I wrote a new Bubblews post today on When To Use a Harness to Walk Your Dog. I get a lot of people that are confused about harnesses and what they are actually for, so I thought I would share this with everyone!
Read it HERE
Amy @ Talented K9 Dog Training talentedk9dogtraining@gmail.com Talented K9 Website Facebook Page YouTube Channel
Hey Julie! So much going on I need to take three deep breaths to calm down! Firstly - we have a winner! Actually - thanks to the awesome crew at SPARCS, we have two! Very excited to meet Marsha P and Kristi M at #SPARCS2014 and want to thank all the excellent people who responded to our giveaway shoutout on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We hope those of your who werent successful will consider still coming along or joining us on the livestream broadcast. Secondly - I loved learning about the differences in UK and US shelter workers perceptions of pit bulls and all the associated bits and pieces that went along with that in our latest guest post by Dr Christy Hoffman. Really, really interesting research and I look forward to the next piece of the puzzle (aka new science) in that area. Thirdly - its dog bite prevention week in the USA right now! We cant all own Tara the Hero Cat (and to be fair, as much as she is worthy of her notoriety and 20million+ hits on the viral video showcasing her ninja skills, she didnt actually prevent the bite - although Im pretty confident she helped prevent it being a whole lot worse). If you somehow missed what on earth Im talking about - check out this clip of amazing Tara (but a warning, it does show security camera footage of a child being attacked by a dog and the subsequent wounds):
Which brings us back to Dog Bite Prevention Week.We dont have a week like this in Australia, so I did some web trawling to check out what you guys have going on over there.
The AVMA have put up a whole lot of great information and resources about dog bite prevention, including this neat summary infographic:
I was really pleased to see this analysis of information about the role of breed in dog bite risk and prevention, which reminded me of this piece on The Conversation by researcher Dr Rachel Casey from Bristol University in the UK, who has been part of a team investigating aggressive behaviour in dogs. The broader research in this area (see below for references) highlights similarities across Australia, the UK and the US with most serious dog bites occurring to children by a known dog in a familiar area without direct adult supervision at the time of the attack. But of course - as Hero Cat Tara has shown us this week, not all dogs stick to these trends.
It seems that there are many commonalities to serious dog bites that we can all be aware of to help reduce the risk, given that any dog can bite:
Supervise children <14yo around dogs, even known dogs
Dont try to pat a dog you dont know, even if it is on the other side of a fence
Make sure your dog is well socialised and trained in basic commands
Keep your dog healthy
Teach your children to be mindful and careful of their actions around dogs, especially when the dog is tied up, eating or sleeping
If you are threatened by a dog, remain still and calm with your hands balled by your sides - dont run
If you are attacked by a dog, curl up in a ball and protect your face
Im off to reinforce messages of safe dog interacting with my pre-school aged daughter now - hope you have a great week.
Only one month til #SPARCS2014! Squee!
Mia
Further reading:
Meints K. & de Keuster T. (2009). Brief Report: Dont Kiss a Sleeping Dog: The First Assessment of "The Blue Dog" Bite Prevention Program, Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 34 (10) 1084-1090. DOI: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsp053 Schalamon J., Ainoedhofer H., Singer G., Petnehazy T., Mayr J., Kiss K. & Höllwarth M.E. (2006) Analysis of dog bites in children who are younger than 17 years., Pediatrics, PMID: 16510617 Keuster T.D., Lamoureux J. & Kahn A. (2006). Epidemiology of dog bites: A Belgian experience of canine behaviour and public health concerns, The Veterinary Journal, 172 (3) 482-487. DOI: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2005.04.024 Langley R.L. (2009). Human Fatalities Resulting From Dog Attacks in the United States, 1979–2005, Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 20 (1) 19-25. DOI: 10.1580/08-WEME-OR-213.1 Ozanne-Smith J. (2001) Dog bite and injury prevention--analysis, critical review, and research agenda, Injury Prevention, 7 (4) 321-326. DOI: 10.1136/ip.7.4.321 Thompson P. (1997). The public health impact of dog attacks in a major Australian city., The Medical Journal of Australia, 167 (3) 129-132. PMID: 9269266
While doing a search for some Talented K9 things, I came across another site that used my article Talented K9 Crate Training Tips. I am happy they thought my article was worthy of posting on their own site. So I wanted to give another thank you and a link back.
