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Showing posts with label attitudes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label attitudes. Show all posts

4 May 2014

Isn't it a Pitty? USA & UK shelter worker differences in Pit Bull identification

Isn't it a Pitty? USA & UK shelter worker differences in Pit Bull identification

Hi Julie and Mia,

 Guess what? We have something in common!
Do You Believe in Dog? started as a result of you two meeting at a conference, and my latest publication also resulted from a conference-inspired, long-distance collaboration. Dr. Carri Westgarth and I met at the International Society for Anthrozoology meeting in England in 2012. We quickly realized we share both personal and professional interests in dogs. During one of our chats, I showed Carri pictures of dogs I’d worked with in a US shelter. As I flipped through the pictures, I noted out loud that many were pit bulls, and Carri responded, “We wouldn’t call most of those dogs pit bulls here in the UK.”
Flickr/denial_land

This conversation motivated us to conduct a study investigating differences between which dogs shelter workers in the US and UK consider pit bulls. Following the conference, Carri and I collected pictures of shelter dogs and designed a survey to learn more about shelters’ intake policies and assess how shelter workers determine breed identity. We wanted survey participants to look at pictures of shelter dogs and then tell us what breed they thought the dog was and which characteristics led them to their conclusion. Then, we had participants go through the pictures a second time and tell us whether or not they felt each dog was a pit bull.

One of the hardest parts of this project was narrowing down the pictures to just 20. We would have loved to have included more but didn’t want to make our survey so long that people became frustrated and quit before finishing. Our final set of pictures included 11 bull breeds. Twelve of the dogs were from the US, and the remaining 8 were from the UK.
Some of the dogs used in our survey (excerpt from publication)

We launched the survey at the end of 2012 and recruited participants via social media and an e-mail campaign directed at shelters. We ended up with responses from 416 US participants and 54 UK participants.

Eleven percent of US participants reported working in shelters that are impacted by Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). Although all UK shelters are impacted by BSL due to the Dangerous Dog Act, the survey results indicated that not all UK shelter workers were aware of this. That surprised us!
Flickr/hand-nor-glove

We were even more surprised by participants’ thoughts regarding which dogs were pit bulls. Over half of US participants considered 7 of the 20 dogs to be pit bulls, whereas over half of UK participants considered only 1 of the dogs to be a pit bull. Furthermore, US participants were significantly more likely than UK participants to consider 12 of the dogs to be pit bulls.

Flickr/actionkat13
When we provided participants with a list of 10 bull breed and Mastiff breed names and asked if they considered any of these breeds to be pit bulls, US participants were more likely than UK participants to say that 6 of the breeds were. The biggest discrepancy between US and UK participants’ responses was regarding the Staffordshire bull terrier. Two percent of UK participants considered this breed to be a pit bull, whereas 69% of US participants did!

Carri and I were astonished by how much UK and US shelter workers’ perceptions of what a pit bull looks like differed. We also were surprised by how much disagreement there was amongst shelter workers within our respective countries. We thought about how many times we have seen news reports that identify aggressive dogs as "pit bulls" and how infrequently pictures of the impounded dogs accompany these articles. It made us wonder how much of the pit bull’s reputation is affected by dogs being identified as pit bulls in one location, even though they may not be considered pit bulls elsewhere.

We tried to figure out why there is so much disagreement regarding what a pit bull dog is and concluded it may in part be because the American Kennel Club and the UK’s Kennel Club do not have breed standards for the pit bull or American pit bull terrier (although the United Kennel Club does!). According to the UK’s Dangerous Dog Act, a pit bull dog is one that meets the physical features described for pit bulls in a 1977 issue of the American periodical Pit Bull Gazette. American pit bull terriers and American Staffordshire terriers fall under the UK’s definition of a pit bull. Notably, Staffordshire bull terriers are not classified as pit bull dogs in the UK, although as our results showed, they tend to be considered pit bulls in the US.
Flickr/eileen_mcfall
One might wonder if our findings indicate there should be alternative ways of identifying shelter dogs. Recently, there has been a push to label US shelter dogs of unknown lineages as American shelter dogs, but based on our survey results, this strategy has not taken off. Perhaps, at least, our findings will inspire people to question the morality and efficacy of legislation that is based on a dog’s appearance, particularly when disagreement is so pervasive.


