Canine Captives

 

Unleashing Your Dog is a field guide to living with dogs in ways that enhance everyone’s quality of life and that expand the freedom for dogs to really be dogs. Leashes are symbolic of our complicated relationship with our canine companions: They literally tie us together, one on each end. To people, the leash represents going out into the world with our dogs and giving them time to sniff, run, play, chase, have fun, roll, pee, poop, hump, and otherwise express themselves. To dogs, the leash likely represents these things, but it is also a tether that constrains their freedom because the leash is our means of control. It ensures that dogs are only allowed to go where we say, when we say, under our terms. Unleashing dogs means finding ways to let them have more freedom.

Most people who choose to share their home and heart with a dog do their best to provide a good life for their canine companion. We asked a number of people what they most value for their dog, and the two answers most commonly given were: “I want my dog to get to be a dog,” and “I want my dog to be happy.” These two values are closely linked. Most people want dogs to express dog behaviors, to be satisfied on their own terms, and to “be themselves.” This is important because a great deal of what we ask our pet dogs to do is undog-like and puts aside their doggy natures. For example, we ask them to sit inside alone for hours on end, and we ask them to walk slowly at the end of a rope instead of allowing them to dart here and there, deciding for themselves what deserves sniffing and exploring. We ask them not to bark, not to chase, not to hump, and not to sniff other dogs’ butts. People who love dogs want their dog to be happy, and, to be happy, dogs need the freedom to act like dogs. Greater freedom means greater happiness.

Consider, for example, the experience of Marilyn and her rescue dog, Damien. Within a day of bringing Damien home, Marilyn realized that, she said, she’d “taken on a handful plus.” She had completely underestimated how much she would have to change her life to accommodate her canine companion. She hadn’t anticipated the depth and breadth of the commitment it required to give Damien what he wanted and needed, and she was “totally dumbfounded about what to do.” How could she give this handsome guy the best life possible, given the constraints of her own life? After learning about dog behavior, Marilyn soon realized she’d have to adjust and give up some of her own “stuff” to give Damien what he needed. Damien was fully dependent on her for everything. But Marilyn also came to see that accommodating Damien in order to give him as much freedom as possible also enriched her own life. Though the changes she made felt like a sacrifice at first, she came to realize they weren’t sacrifices at all because of what Damien gave her in return. Months later, Marilyn said that she and Damien were the happiest couple in the world. She admitted that she got pushed to the limit on occasion, and Damien’s tolerance of her “humanness” was critical. He seemed to understand that she was doing the best she could and wanted him to be a happy dog.

Jim’s experience with his young rescued mutt, Jasmine, was similar, except that Jasmine had been severely abused as a youngster. As Jim put it, “She was the most needy individual I’d ever met — canine, feline, or human.” However, once Jim came to realize that he was Jasmine’s lifeline, things changed. Jim worked hard to help Jasmine adapt to her life with Jim, and what began as an iffy relationship slowly evolved into one of mutual respect and trust. Jasmine helped Jim understand that dogs often struggle to adapt to human environments, particularly when dogs have had negative experiences with human caretakers.

Dog companions are captive animals, in that they are almost completely dependent on humans to provide for their physical, emotional, and social needs. This does not mean that dogs can’t be happy in human homes, but rather, humans often have a good deal of work to do to ensure that their canine and other housemates live with as much freedom as possible. Fortunately, unleashing your dog, literally and metaphorically, is fun for all involved.

WHAT DOES “BEING CAPTIVE” MEAN?

Dogs are typically portrayed as happy-go-lucky members of our extended human families, without a care in the world. Indeed, the phrase “It’s a dog’s life” is sometimes used to describe days filled with indolence and pleasure. Aside from trained working dogs, all our dog companions do, after all, is sleep, laze around, eat, play, and hang out with friends. What could be easier, especially when someone reliably plops down a bowl of food several times a day? We are here to tell you that the lives of homed dogs aren’t necessarily all fun and games, and that living as the companions of humans comes with some important compromises on the part of dogs. To adapt to human environments and expectations, dogs must sacrifice some of their “dogness.” Despite our best efforts to provide a good life, and without quite realizing it, we usually ask them to live like us rather than like dogs. However, in order to successfully allow and even encourage our dogs to be dogs, we need to understand who dogs really are and how to help them express their dogness within our world.

When conservation biologist Susan Townsend, Marc’s last doctoral student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, heard about this book, she told him that whenever she comes home to Angel, a Chihuahua mix, she asks, “How’s my little prisoner doing?” Susan’s greeting, although said in companionable jest, reflects an important reality.1

Our companion animals are not “held captive” the same way a tiger or gorilla is confined behind bars inside a zoo. They are not wild species who have been taken from their natural habitats and are being held against their will in a cage or artificial setting. But in important respects, companion dogs like Angel are also captive animals, and we are their captors. Maybe “captives and captors” sounds melodramatic and overly negative. After all, a good deal of the time humans and dogs share a beautiful, mutually pleasing interspecies relationship. But for just a minute, consider the constraints pet dogs face within a human home and a human-run world.