Visit them at When To Crate Train Your Puppy
The post was published a while ago, but better late than never right!? They also have some other good tips and articles on there, so its worth checking out.
Join us for another guest post, this time from Claudia Fugazza of the Family Dog Project in Budapest. Claudias here to discuss her recent publication in Applied Animal Behaviour Science on the efficiency of new methods in dog training.
Hi Mia and Julie,
Formal training methods used until now rely mainly on the well-known rules of individual associative learning. These methods work perfectly well for a very wide range of animals — pigeons, rats, dogs and even crabs — and human and non-human animals can learn by ‘click and treat,’ as noted in the popular training book by Karen Pryor.
However, recent research has found substantial evidence that dogs could be predisposed to acquire information socially via the ‘Do as I do’ method. Do as I Do is a relatively new training method for people to use, based on dogs’ social cognitive skills, particularly on their imitative ability.
With this training technique, dogs learn new behaviors by observing and copying their handler. The dog is a copycat. This method relies on social learning, and it was recently introduced in the applied field of dog training.
As this method has started spreading in the dog training world, we felt that its efficiency and efficacy needed scientific testing. We were also wanting to know whether this method would be more or less efficient than other current training methods in training for particular behaviors.
We expected that dogs would more easily copy object-related actions from a human demonstrator so we tested dogs’ efficiency in this kind of tasks. To do this, I travelled across Italy and the UK with my video-cameras as well as a heavy Ikea cabinet filled with objects (you can imagine the weird looks I got from security personal at checkpoints!). I used these objects to test dogs learning to open or close drawers and lockers, pick up items from it etc. Since training methods can be affected by the skills of the trainer, only experienced dog-owners pairs who achieved a certificate either for the ‘Do as I do’ method or for shaping / clicker training were included in the study. Each pair was tested using ‘his’ method for teaching three different object-related actions in three testing sessions.
We expected that the ‘Do as I do’ method would prove more efficient for teaching complex tasks, compared to the shaping method that relies on individual learning. This expectation comes from what we know in humans: we tend to rely more on social learning when required to learn something difficult.
Our research found that the ‘Do as I do’ method proved more efficient for teaching dogs complex tasks, like close a drawer, open a locker and pick up an item that was inside (i.e., the time needed by the owner to obtain the first correct performance of the predetermined action was shorter with the ‘Do as I do’ method compared to shaping). We did not find a significant difference in the efficiency of the methods for teaching dogs simple tasks like knocking over a bottle or ringing a bell.
Now that we know a bit more on how to efficiently teach complex object-related actions, we are curious to know what happens when we want to teach different kind of complex actions, like body movements. We also want to know whether introducing social learning in dog training could have an effect on learning cues for trained action.
We are aware that learning rates can be influenced by many factors, and we acknowledge that this study is just a very first step towards a more scientific approach to training paradigms. However we believe that this kind of information can be very important for the practitioners working in the applied field of dog training. We hope that the readers will not misinterpret the results and will not extend them to different actions and situations that were not tested.
Furthermore we would like to emphasize that, despite being efficient for training some kinds of actions, the ‘Do as I do’ method does not replace the methods based on individual learning (for example think of how many actions are not imitable at all if the demonstrator is a human and the learner is a dog!). Instead ‘Do as I do’ is a useful (and fun!) addition to existing training paradigms. Experienced dog trainers may find effective ways to mix the different training techniques in order to obtain the best results with each dog.