Christy Hoffman, PhD  
Assistant Professor
Department of Animal Behavior,
Ecology, and Conservation
Canisius College


Further reading:
Hoffman C.L., Harrison N., Wolff L. & Westgarth C. (2014). Is That Dog a Pit Bull? A Cross-Country Comparison of Perceptions of Shelter Workers Regarding Breed Identification, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 1-18. DOI:

Voith, V. L., Trevejo, R., Dowling-Guyer, S., Chadik, C., Marder, A., Johnson, V., & Irizarry, K. (2013). Comparison of visual and DNA-based breed identification of dog and inter-observer reliability. American Journal of Sociological Research, 3(2), 17–29. DOI: 10.5923/j.sociology.20130302.02

 Marder A. & Voith V. (2010). The American Shelter Dog: Identification of dogs by personality, Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 5 (1) 26. DOI: 

Voith V.L., Ingram E., Mitsouras K. & Irizarry K. (2009). Comparison of Adoption Agency Breed Identification and DNA Breed Identification of Dogs, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 12 (3) 253-262. DOI:

Flickr/jasonbacon

Relevant links on breed and breed identification:
Dangerous Dogs Act (UK): http://archive.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/pets/cruelty/documents/ddogslawyouleaflet.pdf

Description of the physical features of a pit bull type dog based on the 1977 issue of the Pit Bull Gazette: http://archive.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/pets/cruelty/documents/dogs-guide-enforcers.pdf (p.14)

American Kennel Club: http://www.akc.org/

Kennel Club: https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/

United Kennel Club: http://www.ukcdogs.com/Web.nsf/WebPages/Home

 © Do You Believe in Dog? 2014
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Voith

5 March 2014

Attachment: measuring our (varying) relationships with dogs.

Attachment: measuring our (varying) relationships with dogs.

Hi Julie,

Right off the bat I need to say YES YES YES! 

Your last post about aggression and what we can learn from and about it WITHOUT the need to experience it was spot on. 

Are you THIS attached to your dog? (source)
You’re also right that my head is filled with glorious meta-analysis results right now, as well as perceptions and other measures (#allthemeasures!) as I start preparing my abstracts for submission to be part of the Canine Science Forum.

One of the small but quirky things I’ve noticed in the results of the perceived welfare of dogs survey, is that people seem to think their own pet dog has a much higher level of welfare than everyone else’s pet dog. Why would we think we take better care of our own dogs than anyone else? Now, this could be to do with the self-selected convenience sample of people who took the online questionnaire. Perhaps the 2,146 people who were interested and motivated enough to take the time to do the survey really are the very top of the pile of all dog owners, but I found it interesting all the same.

It got me thinking about our relationships with dogs (Ha! What’s new, right?!). I also happened to have a chat with Hal Herzog (while recording an upcoming episode of Human Animal Science) and, amongst many other things, we talked about how animals and pets aren’t universally beneficial for all people. Some people don’t even like their dogs. We know from extensive research into human psychology that our attitudes are major predictors of our behaviour. So are people who really love their animals more likely to take better care of them? (The answer is no, not always). Why is it that even people like us, who really find dogs fascinating and work with them daily, can feel more of a 'connection' with one individual dog, but not so much another?

Definitely attached to dog (source)
When faced with a question like this, how do we measure these differences scientifically? We can look at (usually self-reported by the human) measures, such as time per day spent in the company, or interacting/sharing activities with pet dogs. This is valuable, but does not necessarily indicate emotional closeness of a person to their dog.

Lucky for me, plenty of psychologists, including earlier members of the Anthrozoology Research Group have tackled this and worked hard to create scales that measure the human-animal bond. The Monash Dog-Owner Relationship Scale, or MDORS as it’s more affectionately known is a great example. MDORS is a series of questions that form a psychometrically sound and validated scale. 