DEFINITION: CAPTIVE According to the online Etymology Dictionary, the noun captive means “one who is taken and kept in confinement; one who is completely in the power of another.” The word’s roots come from the Latin captivus, “caught, taken prisoner,” and from capere, “to take, hold, seize.”

Simply put, “being captive” means that your life is not your own, that the contours of your daily existence are shaped by someone else. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you are mistreated or unhappy or that your captors intend to harm or punish you. Being captive refers to a type of existence, not its quality. It means being confined to a certain space, one not necessarily of your choosing. It means you lack the ability to choose what you do, who you see, who and what you smell, and what and when you eat. It means, at times, being forced to do certain tasks others ask of you. It means depending on someone else to provide the basic necessities of life, like food and shelter, along with opportunities for meaningful engagement with others and the world. In these ways, dogs kept as pets are captive animals, and humans are their captors because we control all these aspects of their lives.

This is easy to appreciate if we turn the tables. Do dogs go to the people store or the people shelter and choose which human they’ll take home? Do dogs, if they decide that they don’t really like the human they have chosen, get to return their person and bring home another one who is more attractive and better behaved? Do dogs determine when and what humans eat, how often humans get to pee and where, and which friends they can see? Do dogs put humans on a leash so they won’t run too fast, go too far, or greet others they think the human shouldn’t?

Of course, this is ridiculously far-fetched, but would we put up with the conditions under which pet dogs live in our society? Absolutely not. We’d never give up control over the most basic aspects of our lives. No matter how benevolently we govern our dogs, we nevertheless ask them, and often command them, to live under our rules, within our kingdom.

This is the crucial starting point for understanding our relationships with, and our responsibilities toward, our furry friends. No matter how loving human caretakers are, companion dogs must cope with an asymmetrical relationship. To live in our world, we require them to give up some of their freedoms and natural canine behaviors. In her book Love Is All You Need, service-dog trainer Jennifer Arnold writes that dogs live in an environment that “makes it impossible for them to alleviate their own stress and anxiety.” She explains: “In modern society, there is no way for our dogs to keep themselves safe, and thus we are unable to afford them the freedom to meet their own needs. Instead, they must depend on our benevolence for survival.”2 Think about it. We teach dogs that, in order to pee or poop, they must get our attention and ask for permission to go outside the house. When dogs do go outside, we often restrain them with a leash or within a fence and tell them, “Don’t pee or poop there.” Dogs eat what and when we feed them, and they’re scolded if they eat what or when we say they shouldn’t. Dogs play with the toys we give them, and they get in trouble for choosing their own toys (which we mysteriously call “shoes” or “the television remote”). Most of the time our schedules and preferences determine our dog’s playmates and friendships. All things considered, it’s a very one-sided relationship that no adult human would tolerate.

Some people claim that, because of domestication, dogs are conditioned to accept, and are content with, these asymmetries in our relationship. They argue that the long association with humans has changed what is “natural” for dogs, and in some ways, this is true. By definition, a domestic dog is not a wild species, and their behavior reflects what we’ve asked from them in the past and our own expectations. Nevertheless, dogs are not four-legged humans, either, and they are not completely adapted to human environments, as anyone who lives with a dog knows firsthand. Dogs retain elements of “wildness” and behaviors that resemble those of their wild wolf ancestors. Indeed, many of these traits we value highly, and we wouldn’t want them to disappear, such as their devotion to their family group, their sociability, and their willingness to help and protect. Dogs will never fit easily and without negotiation into human homes and lifestyles, and that’s the way it is. For example, dogs will always need to be carefully taught to walk on a leash, not to chase prey, and not to roam the neighborhood in search of a nice-smelling mating partner. Of course, the fact that dog trainers and veterinary behaviorists are in such high demand indicates that numerous dogs need a lot of help trying to live successfully with and among humans.

In other words, living with dogs involves a careful balance. Some constraints are essential for the safety of dogs and humans, and yet if we aren’t careful and extremely attentive to what our dog needs, these constraints can severely compromise our dog’s quality of life and ability to thrive. One goal of this book is to examine and become aware of the constraints we place on dogs, to identify those that are unnecessarily strict and those that are so subtle that we might not even realize we’re depriving our dogs of freedoms they need or want.

You might say, with dogs, we have made a kind of Faustian bargain: To bring dogs into our lives and love them, we have had to compromise their freedoms and, in some ways, compromise their well-being. Instead of seeking knowledge, like Faust, we want love and companionship. We want to capitalize on the shared emotions that form a social glue — that celebrated “bond” — between humans and dogs.3 But the price of this love and companionship is that we make our truest companions into beings different from and less than themselves. Our hope is that this book helps you see and address this ethical quandary to improve the life of the dog, or dogs, you love.

