Animal Behavior and Welfare Overview

Overview of Animal Behavior and Common Dog Behaviors

• Animal behavior is the scientific study of what animals do and how they interact with each other and their environment.
• Categories of behavior include:
  • Feeding
  • Social behavior
  • Maternal behavior
  • Developmental behavior
  • Sexual behavior
  • Abnormal behavior
  • Eliminative behavior
• Three levels to describe behavioral responses:
  • Motor or action level: Description of what the animal is doing (e.g., running, chewing).
  • Functional level: Purpose of the action pattern (e.g., aggression can involve bearing teeth, biting, chasing).
  • Abstract level: Describes a mental state that is not defined objectively (e.g., fearfulness, weariness).
• What affects behavior?
  • Behavior is a response to internal and external changes or stimuli.
  • These stimuli can arouse the animal, elicit a response, and orient the animal.
  • Behaviors are not always predictable.
  • Internal stimuli: Genetics, experience, development, anatomy, and physiology.
  • External stimuli: Social, environmental, and senses.

Domestication

• Domestication is a process where a population of animals becomes adapted to man and captive environments. This is coevolution with humans.
  • Involves adaptation to a captive environment through genetic changes and environmental events over generations.
  • Allows dogs to understand and communicate with humans.
• Genetics:
  • Natural selection: Wild and domesticated species select advantages to survive and increase fitness.
  • Artificial selection: Selective breeding for particular traits (behavioral, economic, color) controlled by humans.

Understanding Dog Behavior

• Understanding dog history, breeds, and social structure is important for assessing behavior.
• Communication is key.
• Different dogs and breeds have different personalities, affecting:
  • Reactivity
  • Fearfulness
  • Activity level
  • Socialization responsiveness
  • Submission
  • Aggression
• Dogs' senses differ from humans.
• Communication is key to understanding dog behavior.
• How do dogs communicate?
  • Eye contact
  • Facial expressions
  • Vocalization
  • Body posture
  • Pheromones and scents
• How do we communicate with dogs?
  • Vocalization
  • Body postures
  • Hand signals
  • Based on senses

Seven Common Dog Behaviors

Social Behavior

• Active association between members, positive or negative.
• Dogs are social animals, often living in packs.
• Communication is key; multiple communications can happen at once (facial expressions, scents, touching, sounds).
• Dogs interpret human gestures and behavior.
• Playful animals; play reduces anxiety and stress by lowering cortisol levels.
• Hierarchical social structure: males and females of all ages
  • Leader controls the group, protects the pack, and helps find food; usually an older adult female.
  • Lower-ranking dogs follow the lead; those challenging leadership leave the pack.

Application in the Vet Clinic

• Knowledge of behavior is important for handling and restraint and diagnosis of diseases.
• Change in behavior can signal disease (loss of appetite, altered activity).
• Screening questions during vet clinic interviews:
  • How does your dog react when you leave?
  • How does your dog react when you come home?
  • How does your dog react to other dogs?
• These questions help establish a baseline.
• A behavioral problem may be connected to a medical problem.
• Socializing with the dog is important; communication is key.
• Behaviors to be aware of that may require different restraints:
  • Dominant aggressive behavior: be cautious, dog may bite (hackles raised, stiff posture, bearing teeth).
  • Fearful and aggressive behavior: dog could bite (lowered body posture, hackles raised, lip curled).
  • Fearful and worried posture: no hackles raised, tail down, licking (submission).

Exploratory Behavior

• Dogs need to explore to receive sensory input.
• They are constantly moving and searching in the wild for food, new environments, and to escape predators.
• Puppies learn through exploring and socializing.
• Examples: exploring, chasing, hunting.

Application in the Vet Clinic

• Dogs may be restless and exploratory in the clinic.
• Be patient and work with them.
• Clients may report digging or ingestion problems; investigate the reasons.
• Suggest walks and more stimulation.

Feeding Behavior

• How an animal searches for, selects, and ingests food.
• In the wild, dogs hunt and scavenge.
• Rapid eating is a natural behavior.
• Dogs are mostly carnivores.
• Food amount depends on breed and age.
• Hunger can lead to behavioral problems.
• Determine if the dog is a picky eater or has a medical issue.

Application in the Vet Clinic

• Use a bowl for controlled motion to slow down rapid feeding.
• Nonmedical behaviors do occur (e.g., picky eaters).
• Associate behaviors with medical problems.

Reproductive Behavior

• Mate choice, courtship behavior, and copulation.
• Natural drive to increase offspring.
• Sexual maturity: six to nine months.
• Females: approximately two heat cycles per year.
• Males: attracted to females at all times if intact.
• Females mark territory during heat cycle.
• Males may mark on top to show territory, the behaviors are limited due to spay and neuter.
• Spaying and neutering decreases behaviors and reduces some types of aggression.
• Understand reproductive behavior to improve breeding success.