Claudia Fugazza Do as I Do Book and DVD http://www.apprendimentosociale.it/en/claudia-fugazza/ Family Dog Project Reference Fugazza C. & Miklósi Á. (2014). Should old dog trainers learn new tricks? The efficiency of the Do as I do method and shaping/clicker training method to train dogs, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 153 53-61. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2014.01.009
Recently there was a question posted on the United Blood Trackers Facebook Group from a prospective buyer of a dachshund puppy. He is located in nothern Texas and was concerned about getting a small sized dog because of possibility of running into a snake.
Jerry Gregston from SW Oklahoma wrote this article to address questions that had been raised raised. Thank you Jerry!
First of all, the disclaimer. I am neither a veterinarian nor a herpetologist, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night! I am just a guy who dearly loves his tracking dog. A snake bite is something that could happen where we track, and I didnt want to get caught off guard. So, I did something anyone could do, I began to research, ask for info, and quiz those in the know. Any information contrary to or in addition to the following, I would very much like to hear, as this is again just a laymans perspective.
In our area (SW Oklahoma) poisonous snakes come in the form of rattlers (Western Diamondback), water moccasins, copperheads and coral snakes, and unless you are very lucky, these, plus or minus a few indigenous to your particular area, can cause a big time bump in the road that leads from the hit site to that prized animal the dog/handler team is trying to find. There are several weapons in the anti-snakebite arsenal. I will touch on some, and ultimately each handler will need to pick and choose what seems most reasonable and affordable for their needs.
Snake Clinic/ Avoidance Training: This is a training that actually can stop a bite before it happens. No treatment can compare with not being bitten in the first place. The use of a shock collar when the dog approaches a de-fanged poisonous snake leaves a lasting impression. Finding a clinic in your area can be a problem, and it can be a little tough for the handler to watch, but this is a "tough love" decision that has to be considered.
Anti-Venom Injection: This is given to the dog in the event of a bite (usually when arriving at the vet), and in actuality, the dog will likely get several of these injections depending on the severity of the bite. The downside here is, yes, you can carry it with you to administer immediately, but the drug is expensive and short lived (it will be out of date by next season). Note: if purchased online be careful of expiration dates and on dosage as there are different strengths and dosage is dictated by the size of the dog.
Snake Vaccine: There is available now, a snakebite vaccine. This vaccine does not prevent problems from a bite, but makes symptoms less severe. Although vet opinions here varied, it was described to me as being as if the dog has had one injection of anti-venom when the bite occurs. Obviously that would be a worthwhile thing and would buy some time as you headed for the nearest vet. There are several drawbacks to the vaccine. Its expensive and not permanent (boosters are necessary). It is snake specific. Right now the vaccine is aimed at the Western Diamondback, so it does not protect against all poisonous snakes.
Kevlar Vests: I researched and purchased a Kevlar vest which is used mostly to protect terriers from hog cuts. It fit my Cletus (wirehaired dachshund) fairly well, and it covers the chest and most of the body. Most bites seem to occur on the face and legs, and while these bites look almost instantly terrible, the consensus of opinion is these are bites a dog can get over, but a bite to the chest or body is much more serious/deadly (there is good info on dog size related to use in snake country in Johns book). I was assured that it would stop a snake bite or an errant antler although to date we have experienced neither. We used the vest in place of the harness (has a large D ring in middle of back) in the warm months when snakes were more active. Downside here is that while it is adjustable, it seemed a little cumbersome or restrictive for Cletus and it was hot to wear in the already hot weather.
Snake Bite Protocol for Dogs: OK, were tracking down that buck of a lifetime and the dog gets bitten....now what? Consensus is stop tracking and give the dog 25mg of benadryl and 5mg of prednisone (20 lb dosage, and the anti-venom if you are carrying it) and get to the vet ASAP. Carry the dog if possible and keep him as calm as possible. Note: a great thing to know ahead of time when you are out of your neck of the woods is the nearest available vet.
