The Cognitive Dog

1. The Cognitive Dog • Class 6: Development

2. Puppy Development: Stacking the Odds for Optimal Potential • Cognitive Dog - Class 7

3. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • Temperament is formed by • Nature (genes) AND • Nurture (socializing) • One is often blamed • disregarding the other

4. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • Once the genes are selected it is our job to take care of both mental and physical development • Our = breeder, shelter and then owner along with dog care professionals

5. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • Critical Periods • The window opens and closes for socialization • Once closed it locks

6. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 0 to 12-15 days: Neonatal period • The Beginning: Touch, taste • Stacking the odds: • Whelping box in a quiet area near life • Den, spare room near household life • Private enough for mama dog but close enough for humans to hear pups and pups to hear household once hearing begins • Preferably not a basement or kennel

7. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 0 to 12-15 days: Neonatal period • Stacking the odds: • Create mild forms of stress on a daily basis through basic care • Weigh • Nail trim • Hydration checks • Mild stress during this period has shown to have positive effects on learning and handling stress later • Dr Michael Fox 1971 study

8. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 2 to 3 weeks -Transition period: • Begins with eyes opening at 10 to 15 days • Changes that occur: • Lapping and Chewing begin • Self-elimination • Hearing 18-20 days • sound startle • Walk not crawl • Agonistic behavior begins • Conditioning can begin i.e. learning

9. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 2 to 3 weeks -Transition period: • Begins with eyes opening at 10 to 15 days • Stacking the Odds: • Keep in a stable environment • Remain with mother • Provide new surfaces • Provide novel items & toys • Handle and Talk to daily • Nail trims • Weigh

10. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 3 to 7 weeks - Canine Socialization begins • Changes that occur: • Fear response begins • Teeth come in • Weaning begins • Learning to be a dog • and how to communicate

11. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 3 to 7 weeks - Canine Socialization begins • Stacking the Odds: • Move to larger as needed keeping in active area of house to hear household noises • Still with mom, • her choice • Handle & Talk to daily • Nails & Weights

12. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 3 to 7 weeks - Canine Socialization begins • Stacking the Odds: • Allow a surface to sleep and play on and a different area to toilet on • Add an open crate to the pen with soft bed • Increase individual human attention

13. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 3 to 7 weeks - Canine Socialization begins • Stacking the Odds: • One on one human play time • New toys and items to chew on • Introduce novel objects • Take outdoors • as a group 1st, • then 2 by 2, • then individually

14. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 3 to 7 weeks - Canine Socialization begins • Stacking the Odds: • Begin supplemental feeding use multiple bowls to prevent resource guarding • Introduce other safe household dogs and cats • Pups meet prospective • owners if possible • by 5 weeks

15. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 3 to 7 weeks - Canine Socialization begins • Stacking the Odds: • Have visitors of all • types, ages etc. • Controllable Children • Car Rides • Vet visits, eye checks preferably before 1st fear period at 8 weeks • Grooming Intro

16. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 7 -8 weeks – Human socialization period • Stacking the Odds: • Separate to eat • Crate time 2 x 2 first • then alone a few days • before going to new home • Collar and leash training • Adoption can begin

17. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 8 to 12 weeks – Continued human and canine socialization • Changes that occur: • 8 to 11 weeks: • First Fear Period • Social Dominance • begins around week 10

18. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 8 to 12 weeks – Continued human and canine socialization • Stacking the Odds • Avoid surgery, traumatic vet visits, groomer • Ideal adoption time 7-11 weeks • Pups staying with breeder beyond 12 weeks: send off for a weekend with friends prior to 12 weeks absolutely no later than 16 to avoid kennel syndrome (fear in new situations)

19. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 8 to 12 weeks – • Continued human and canine socialization • Stacking the Odds • Begin training • Consistent expectations – jumping • Continue careful socializing, support any fear with treats and patience • Socialize with other safe pups and known safe adults

20. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 8 to 12 weeks – Continued human and canine socialization • Stacking the Odds • Management & Structure • Introduce to any • activity planned on as • an adult if possible • before 16 weeks • Boating, Travel • Shows, trials

21. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 12 weeks to 16 weeks – Socialization continues • Changes that occur: • Social dominance stage (begins around 10-11 weeks) • Possible Increased Independence

22. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 12 weeks to 16 weeks – Socialization continues • Stacking the Odds: • Adoption should be done by 16 weeks • Pups staying with breeder beyond this time must go for a weekend with friends prior to 12 weeks absolutely no later than 16 to prevent shyness. • Visit many new places

23. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 12 weeks to 16 weeks – Socialization continues • Stacking the Odds: • Continue to socialize with other safe pups and known safe adults • Grooming • Training & Prevention • Consistent Expectations • Management & Structure

24. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 4 months to 8 months – • Changes that occur: • Flight instinct anytime during this stage: days to weeks • Some may challenge for leadership not come when called • Become more • independent • Chewing

25. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 4 months to 8 months - • Stacking the Odds: • Management • Training • Consistent Expectations - leadership • Reward behaviors you want manage or ignore behaviors you don’t want • Continued socialization with dogs, people, and new places

26. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 6 to 18 months - • Changes that occur: • Fear periods can come and go • Sexual maturity begins, possible increase in aggressive behaviors • Territorial, object • guarding

27. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 6 to 18 months – • Stacking the Odds: • Continued Training • Consistent Expectations - leadership • Management & Structure • Exercise and a job for the dog • Agility, tracking, rally, obedience, breed related activities such as herding, earth dog, hunting • Continued socialization with dogs, people, and new places

28. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 18 months to 4 years - • Changes that occur: • Sexual maturity • Territorial behavior • Can be earlier in some dogs • Object guarding • Can be earlier in some dogs

29. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential • 18 months to 4 years - • Stacking the Odds: • Continued Training • Maintain Expectations - leadership • Management & Structure • Exercise and a job for the dog • Agility, tracking, rally, obedience, breed related activities such as herding, earth dog, hunting • Maintain socialization with dogs, people, and new places

30. Puppy Development: Optimal Potential

31. Finishing up last week...

32. Natural selection vs. artificial selection... • Does it have to be either/or? No, and Coppinger even says as much... • “Two things are happening here with these adaption processes. First, the dogs are evolving more tameable-trainable personalities, and people are facilitating that evolution without ever purposely breeding a single animal. Second, whatever distinguishes the chosen puppy is more likely to appear in the next generation...” • Dogs may have found a niche in which slacking off was the evolutionarily smart thing to do.

33. Just ‘cause its there, doesn’t mean its adaptive Evolved to allow other members of pack to locate dog when running through high prairie grass thus increasing chances dog wouldn’t get separated from pack and lose opportunity to reproduce

34. The big idea for the evening...

35. Development: growing the shape of the brain • “...while the dog is in its first few weeks of life, and growing its brain, it is making the cell connections and re-arranging them in a specific way, according to the signals that are coming from outside. This development predetermines its adult behavior” - coppinger • “Each behavioral system — fear, submission, investigation, play — has its own rate of development, and varies among breeds. Each is dependent on glandular development and hormone secretions, as well as motor coordination and sensory perception. And each feeds back on the puppy to change not only the shape of the brain...” - coppinger Coppinger, R. and L. Coppinger (2001). Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, and Evolution. New York, NY, Scribner.

36. Growing the shape of the brain... • “Behavior is (always) epigenetic – above the genes – an interaction between the genes and the developmental environment” -Coppinger • Genes play a central role in the timing of developmental events, the rate of development, and duration of developmental periods. Small changes can have huge effects by altering when systems come on line relative to one another. • The resulting behavioral form of the animal emerges from the interaction of the genes and the developmental environment. • Evolution takes advantage of regularities in the developmental environment, e.g., mom, con-specifics, lack of mobility. The evolving genes rely on those regularities.

37. Growing the shape of the brain • “Without a focus on development, any observed variation in behavior within or across populations may be automatically attributed to genotypic differences, when, in fact, it may be a consequence of developmental processes.” -West • Example of a “social gateway” • “pattern of recurring social interactions... gating stimulation along different social pathways” • same population of genes, but reliably different behavioral trajectory c Jim Roetzel West, M. J., A. P. King, et al. (2003). "The case for developmental ecology." Animal Behaviour66(4): 617-622.