UNLEASHING DOGS, ENHANCING FREEDOMS

Words are important and have power. There is a reason we don’t call companion animals captives nor their humans captors. These negative words don’t reflect the nature of our intentions or feelings for dogs. Similarly, we don’t like the word owner, which objectifies dogs and encourages us, by implication, to treat dogs like property that can be owned, used, and discarded. We prefer terms like guardian or companion rather than owner. Even though our society legally defines dogs as property, we don’t have to use that language, treat them that way, or think of ourselves in those terms. Dogs are conscious beings with thoughts and feelings, just like us, which is why we never use the pronouns that or it when referring to dogs, since these refer to objects. We prefer to use he, she, and they and who or whom.

Further, since captivity and freedom can be loaded words — ones that carry judgment and whose meanings or understandings vary depending on the context — we prefer the terms deprivations and enhancements when talking about dog well-being. We’ll explore these concepts further in the field guide, but here are the basics: A deprivation means not letting dogs do something “natural” that they are highly motivated and driven to do. An enhancement is an intervention that increases a dog’s freedom to be a dog. Enhancements can be things we provide, like unclicking the leash and allowing dogs to run hard and zoom around without a care in the world. Enhancements can also be things from which we protect dogs, such as fear, pain, sensory overload, unwanted petting, and danger.

The antidote for captivity is freedom. Clearly, there is a basic tension between captivity and freedom, and dogs exist within this zone of uncertainty. Although dogs are captive (there’s no getting around this), they can nevertheless enjoy remarkable degrees of freedom within human environments. Like captivity, freedom isn’t black and white, but rather comes in shades of gray. Dogs in our society live under a whole range of conditions, and they experience varying levels of captivity-related stress and varying levels of freedom. Further, the way homed dogs live varies widely across the globe and even house to house. It’s hard to speak in generalities, since there are always variations and exceptions. More to the point: Each dog and each person is different. Each dog experiences certain deprivations more keenly, and each person will find certain enhancements and freedoms easier to provide than others. Our hope with this book is a simple one: We hope it helps you discover many ways to provide your dog with more freedom and less captivity, however you can. Every dog deserves the best life we can offer, and this “best life” means giving them the greatest amount of freedom and the fewest experiences of captivity-induced deprivation we can provide.

TEN FREEDOMS FOR DOGS The “Five Freedoms” are a popular cornerstone of animal welfare. First developed in 1965 and formalized in 1979 by the UK’s Farm Animal Welfare Council, the Five Freedoms were designed to address some of the worst welfare problems experienced by animals used within industrial farming (or “factory farming”). Since their development, the Five Freedoms have been applied to an increasingly broad range of captive animals, such as those living in zoos and research labs. Over the past few years, the Five Freedoms have also made their way into discussions of companion animal welfare. They provide a good starting point for thinking about enhancing freedoms for dogs. We’ve adapted and expanded the original Five Freedoms into Ten Freedoms that should guide our interactions with dogs. Freedoms one to five focus on freedoms from uncomfortable or aversive experiences. Freedoms six to ten focus on freedoms to be dogs. Like all animals, dogs need the following: Freedom from hunger and thirst Freedom from pain Freedom from discomfort Freedom from fear and distress Freedom from avoidable or treatable illness and disability Freedom to be themselves Freedom to express normal behavior Freedom to exercise choice and control Freedom to frolic and have fun Freedom to have privacy and “safe zones”

Even the most well-cared-for dogs — those who are doted upon, have soft beds and tasty nutritional food, and get good veterinary care — may experience deprivations of which their owner is largely unaware.4 This is because a great many people who choose to share their home with a dog don’t know very much about dog behavior. One report on pet owners’ knowledge of dog behavior, for example, found that 13 percent of people had done no research into dog behavior prior to acquiring a dog, and only 33 percent felt “very informed” about the basic welfare needs of dogs.5 Although some dog owners have read shelves full of books about the natural history, ethology, and care of dogs, many others just fly by the seat of their pants. Dogs are amazingly adaptive and resilient and find ways to survive even in environments that aren’t particularly dog friendly. But obviously, most people want their dogs to thrive, not just scrape by, and the best way to help them do that is to learn as much as possible about who dogs really are and what they need from us.

Evidence from trainers, dog psychologists, and veterinarians clearly shows that far too many dogs are not getting what they need and suffer from varying degrees of stress. Millions of dogs are plagued by boredom, frustration, and anxiety. These negative feelings often manifest in what owners mistakenly perceive as “behavioral problems” in their dogs, whether it be destroying furniture when left alone during the day, obsessive barking, hyperactivity, or overeating. These issues make clear that taking care of a dog’s basic needs — providing fresh water, nutritious food, exercise, appropriate housing, and adequate veterinary care — is just the starting point. Like humans, dogs also need emotional connection and support and to be engaged with their world. They need to socialize with other dogs and humans. They need ample opportunities in nature, exercising their senses the same way they exercise their muscles. They need to stretch their bodies and minds and feel challenged.