 This scale was developed with the assistance of over 1,000 participants and comprises 28 items (statements that you agree/disagree with on a 5 point likert-style scale) across three subscales: Dog–Owner Interaction (e.g. “How often do you play games with your dog”), Perceived Emotional Closeness (e.g. “I wish my dog and I never had to be apart”), and Perceived Costs (e.g. "It is annoying that I sometimes have to change my plans because of my dog"). A scale like this can be used not just to assess how attached people are to their pet dogs, but also to explore how these attachments might vary between dogs, and with different groups of people (e.g. from different countries, with different cultural, work experience or education backgrounds, etc.), making it a very powerful tool for researchers. 
(excerpt from Dwyer et al, 2006)
Used in conjunction with other questionnaires to investigate areas like grief at the loss of a pet, responsible pet ownership practices by owners, oxytocin levels in dogs, or human health benefits derived from pet ownership; attachment measures, like MDORS, can help us learn more about the importance of attachment to successful relationships for both human and dogs.
How many dogs are you attached to? (Flickr)
You might remember Tammie King's research, that used a modified version of the Ainsworth Strange Situation to see what dogs did when separated from their familiar person  and approached by a stranger (in her case, helping to measure the canine trait of amicability through their reaction toward the stranger). Tammie also asked owners to complete the MDORS and used the results in interpreting the canine behavioural data analysis for her PhD.

 So often in our research, it's important to measure both sides of the story, because we've learned the experience of the human, or even the human's perception of the dog's experience, just don't match up to the dogs' experience.

 I'm pleased to see you'll be tackling topics like these this weekend in San Francisco at the Canine Science Symposium event - yet another great line up of fantastic canine scientists sharing science for everyone:
(Source: Photo Lab Pet Photography)

Meanwhile, I'm getting back to my research and pondering if attachment might relate to perceived welfare of dogs.

Looking forward to your next update,

 Mia

Further reading:

 Dwyer F., Bennett P.C. & Coleman G.J. (2006). Development of the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS), Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 19 (3) 243-256. DOI:

Rohlf V.I., Bennett P.C., Toukhsati S. & Coleman G. (2010). Why Do Even Committed Dog Owners Fail to Comply with Some Responsible Ownership Practices?, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 23 (2) 143-155. DOI: 

 Archer J. & Ireland J.L. (2011). The Development and Factor Structure of a Questionnaire Measure of the Strength of Attachment to Pet Dogs, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 24 (3) 249-261. DOI:

Handlin L., Nilsson A., Ejdebäck M., Hydbring-Sandberg E. & Uvnäs-Moberg K. (2012). Associations between the Psychological Characteristics of the Human–Dog Relationship and Oxytocin and Cortisol Levels, Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, 25 (2) 215-228. DOI:

© Mia Cobb | Do You Believe in Dog? 2014
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welfare

8 October 2012

A tail with no end is a sorry tale indeed.

A tail with no end is a sorry tale indeed.

Hey Julie,
What a great topic to bring to the table: that what we, as people, like to see in our dogs, may not always be in the dogs' best interests. Indeed. 

Considering that got me thinking not just about the features we select for when breeding dogs, but also our track record in surgically altering the appearance of dogs through procedures like ear cropping and tail docking, for the purpose of owner satisfaction in how the dog looks.

A postcard used in an RSPCA awareness campaign in Australia.
Don't worry, I'm not going to show a whole lot of disturbing images, but I would like to talk about the role scientific assessment and objectivity can play as a catalyst for change in regards to animal welfare issues. 

Pauleen Bennett (source)
My PhD supervisor, Pauleen Bennett, founder of the Anthrozoology Research Group and Executive Director and Chair of the Australian Anthrozoology Research Foundation, contributed significantly to ending the stand-off surrounding the issue of 'tail docking' occurring in Australia around ten years ago.

 She has bred and shown pure breed dogs, so had contact with people and pure-breed dog associations who were strongly opposed to the calls from welfare organisations and veterinary groups to ban the practice of tail docking in Australia. 

