Was Nothing We Could Do About It

#SPARCS2014 Day 1
Hi Mia!

Looking forward to the upcoming SPARCS conference in June! We’ll be in Newport, Rhode Island from June 20-22, 2014 with the live audience doing the play-by-play (my dad is going to have to give me baseball reporting tips beforehand), but ANYONE on planet Earth can watch the conference live for free!

Each day of the conference is dedicated to one general topic, and that's not something you often see at conferences. Usually, one person gives a keynote, maybe there’s time for Q&A, and that’s the end! This time, multiple experts will weigh in on the same topic. 

#SPARCS2014 Day 1: June 20, 2014 covers "Aggression and Conflict." Expert speakers (bios here) join the day of talks with takeaways like:
  • Patricia McConnell: To be able to recognize the visual signs of conflict and agonistic behavior  
  • Ray Coppinger: To understand motor patterns when interpreting aggression  
  • James Serpell: To draw attention to what we do and don’t know about aggression in dogs 
  • Simon Gadbois: To learn the richness of the concept of behavioral and social “rules” 
  • Kathryn Lord: To understand how the broader scientific field of animal behavior and comparison to other animals can inform us about dog behavior
Reading about what will be covered, I couldn’t help but think about people who are personally dealing with companion dog aggression or conflict issues -- not the most warm and fuzzy thing to have to deal with. And then I remembered that while many dogs may be dealing with aggression and conflict issues, many people are not necessarily aware that there’s even an issue in their midst!

Let me back up and explain:

Just this month I learned about a paper, Situated activities in a dog park: Identity and conflict in human-animal space, at The Science Dog (Blog / Facebook), a blog maintained by Linda Case, M.S., (author of numerous books on dog behavior, nutrition and training). Case recently reviewed the paper, and you can read her review here.  
Flickr Creative Commons, Justin Beckley
Patrick Jackson, the author of 'Situated activities in a dog park,' is a sociologist at Sonoma State University. At a general level, his paper explores “how people and their dogs do things (activities) together (situated) in the dog park environment.” A ‘situated activity’ is one that bring people together not because they are best best best friends, but because they share a common interest, and in this case, that interest is dogs.

At the dog park, people spend a great deal of time talking about, well, dogs. Jackson describes dog park conversations that we are all familiar with: “Which one is yours?” and “What’s his/her name?”, with follow-up questions about age and habits.

We know that people readily talk to and through their dogs. Over at The Dodo, Alexandra Horowitz recently covered the different types of things we say to dogs (my favorite: “We don't need you to fix everyone's problems.”) I’ve discussed our one-sided conversations with animals over at Scientific American: Did You Have A Good Pee, Mr. Rhino? (I swear the post is about dogs).

But back to Jackson's paper: My ears perked up in the section “Control management.” Jackson comments that the dog park can be a hodgepodge of many dogs doing many different things. Meanwhile, dog owners don’t always know whether something ‘should be done’ and if so, what that ‘something’ should look like. Per Jackson, “it is also ambiguous how caretakers are supposed to manage their own and others’ dogs in the dog park. If a dog is about to enter the park and is snarling at yours, should you intercede?”

And because dog parks don’t come equipped with species-specific referees (think on-site social workers, psychologists and animal behaviorists), dog parks can be chaotic, even unsafe. 

 
Dogs are confusing. People are confusing. Put them together in a public space, and it’s like all the circuses came to town on the same day.


To add insult to injury, dogs also come with teeth. Again, Jackson:
 
“It is difficult to know, for example, when untoward behavior like aggressiveness is imminent (King & Long, 2004). In the dynamic dog park environment, knowledge about aggression may only be gained through experience.”

Hmm
 
Hmmm
 
Hmmmmmm
 
WHAT?!? 
 
The first sentence I get. 

“It is difficult to know, for example, when untoward behavior like aggressiveness is imminent.”
 
That's true. People are not innately able to recognize fear and stress behaviors in dogs, even a dog that they live with. And with dogs coming in all shapes, sizes and ‘ways of displaying canid behaviors,’ detecting fear and stress is even more challenging. Many distance-increasing signals can easily go unnoticed. So far, so good, Mr. Jackson.
 