Does providing this require compromise on our part? Yes, it usually does, but it doesn’t need to be overwhelming, either. Often, the most important change is shifting perspective, paying more careful attention to our dogs, and enhancing the freedoms we already provide so they are as meaningful to our dogs as possible. Take, for example, the morning walk. Most people have limited time before work to walk their dog, and no matter how much a dog might enjoy a sixty-minute ramble, that’s not going to happen. So make the time you have really count. After reading this book, think about the morning walk from your dog’s point of view and ask: What does my dog most need and want? Give them that.

COMMAND CENTRAL! Come! Sit! Stay! Don’t! One of the ways humans control dogs is by issuing commands. Some poor dogs are subjected to so many commands during a day that it is a wonder they remain sane. In fact, people are often advised by trainers that their dog should be commanded to do just about everything — a dog should have to perform some trick or obey some command for each kibble they eat and each ball they chase. But the over-commanding and obsessive-compulsive controlling of our dogs is not the best way to enhance their sense of independence and autonomy. After visiting many dog parks and other places where people and dogs hang out, our impression is that people say no much more than yes or “good dog” and that praise occurs much less often, especially spontaneously. Marc did an informal study at one of the local dog parks in which he recorded three hundred instances in which people talked to their or someone else’s dog. He found that 83 percent of the time people said something to stop dogs from doing something, and only 17 percent of the time did they say something positive. And of the fifty-one times that they said something positive, only 6 percent of the time was something such as “good dog” said spontaneously, when the dogs were just being dogs and doing what dogs do.6

There’s an upside to giving our dogs more freedoms: We reap benefits, too. Happy and contented dogs tend to be easier to live with, resulting in happier and more contented guardians. “Problem” canine behaviors related to anxiety or frustration can resolve themselves, giving us more time to enjoy our friendship with our canine companions. People sometimes fall into bad habits of complaining about how difficult dogs are to care for and live with. At dog parks, we’ve heard numerous people say something like, “Gosh, I’ve had to change my whole day around taking her to a dog park.” But you know who else experiences more freedom and satisfaction when we unleash our dogs more often? We do. Letting go of the leash is a benefit that helps everyone.

BECOMING FLUENT IN DOG

Dogs are everywhere in our world — in our neighborhoods, in our cars, and in our homes. Yet in some important ways, we often don’t really notice dogs. We see them as ornamentation for our own human drama, not appreciating who dogs really are and what this world is like from their perspective.

The key to being able to provide dogs with enhanced freedom is to understand how they sense their world — what the world looks like, smells like, feels like, tastes like, and sounds like to them. Only by understanding how dogs experience the world will we be able to understand the ways in which human environments compromise their welfare and be able to find ways to compensate. To do this, we need to get inside the heads, hearts, and sense organs of our furry friends. That’s the heart of what we hope this book provides.

For a long time, scientists ignored dogs and dog behavior because dogs weren’t seen as candidates for serious study. Dogs were considered artifacts created by humans, and not real or “natural” animals in their own right. Dogs were of course used as models to study other things (diseases, for example), but they were not seen as animals of interest in and of themselves. All this began to change, and change dramatically, about two decades ago, and now the sciences of canine cognition and emotion are growing by leaps and bounds. Some still refer to studies of the cognitive and emotional lives of dogs as “soft science,” a reflection of the stubborn prejudice against dogs and against the scientific study of animal minds and animal feelings. But attitudes are starting to evolve, as the importance of canine science becomes established. Rigorous studies of dog cognition are producing large amounts of detailed data, some of which are already being put to work to make the lives of dogs and their humans better. We know, for example, that dogs have evolved complex cognitive abilities and they experience a wide range of emotions. Yet much remains to be done.

Given the huge number of dog books and training manuals available at bookstores and online, and the thousands of websites dedicated to dogs and dog behavior, it may surprise you to learn how many gaps there are in our collective knowledge about dogs. We really don’t know as much about dogs as many writers imply. As you’ll see throughout this book, when it comes to this or that topic, we are often forced to concede, “There just isn’t very much research.”

