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.