Maternal Behavior

• Changes in behavior leading up to pregnancy and caring for young. Building nests and getting anxious.
• Nest building, anxiety, and restlessness are normal.
• The maternal care consists of grooming, cleaning the young, feeding the young, educating the young, telling them what is acceptable and what's not, and protecting them.
• Mothers may become more aggressive and protective, as well weaning.

Application in the Vet Clinic

• Be aware of potential aggression in mothers with pups.
• Mothers may reject pups due to reduced oxytocin (more common after cesarean births).
• Discuss future breeding with the client.

Development and Learning Behavior

• Stages of behavioral development with socialization begins at three to four weeks
  • Puppies are strongly socialized until about 12 weeks. at 2 years they are pretty mature.
  • Behavior can be altered during prenatal stress or environmental changes.
  • Early experiences are critical.
  • Early sensory and sociolization starts with rooting behaviors. The puppies root around trying to find their mom or socialize.
  • Early experiences are important for puppies.
  • Dogs have incredible memories and the ability to learn.
  • Association is very important.
  • Puppies and humans need to learn whats acceptable and not acceptable
  • Behavior during pregnancy can cause neonatal changes

Application in the Vet Clinic

• Puppies may bite or scratch due to teething or play; clients can yelp like the mother dog would.
• Social and sensory input is all over the place, they will react in different ways
• Different stages require different nutrition.
• The dog needs to know what to expect from you, and you need to know what to expect from them.
• Social and sensory input is significant to them.
• These affect all other behaviors, their development and learning.

Behavioral Issues

• Separation anxiety, noise anxiety, tail chasing, chewing, and digging.
• Abnormal behavior: behavior not normally seen in the wild or unusual behavior with no obvious goal or function.
• Causes/What is abnormal behavior?
  • Diet: if the dog is hungry.
  • Restricted environment: you separate them from their pack which is the human.
  • Physiology: a medical problem or a hormone problem, the reproductive hormones.
  • Genetics and breed: some are more wanting to explore or do tasks properly.

Overview of Animal Welfare

• The acknowledgement using and keeping animals under humane conditions and there health, safety and psychological wellness.
• Animal rights: animals have the same rights as humans and should not be used for any kind of purpose or kept for any purpose.
• Animal welfare: Using and keeping animals under human conditions.
• Five freedoms:
  • Freedom from hunger or thirst
  • Freedom from discomfort
  • Freedom from pain or injury or disease
  • Freedom to express or most normal behaviors
  • Freedom from fear and distress
• Three views of animal welfare (all assessed together):
  • Basic health and functioning
  • Natural living
  • Affected states

Basic Health and Functioning

• Basic animal needs: food, water, shelter, nutrition.
• Body condition score.
• Good health and no signs of disease or stress. Dog has shelter for food and water.
• Meeting basic needs is essential and important
• Poor health is related to poor welfare, but good health doesn't guarantee good welfare.

Natural Living

• Ability to perform natural behaviors in the environment.
• Forwards and backwards approach.
• Improve behaviors using environmental enrichment.
• Forwards approach: history of the dog, adaptations, domestication, behaviors they are motivated to get. Bulldog might not have those things.
• Preference tests measure motivation.
• The dog door allows the dogs feet to be outside inside. This gives the idea of where to leave then during the day when you're gone.
• Give bowls of food could see what prefers, example is chicken vs lamb.
• Backwards approach: what have a welfare problem is what has happened that this issue has evolved. Then see what happen and is animal still be able to perform the behavioral problems.
• Looking at a dog's motivation is very important.

Environmental Enrichment

• Allows for highly motivated natural behaviors to be expressed.
• Types: Social, Occupational, physical, sensory and nutritional.
• Social: the dog play with another. Social is important.
• Occupational: encouraging exercise or task completion. Doing agility tests or other thing to help fill those voids.
• Physical: Altering or the complexity from the enclosure.
• Sensory: giving sensory input to the dog. Music, sand toys, textures or swimming pool.
• Nutritional: Alternate the novel foods.
• Summary: Is what to give is inherently good, it is simple and maybe to the to just give it to him dog will prefer to be alone.
• Natural living increases good feeling if they have good health and emotional feelings.

Effective States

• Subjective state are an indicator of welfare.
• Animals should be free from negative emotions and be allowed to express positive emotions.
• Puppies could he hiding or be look or depressed and these need to go away and do tests could reduce these things.
• Measuring subjective states is essential , and evidence if measure through the physiology or behavior.