Even as rigorous canine science continues to grow, myths and pop science still abound. One of the challenges for dog owners is being able to separate the wheat from the chaff and identify areas where the science is solid and where it is not. This can be challenging, since new canine science emerges daily, even with books like this to help! For example, one prevailing myth is that dogs don’t experience complex emotions such as jealousy or guilt. However, new evidence disputes this. For instance, a neuroimaging study by Dr. Peter Cook and his colleagues showed that the same part of the brain in both dogs and humans lights up when they’re feeling jealous. For individuals of both species, there is increased activation of the amygdala.7

We need to understand what dogs are feeling not only to make sure that their behavioral needs are being met but also to communicate clearly with them. Successfully training dogs to live with us will be far more effective if based on accurate canine science. For example, what should we do if we come home to a ravaged garbage can and find our dog cowering in the corner with ears folded down. Our dog looks “guilty,” as if our dog understands they’ve done something wrong, so we may be tempted to punish our dog, perhaps with a loud verbal scolding along with a “scruffing,” which involves grabbing the loose fur on a dog’s neck, rolling them onto their back, and holding them down as if to say, “I am the boss!” Jennifer Arnold calls this the “because I said so (BISS) technique” of training and notes that it fails and doesn’t result in “a fair and mutually beneficial relationship.”8

However, can we be sure we understand what our dog understands, and is punishment the most effective response? Many people assume that the “hang dog” facial expression, with ears pressed down, is an admission of wrongdoing, but we really don’t know whether dogs feel guilt — the jury is still out on this question. Even though it’s likely that dogs do, their understanding of right and wrong probably differs from ours, and we might be misreading our dog’s facial expression and body posture, which is common. Our dog might be expressing fear, stress, or confusion, rather than guilt, and our punishment might only increase those feelings without reinforcing the correct behavior. Scruffing, for its part, is a training method based upon inaccurate assumptions about dominance hierarchies and punishment. Physically punishing dogs when they’ve done something wrong or something we don’t like, whether by scruffing or with a smack on the nose, doesn’t really work to change their behavior.9 As dog training expert Peter Vollmer notes, “Excessive punishment, especially when administered sometime after undesirable behavior occurs, can lead to undesirable side effects such as avoidance of the owner, constant subordinate signaling, and stress-related physiologic problems.”10

LITTLE WOLVES? Many people believe that if we understand wolves, then we will get a good handle on what dogs want and need to thrive. After all, domestic dogs evolved from wild wolf ancestors, and they remain close enough genetically to be able to crossbreed. However, although wolf behavior is interesting, it isn’t necessarily an accurate template for thinking about our dogs. There are many ways in which thinking of our dogs as little wolves, or domesticated wolves, may mislead us as we try to understand what our dogs really need and how best to interact with them. For instance, wolves typically form well-organized packs with well-defined dominance hierarchies and divisions of labor, whereas dogs don’t. Wolves also commonly mark territorial boundaries, but dogs only rarely do so.

Becoming fluent in dog also means being aware of, and sensitive to, the specific situation or context in which we are interacting with our dog. As with people, a dog’s behavior can change depending on the situation or social context. This is actually a significant limitation in many dog studies. The behavior of dogs living in a cage inside of a research lab is constrained and shaped by this environment, and behavior patterns observed in the lab don’t necessarily translate into, say, a shelter environment, where the stimuli are quite different. Then, of course, the behavior of dogs in a shelter will be different from behavior in a home, in a dog park, and in a doggy day care, and each of these from one another. Behavior at the veterinarian’s office may be a world unto itself. Further, each shelter, home, and veterinarian’s office is its own microcosm. Plus, many human guardians report that their dog is “leash reactive.” Slap on a leash and their otherwise perfectly amiable dog becomes aggressive toward other dogs who walk past. As you can see, behavior doesn’t occur in a vacuum, though it’s often assumed that it does.

Above all, we know relatively little about the behavior of dogs in human home environments, although this is perhaps the most important context within which it would be useful to know what our dogs are thinking, feeling, and wanting.11 Indeed, we need to learn about dogs in the places in which they live and spend time to help them develop what Niki Tudge, founder and president of the Pet Professional Guild, calls “lifestyle relevant skills.”12 Of course, it would be very difficult to design a study of “home behavior” that could be generalized to all dogs, since each human home environment is unique. But that shouldn’t stop you from studying your own dog in your home. Your research conclusions might not apply to all dogs, but they will apply to the most important dog in your life — your own. We encourage you to study and observe for yourself how your dog navigates your shared home and to continue observing your dog in every setting and notice what changes and what doesn’t.