38. Growing the shape of the brain... • What you see is “the coaction of nature & nurture” • “evolution involves changes in the developmental system (of which the genes are an essential part) but not necessarily changes in the genes themselves... alterations in development may cause genes to become active in the developmental process that were heretofore quiescent...” -Gottlieb • In other words, systematic change in developmental context can produce systematic change in behavioral and/or morphological trajectory, without changing “genes” • Nature and Nurture: each is “on tap” as opposed to “on top Gottlieb, G. (1991). Individual Development and Evolution: The Genesis of Novel Behavior, Oxford University Press.

39. Growing the shape of the brain. • “Behavioral conformation here is a description of the behavioral shape — how the dog moves — when a dog is working” • “Behavioral conformation and physical conformation, in the final analysis, are one and the same.” • “It is not that border collies have genes for herding, but rather, because of gene action, they end up with a differently shaped brain than other breeds” Coppinger, R. and L. Coppinger (2001). Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, and Evolution. New York, NY, Scribner.

40. Critical Periods & Imprinting(love of the familiar)

41. Critical (sensitive) periods • From Scott & Fuller... • “...we mean a special time in life when a small amount of experience will produce a great effect on later behavior” • “The difference between the amount of effort needed to produce the same effect at different periods determines just how critical the period is”

42. Example: gottlieb’s mallards • Experience tunes perceptual mechanism... • Mallards need to hear themselves or sibs vocalize in the shell in order to respond specifically to mom mallard’s call...

43. Example: Song bird learning... • ‘Innate’ coarse template • Sensitive period in which they tune template to dialect of surrounding con-specifics • Months later begin to practice song, matching production to template Bolhuis, J. and L. Giraldeau, Eds. (2005). The Behavior of Animals. London, UK, Blackwell Publishing.

44. Imprinting • Some species have a critical period in which they rapidly establish social bonds in a process called “imprinting” • Filial (mom & my buddies) and sexual • Often different periods for each • Surprisingly flexible (more about being in the right place at the right time)... • Probably tuned to certain features, and then use those to build more complete perceptual model • Probably a type of associative learning

45. Imprinting... • Bruce’s theory... • It is scaffolding that serves to quickly & coarsely identify potential social partners (gets you in the ballpark) • The world of a juvenile animal is such that even the coarsest mechanism may work most of the time... • Effect is to subsequently bias attention toward those partners • Biased attention makes it easier to learn more about characteristics of partners (refine model)

46. S&F on imprinting in dogs • “Whether rewarded, punished, or treated indifferently, the young animal of the proper age proceeds to form an emotional attachment to whatever is present in the environment at that time. The essential mechanism appears to be an internal process acting on the external environment. In this way it is indeed quite different from conditioning, which is directly dependent on outside circumstances” • “To state it more clearly: a young animal automatically becomes attached to individuals and objects to which it comes into contact during the critical period” Scott, J. P. and J. L. Fuller (1965). Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog. Chicago, Chicago University Press.

47. Is it all about food? • S&F and company did experiments in which the dogs were... • fed by machines, but presumably handled by people • fed by people, but minimal handling • punished for approaching people (don’t try this at home) • raised in field with minimal handling but daily exposure Scott, J. P. and J. L. Fuller (1965). Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog. Chicago, Chicago University Press.

48. Is it all about food? • “might be formed merely by having the person in sight at frequent intervals” • “feeding is not a necessary part of the development of the social bond...[indeed] feeding by itself does not produce a highly socialized animal” • “formed an attachment in spite of considerable punishment. We must remember that these were fox terrier puppies...” Scott, J. P. and J. L. Fuller (1965). Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog. Chicago, Chicago University Press.

49. When surrounded by other species dogs will imprint on them too... • Dogs will imprint on • Cats • People • Sheep • ... • Note: dogs can imprint on multiple species simultaneously if in an environment with multiple species...

50. Coppinger: How to grow an LGD vs. a Herding Dog • How to raise a live stock guarding dog... • Raise the pup among sheep for its first 16 weeks... • The effect is that the dog “treats sheep as its primary social companions.” • How to raise a herding dog... • Raise it among people & dogs for the first 4 months... • Introduce it to sheep at 4 months plus... • Sheep do not become primary social companions, people and dogs are