 This issue really came to light following anti-docking legislation (except where medically indicated by a vet) being implemented in several Scandinavian and  other European countries in the mid-late 1990's. Several main arguments founded in historic practice and emotive reactions were blocking the cessation of tail docking in Australia. 

 Pauleen's review of these issues surrounding tail docking systematically identified and considered the main arguments proposed for continued docking:
  • Maintaining tradition / The breed standard called for a docked tail.
  • The public would not recognise these breeds without their docked tails.
  • The dogs will injure their tails if undocked.
  • The dogs will get dirty tails if undocked.
  • Personal preference (less likely to knock over furniture items, prefer the look, etc.).
Within this paper, she also considered the arguments for ceasing tail docking in the same objective and non-emotive manner.

 The objective and informed facts:
  • Tail docking is painful. It was routinely done to young pups (1-5 days old) who are unable to be anaesthetised (too young) and not given pain relief. Young puppies can feel acute pain.
  • Tails are major communication tools for dogs.
  • Tail docking approx. 500 dogs may avoid one tail injury. (To give this some context with a human flavour, approximately 1 in 255 people fracture their arms annually in the USA, but funnily enough, Americans don’t amputate babies’ arms at birth to avoid this.)
  • Some traditions need to be ceased in light of new information and changing societal expectations/norms. 

Pauleen's background is in neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology. What I really admire is that she didn't just stop at presenting this objective consideration of the issues. Her second paper on this topic raised cognitive dissonance theory as a "useful framework within which to understand, and attempt to alter, attitudes that persist even though they appear contrary to available empirical evidence" (Bennett & Perini, 2003b). 

 Valuably, she offered a solution to help get everyone on board with the situation.

"By first acknowledging that such people are not cruel or uncaring, but have always acted according to what they genuinely believe to be the best interests of their animals. In possession of evidence to the contrary, but with their self concept intact, such people are well placed to alter community attitudes towards docking, and to take a leadership role in altering the way in which our society perceives animals in general" (Bennett & Perini, 2003b).

 In 2004, Australia banned cosmetic (not medically indicated) tail docking nationally, making it illegal. Every dog under 8 years old that was born in Australia, should now have its full tail.

Me? Personally, I love seeing Rottweiler, Boxer, Jack Russell, Old English Sheepdog or German Shorthaired Pointer dogs wagging their tails effusively while playing with their other doggy friends and owners.
They look complete to me.

Looking forward to Part 2 of your Superficial series immensely,

Mia

 If you'd like to know if cosmetic tail docking and ear cropping are still legal in your country: check the list on Wikipedia here.


References / further reading:

BENNETT, P. & PERINI, E. (2003). Tail docking in dogs: a review of the issues, Australian Veterinary Journal, 81 (4) 218. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-0813.2003.tb11473.x

 BENNETT, P. & PERINI, E. (2003b). Tail docking in dogs: can attitude change be achieved?, Australian Veterinary Journal, 81 (5) 282. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-0813.2003.tb12575.x

 NOONAN, G., RAND, J., BLACKSHAW, J. & PRIEST, J. (1996). Tail docking in dogs: A sample of attitudes of veterinarians and dog breeders in Queensland, Australian Veterinary Journal, 73 (3) 88. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-0813.1996.tb09982.x

 WANSBROUGH, R.K. (1996). Cosmetic tail docking of dogs, Australian Veterinary Journal, 74 (1) 63. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-0813.1996.tb13737.x

 Diesel, G., Pfeiffer, D., Crispin, S. & Brodbelt, D. (2010). Risk factors for tail injuries in dogs in Great Britain, Veterinary Record, 166 (26) 817. DOI: 10.1136/vr.b4880

Leaver, & Reimchen, (2008). Behavioural responses of Canis familiaris to different tail lengths of a remotely-controlled life-size dog replica, Behaviour, 145 (3) 390. DOI: 10.1163/156853908783402894


© Mia Cobb 2012
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