MAKING AND USING ETHOGRAMS This book will help you become fluent in dog by inviting you to become an ethologist-in-training.13 An ethologist is someone who studies the behavior of animals, usually in their natural habitat. You can use the science of ethology to help you explore who your dog is and what he or she wants and needs. For example, you can learn your dog’s unique likes and dislikes, coping styles, learning styles, and individual quirks. One thing you can do is to make ethograms of your dog’s behavior. An ethogram is a kind of menu of what animals do, and it forms the cornerstone of behavioral studies. You can create an ethogram in several different environments, such as at home, at the dog park, or on the evening walk around the neighborhood and compare them to one another. You might make an ethogram of your dog interacting with other dogs or interacting with you or with other humans. You can make an ethogram of other dogs, too, so you can compare the behavior patterns of different dogs. By carefully watching and cataloging your dog’s behavior, you can learn how their behavior changes from one setting to another. Developing an ethogram is fun and opens a window into learning about how animals behave. It’s often considered the first and most important stage of scientific research. Numerous dog ethograms are available that you can use to get ideas for developing an ethogram for your own dog. Two particularly good examples are provided in books by ethologists Roger Abrantes (Dog Language) and Michael W. Fox (Behaviour of Wolves, Dogs, and Related Canids). Barbara Handelman’s Canine Behavior: A Photo Illustrated Handbook also is an excellent resource, as is “Learning to Speak Dog Part 4: Reading a Dog’s Body” on the Tails from the Lab website. All are listed in the bibliography. Some behavior patterns that you might score include a dog’s approach to other dogs (speed and orientation); biting directed toward different parts of the body; biting intensity (inhibited and soft, or hard and accompanied by either shaking of the head or not); rolling over; standing over; chin resting; play soliciting; self-play; peeing and the posture used; pooping; growling; barking; whining; approaching and withdrawing; pawing directed toward different parts of the body; ear position; tail position; gait; and so on. Marc and his students have discovered that the behavior of most dogs can be accounted for by scoring around fifty different behavior patterns. Splitters and lumpers: Depending on their focus, researchers tend to approach or organize their data in two ways, either by splitting or lumping. Splitters do microanalyses of actions, whereas lumpers are interested in broad categories of behavior, such as play, aggression, and mating. Whether you split or lump actions depends on the questions in which you’re interested. We would recommend splitting first, since then you can lump later if that seems like the best strategy. For instance, rather than simply writing “bite,” distinguish where the bite occurred and note it as a face bite, ear bite, neck bite, body bite, and so on. Or you can indicate intensity by noting an intense hip slam versus a mild hip slam. You can group all bites or hip slams together later, but you will lose the subtle differences if you do not split them as you’re compiling your ethogram. Marc always has been a splitter in his studies of dogs and their wild relatives, and it was because of this that he found that after fifty different actions had been identified, the probability of adding a new behavior was very rare. To put this all together, the simple steps in constructing an ethogram are as follows: watch animals in person or on videos; list each different behavior pattern and vocalization; compare your list with others; watch more and write down additional behavior patterns and vocalizations; come up with a code for each behavior so you can “score” observations easily; and split behaviors rather than lumping two or more together. Dogs also show individual differences in their time and activity budgets. So, using your mobile phone or a stopwatch, you can gather information not only on what they do but on how much time they spend engaged in different activities. Changes in what they do and how much time they spend doing different things can be used as indicators of how dogs are feeling.

Just as context is highly variable, so too is the behavior of each individual dog. Many variables can influence behavior, including genetics, upbringing, breed, learning, cognitive style, and personality.14 Clearly, an individual’s prior experiences also influence their behavior, as do expectations or thoughts about the future. This is a point to which we’ll return repeatedly; namely, it’s essential to know your dog as the individual he or she is. What works for Rosco might not work for Freddie, and what works for Maybell might not work for Ellie.

A useful perspective to take when considering our dog is as someone from a different culture, like a foreign-exchange student. Our home and culture have similarities to our dog’s (we feel similar emotions and have similar physical sensations), but there are significant differences. We speak different languages, and physical gestures might mean different things (as when a nodding head means “no” in one culture and “yes” in another). Just as we help an exchange student succeed by closely working with them to bridge any cultural differences and find commonalities, we can help our dogs by providing this same kind of cultural awareness and sensitivity. Our foreign-exchange student doesn’t need to learn English to live happily and peacefully in our home, and the same is true for our dog. Despite a language barrier, dogs are highly adept at communicating with humans (as research into dog social cognition has shown), and we have the same ability to understand and become fluent in dog, so we can interpret our dog’s behavior and communicate clearly.

ECOLOGICAL RELEVANCE AND YELLOW SNOW Within the field of animal behavior, the phrase ecological relevance means studying animals in ways that account for their sensory and motor skills. In other words, we can’t expect species to respond to stimuli or in ways that they aren’t capable of or that don’t come naturally. For example, asking an animal who can’t hear high-pitched ultrasounds to discriminate between two stimuli using ultrasound is not ecologically relevant. What does ecological relevance mean when observing our dogs? Don’t expect them to do things that are beyond their motor or sensory capacities, and don’t assume dogs use their same five senses the way humans do. Here’s an example. One of the methods designed by researchers to assess the capacity for self-recognition in other species is called the mirror test. Without the animal knowing, a mark (such as a red dot) is placed on the animal’s forehead, and the animal is placed in front of a mirror. If the animal responds to the red dot, such as by trying to rub it off using self-directed movements, then researchers conclude that the individual recognizes themself in the mirror and knows the dot is on their body. Some chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, and magpies do this. Dogs consistently fail this test, so some researchers have claimed that dogs don’t have the cognitive capacity for self-recognition. But the mirror test simply isn’t ecologically relevant for dogs. Dogs have eyes. They can see the dot. But dogs don’t rely as heavily on visual signals as they do on olfactory signals, and it may be that self- and other-recognition in dogs is primarily through smell. When Marc studied self-recognition by observing how his dog Jethro responded to his own “yellow snow” (compared to the urine-soaked snow from other dogs), Jethro showed he preferred the yellow snow of other dogs. Additional research into olfactory self-recognition in dogs confirms that dogs likely understand “me” as distinct from “you” when this question is asked in ecologically relevant terms for dogs.15