Snake Bite Protocol for Handlers: OK, were tracking down that buck of a lifetime, the dog just makes the snake mad as he goes by and the snake takes it out on the handler (or hunter).....now what? Try to remain calm and remove any jewelry or tight clothing. Position the bite below heart level as much as possible. Do NOT cut or flush the wound and do NOT use a tourniquet or ice. A photo or detailed description of the snake is very helpful, but dont try to catch it. And, no, do Not take your dogs benadryl and prednisone! Now get to an ER ASAP! You know where the nearest ER is.....right?
Decide what meets your needs according to the level of threat where you will be tracking and what your budget will allow. Make yourself be prepared for something you hope never happens.
"On Sunday I sat outside in the sun, stroking Elkes so-soft ears, while my husband patted her long, sleek back, and we farewelled our first girl. We learned on Friday that her liver and spleen were full of cancer. We are so grateful to have shared 12.5yrs with her and will miss her dearly." is what my Facebook status update said. But lets start at the beginning...
Little Elke-Moo and her cow hips, at RSPCA
I met Elke (pronounced Ell-kee) when I was in my third week of employment in the RSPCA shelter. What a sucker I was! She was seized as part of a cruelty case from a property where an elderly man with dementia had over forty dogs. Because of the dementia, the dogs weren’t receiving proper care and he sometimes fed them chicken pellets. Of her litter, Elke was the only survivor. She looked like a 5 week old puppy but she was actually 12 weeks old.
She was always small. Our ‘bonsai pointer’, we called her. We joked that she was little, but could lay a good egg. My boyfriend at the time and I had been speaking about getting a dog, and pointers had come up as a breed we were interested in – he wanted a dog to run with him. After three weeks of rehabilitation at RSPCA, she came home with me. I was 23 years old. Since then, she has been a fixture in the landscape of our lives - through house moves, our engagement and marriage, the death of my father, the arrival of our daughter, the comings and goings of oh-so-many other dogs (occupational hazard!).
Elke and my daughter - a fantastic introduction to dogs
Elke was energetic, excitable and hilarious. She wasnt perfect, but neither were we. We were a perfect match. She realised, as a young dog, that she could redirect attention to herself if visitors were over, by trawling our dirty clothes basket for recent underwear and then parading it through the lounge room for everyone to see.
Post-beach snooze with our other dog, Caleb
She didn’t like thunderstorms or fireworks. She loved running off lead at the park, the beach or through the bush and she adored retrieving. She would regularly throw herself into water without stopping to check for a way out. One time I had to walk along a river back for about 500m while she swam and we looked for a place where she could scramble up the riverbank to get out again! We took Elke to obedience training and she taught us so much. Elke was also more than our pet. She helped as a friendly adult dog at puppy preschool classes, she posed as a jaunty model as Australia legislated for the end of tail docking, she tried to distract trainee guide dogs and she visited nursing homes as a certified visiting therapy dog. They were all things we did together, my spotty dog and I.
Elke loved playing swim-retrieve in the water
She and our other dog Caleb were very close. They had a silly play ritual they indulged in every day. Twice a day. A close-quarters mouthing and growling game that ended in howling calamity. It was sometimes annoying (working from home, it wasn’t always compatible with work-related phone calls!), but always made me smile. But now our house is very quiet.
We all loved time at the beach
We didn’t know Elke was sick until a week before she was euthanased. We took her to the vet, her temperature was up, a blood sample was taken, antibiotics were commenced. We didn’t know just how sick she was until two days before. What we did know, was that she was getting older, slowing down, not hearing the thunderstorms any more – and we knew she wouldn’t live forever. But that day always seems - in the future.