But the second part:
 
“In the dynamic dog park environment, knowledge about aggression may only be gained through experience.”

 Makes zero sense. Scratch that. It makes less than zero sense.
 
The field of animal behavior is all about studying what animals do. Some researchers study play in goats, while others might study aggressive displays in chimps, ants, stickleback fish, or even cranes (such as what aggression and its precursors look like in each of these species). As Mugatu from Zoolander might say, “Dogs are so hot right now.” Many are investigating why dogs do what they do, and veterinarians, veterinary behaviorists, trainers, ethologists, comparative psychologists, behavior analysts, and anthrozoologists are hot on the trail.

Aggression and conflict is an area that many animal behavior researchers investigate. Which is to say, people who live with dogs are lucky: science-based resources on dog aggression and conflict exist and are only growing.

For dog owners, "aggression” doesn’t have to be this strange, unknown, out-of-the-blue thing. You don’t have to wait until your hand is bitten to learn about aggression. Heck, we could even argue that we learn less about aggression and conflict through actual experience. Ever hear anybody say: “OOOOoh! Now I get it! I now clearly see all the things that led up to that dog biting that other dog’s ear off. I will certainly not miss it next time”? To an untrained eye, witnessing conflict is usually very upsetting and scary, not something where you walk away with a deeper understanding of what actually went down or how it could have been avoided.
SPARCS website
Here are some free, science-based ways to learn about dog aggression & conflict: 
 
1) #SPARCS2014 Day 1: June 20, 2014 'Aggression and Conflict'
Anybody in the world can tune in live for this day of research into conflict and aggression. Join Patricia McConnell, Ray Coppinger, James Serpell, Simon Gadbois and Kathryn Lord as they examine this topic from different angles.
 
2) Free Dog Behavior Webinars (watch live or watch the recordings)
For the last few years, The Center for Shelter Dogs (Twitter / Facebook) and ASPCA Professional (Twitter / Facebook) have been holding free Webinars on companion animal behavior, care and sheltering. Many of the Webinars focus on dog behavior, and they are led by trainers, practitioners, veterinarians and researchers who work with dogs from hoarding and fighting cases, as well as companion, street and shelter dogs. These hour-long Webinars are free, archived and available online now!
 
ASPCA Pro Archived Webinars (search by topic, select few below)

The Center for Shelter Dogs Archived Webinars (search by date, select few listed below)
  • Wondering About Food Aggression in Shelter Dogs?, February 2014
  • Fear of People, May 2013
  • Optimizing Canine Welfare, February 2013

3) CAAB Chats 
Online CAAB chats are new to the scene. These free monthly talks are hosted by Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists, people with a PhD (or ACAABs with a Masters) in an Animal Behavior field. Learn more about CAABs and ACAABs here. These monthly talks are free to watch live with a small fee for the recording. The initial two talks covered ‘Canine Communication’ and ‘Response Prevention.’ Next up, ‘Social Roles and Relationships in Dogs’ on March 27, 2014. Sign up for updates about future talk topics here.

~~~

You and I know this is not an exhaustive list (we could add books, blogs, websites and more webinars another day — for this I focused on resources that are available and mostly free). Aggression and conflict are not all that straightforward, and hearing about it from another person, especially in the form of a Webinar, can make the topic a lot more manageable.

When #SPARCS2014 Day 1: Aggression and Conflict comes around, I hope people show up open to the idea that there are many ways to learn about aggression and conflict, and that “knowledge about aggression may only be gained through experience” won’t serve anyone, dog or person.

Oh, and why is the post titled, Dog Loses Ear at Dog Park and There Was Nothing We Could Do About It? Check out The Science Dog post Dog Park People for more on those unfortunate details.
 
Hope all’s well! I think there's a meta-analysis on your horizon...
 
Julie
Reference
Jackson P. 2012. Situated activities in a dog park: Identity and conflict in human-animal space. Society and Animals 20, 254-272. DOI: 

 Case, L. 2014. Dog Park People. The Science Dog Blog



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