WALKING IN THEIR PAWS

One of the most important messages in Unleashing Your Dog is that there is no universal “dog.” Each dog is a unique individual with unique needs and a unique personality. As Ray Pierotti and Brandy Fogg note in their book The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Coevolved, the word dog is difficult to define and “domestic dogs are a grab-bag assemblage of individuals.”16 Of course, there is no universal “human,” either, and trying to understand the motivations and perceptions of the human side of the dog-human equation is also essential.

Trying to think and feel our way through our dog’s daily life from the dog’s perspective is a useful exercise. As our dog’s companion, we can train ourselves to be attentive to our dog’s experiential world, to walk in their paws and imagine what’s happening in their head and heart. As with parenting, love is not enough. We also need logic. We need to become dog literate and understand who dogs are, what they need, and what their behavior can tell us about how they are feeling.

HUMAN AND DOG CULTURAL COMPARISONS
Human Culture	Dog Culture
Butts and groins are private areas and not to be touched or smelled by strangers.	Sniffing butts and groins is perfectly natural behavior. It’s like greeting someone by saying, “How do you do?” and getting the answer.
Humping is a perverted, inappropriate sexual behavior, and not something to do in public.	Humping is interesting and does not need to be private. All dogs do it, and it doesn’t matter with what — a human leg, couch pillow, or whatever.
Barking is loud and annoying. Good dogs don’t bark.	Barking is one of the main ways in which dogs communicate with one another and with us. They bark in a wide variety of contexts, including when they’re playing, afraid, agitated, trying to get attention, and excited.
Dogs shouldn’t chase bikes or squirrels, and they’re  naughty if they don’t listen to commands and stop.	Dogs have a natural prey drive; since any quickly moving object might be prey, dogs often chase to find out.
When a dog refuses to obey a command and do what a person wants, the dog is being willfully stubborn and obstinate.	Dogs may hesitate or resist commands out of fear, nervousness, or confusion. They react to nonverbal communication as much as words, and if a person says one thing but indicates another with their tone, emotion, or body language, dogs may struggle to understand what’s meant.
Hugging a dog is a sign of love.	When hugged by a person, dogs can sometimes feel trapped.
If a dog won’t play with other dogs, that dog is  antisocial or has a problem.	Dogs have preferences and a need for solitude just like people; dogs don’t always like other specific dogs, or they prefer other activities to playing and socializing.

We also need to remember that dogs are not people. Yes, this is obvious. But it’s also easy to forget, especially when our dogs form such close friendships with us that it feels like we do speak the same language and share the same understandings.

We need to tailor enhancements to fit the needs of our specific dog. A dog is never too young or too old for us to be thinking about ways to enhance their freedoms. Socialization is an especially important freedom enhancer for puppies. When puppies are not socialized, their freedoms are curtailed for the rest of their lives because they don’t learn how to be “normal,” well-adjusted dogs.17 As ethologist and dog trainer Ian Dunbar suggests, puppies should be introduced to a hundred dogs and a hundred people before they’re twelve weeks old. Of course, this is virtually impossible to do, but it’s sage advice to ensure that puppies have plenty of contact with other dogs and with people other than their human companion. Also, puppies and dogs of all ages need to be cognitively challenged, and this extends well into their sunset years. Cognitively challenging work can have positive effects on the canine brain throughout the dog’s lifespan. For example, lifelong training appears to be linked with increased attention span in aging dogs.18

GIVING DOGS THE BEST POSSIBLE LIVES

Bringing a dog into one’s home is a decision with far-reaching ethical consequences. In adopting, buying, or otherwise acquiring a dog, we become responsible for the well-being of another living creature. We have a great deal of control over how much freedom our dogs experience, and to a large extent, our daily actions determine whether our dog enjoys a happy and full life. Yes, choosing to share your life with a dog is an awesome responsibility.

If you are already a guardian to a dog, think about what kind of human companion you ideally want to be for your canine friend. As you read this book, consider the ways that you can give your dog the very best life possible. None of us is perfect; no one ever lives up to their ideal all the time. But try to see the world through your dog’s eyes (and their nose, tongue, paws, and skin!), and imagine all the little and big ways you can help your dog thrive. This is, after all, what you signed up for.

Our relationships with dogs are grounded in and guided by personal values. Sometimes these are openly acknowledged, and sometimes they are unstated but reflected in our actions. People differ in how they choose to live with their nonhuman companions, but it is useful to make these values explicit if you have invited another animal into your life or plan to do so. The first question is the one we pose above: What do you consider to be a good life for your dog, and how can you help your dog achieve this kind of life? Make a list of your goals; write them down.

As we’ve said, “unleashing your dog” is both literal — dogs need more time off leash — and metaphorical. We need to continually work toward increasing the freedoms that our dogs experience, thereby unleashing their potential to live life to the fullest. And with that, let’s unclip the leash and begin enhancing the lives of the dogs we love so much.

Minnie, unleashed in the mountains of western Colorado. Photo by Sophie Rae Gordon.

by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce

Notes

1. Susan Townsend, in conversation with Marc Bekoff, February 3, 2018.

2. Jennifer Arnold, Love Is All You Need (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2016), 4.

3. Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2007). For more discussion of how shared emotions bond dogs and humans across cultures, please see Bingtao Su, Naoko Koda, and Pim Martens, “How Japanese Companion Dog and Cat Owners’ Degree of Attachment Relates to the Attribution of Emotions to Their Animals,” PLOS One 13, no. 1 (2018), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc5755896.

4. Jessica Pierce, Run, Spot, Run (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

5. PDSA Animal Wellbeing PAWS Report 2017, pages 9–10, https://www.pdsa.org.uk/media/3290/pdsa-paw-report-2017_online-3.pdf.

6. Marc Bekoff, Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

7. Marc Bekoff, “Jealousy in Dogs: Brain Imaging Shows They’re Similar to Us,” Animal Emotions (blog), Psychology Today, May 13, 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201805/jealousy-in-dogs-brain-imaging-shows-theyre-similar-us.

8. Arnold, Love Is All You Need, 6.

9. One myth that survives among some people is that dogs don’t feel guilt, so making them feel guilty for doing something “wrong” really doesn’t work. Suffice it to say, we don’t know whether dogs feel guilt, but there are good reasons to assume they do, as do other mammals. The error stems from people misreading research conducted by Barnard College dog researcher Alexandra Horowitz (see “Disambiguating the ‘Guilty Look’: Salient Prompt to a Familiar Dog Behavior” in the bibliography); her work explores how people are not very good at reading guilt in a dog’s facial expressions or behavior, not that dogs don’t feel guilt. On that, the jury is still out.

10. Peter Vollmer, “Do Mischievous Dogs Reveal Their ‘Guilt’?” Veterinary Medicine/Small Animal Clinician (June 1977): 1005.

11. The “home” may be a house or may be “on the streets,” where numerous dogs actually live on their own. It’s been estimated that 80 percent of dogs in the world are on their own. We also make many dogs live in the habitat of a shelter.

12. “The Shock Free Coalition PPG World Services Chat Chuckle and Share with Dr. Marc Bekoff,” YouTube video, 55:12, posted by Pet Professional Guild, October 2, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mosbrtzd2i&feature=youtu.be.

13. For more information on and guidelines for creating an ethogram and observing dogs, see the appendix “So, You Want to Become an Ethologist?” in Bekoff, Canine Confidential.

14. For an example of some of the research being conducted on the personality traits of dogs, see the University of Lincoln’s “Dog Personality” website (www.uoldogtemperament.co.uk/dogpersonality). Brian Hare’s Dognition website (www.dognition.com) is another great place to learn about the unique cognitive skills of your dog.

15. In “ecologically relevant” self-recognition tests based on olfaction rather than sight, dogs clearly distinguish between “me” and “you.” See Ed Yong, “Can Dogs Smell Their ‘Reflections’?” The Atlantic, August 17, 2017; Alexandra Horowitz, “Smelling Themselves: Dogs Investigate Their Own Odours Longer When Modified in an ‘Olfactory Mirror’ test,” Behavioural Processes 143 (2017): 17–24; Marc Bekoff, “Observations of Scent-Marking and Discriminating Self from Others by a Domestic Dog: Tales of Displaced Yellow Snow,” Behavioural Processes 55 (2001): 75–79, and Bekoff, Canine Confidential, 123–24.

16. Ray Pierotti and Brandy Fogg, The First Domestication: How Wolves and Humans Coevolved (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 204.

17. Helen Vaterlaws-Whiteside et al., “Improving Puppy Behavior Using a New Standardized Socialization Program,” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 197 (2017): 55–61, and Marc Bekoff, “Giving Puppies Extra Socialization Is Beneficial for Them,” Animal Emotions (blog), Psychology Today, December 1, 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201712/giving-puppies-extra-socialization-is-beneficial-them.

18. D. Chapagain et al., “Aging of Attentiveness in Border Collies and Other Pet Dog Breeds: The Protective Benefits of Lifelong Training,” Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 9, no. 100 (2017), doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2017.00100, Marc Bekoff, “Dogs of All Ages Need to Be Challenged: Use It or Lose It,” Animal Emotions (blog), Psychology Today, February 1, 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201802/dogs-all-ages-need-be-challenged-use-it-or-lose-it.