Instant couch-rights
When the vet rang me on Friday (the 13th) to advise that the ultrasound showed Elke’s liver and spleen were full of cancer, I was interstate at a conference aiming to eliminate the euthanasia of healthy and treatable pets in Australia. I was told that there were no options. Elke was comfortable, but at risk of bleeding internally and needed to be kept quiet with minimal activity. Euthanasia was not required immediately, but certainly the recommended course of action to avoid a slow and painful death by haemorrhage. I made the appointment for the day after I was due home and cried in my hotel room until there were no tissues left.
Sunday morning was a beautiful morning in Melbourne. The sun was out. I sat with Elke and my just-turned-3-year-old daughter in our garden. We talked about Elke being sick and that she was going to die. She asked hard questions. I did my best to answer them. We weren’t able to play retrieve, but passed Elke little sticks and she crunched them in her teeth. I took some last photos of the two of them – my girls – who have enjoyed a calm and positive relationship. Then Pete and I took Elke to the vet. She was given a mild sedative and we walked outside into the vet clinic’s garden (she never really liked veterinary consult’ rooms). We placed her bed on the grass in the sun, while she walked and sniffed. As the sedation took effect, I helped her settle onto her bed and she relaxed, dozing in the sun. Pete gently stroked her back. I had her relaxed head cushioned in my lap, savouring the sensation of her silky soft ears against my fingertips, one last time. She didn’t even notice the needle that entered the vein in her leg with the overdose of anaesthetic. It really was the perfect euthanasia.
Elke was doing selfies pre-Facebook - circa 2003
Now Elke is gone, and we’re adjusting to this changed landscape of our lives.
Despite all the dogs that have lived in our home, for days or for years, Elke is the first dog that we have owned from puppyhood through to old age. In some ways, this is helping me cope with her death. With other dogs I think I’ve felt an element of anger that we had met too late for them to live their best life, or been robbed of time together through unexpected illness taking them too soon. But today, I’m trying to take comfort in the fact that Elke lived a fabulous and full life with us; her passing was as peaceful and stress free as any of us could hope for. I’m so grateful that our daughter had Elke to share her infancy with.
It still hurts. In ways that bubble up unexpectedly. And I know that’s OK. Grief is messy. It’s individual and it takes as long as it takes. Time plays a critical role and will not be rushed.
Spooning in 2003.
Still besties in 2013.
Research over the past 25 years has shown us that grieving for a pet follows the same reactions and involves the same emotional responses as dealing with a human loss. People who have lost a pet commonly experience intense feelings such as sadness, anger, anxiety, disbelief, depression, panic, relief or even numbness. The act of consenting to euthanasia has been found to be particularly disturbing for some owners, who feel they have betrayed a trust by choosing death over life. Of course, grief responses to death of companion animals is linked to the strength of attachment we have with them, but we should not trivialise, nor brush aside our response to the death of our pets.
Animals are important to us and the grief we experience when they die is real. We should be gentle to ourselves.
Acknowledging this and permitting ourselves to react (however we need to) is important. Letting our support networks (friends, family, colleagues) know how we feel and letting them help us in return is also important. If time isn’t helping, or you lack a support network, seek further help, from your doctor or a professional counsellor. The Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement has helpful information about grief here. The number of friends who have sent me kind messages, called to see how were doing this week or even driven over just to give me a hug has shown me that a) Elke was a dog whose reach was long, and that b) I have amazing friends and family!
And so, my friend, I’m off to give Caleb a big hug. Because amongst all the other sad (for Elke, for my daughter, for me) I’m sad that he may never get to do this again:
Mia
Do You Believe in Dog? will place further helpful resources about dealing with the grief associated with pet loss online soon.
My submitted proof that the sun did shine out of...
Further reading: Weisman A.D. (1990). Bereavement and Companion Animals, OMEGA--Journal of Death and Dying, 22 (4) 241-248. DOI: 10.2190/C54Y-UGMH-QGR4-CWTL Archer J. & Winchester G. (1994). Bereavement following death of a pet, British Journal of Psychology, 85 (2) 259-271. DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1994.tb02522.x Podrazik D., Shackford S., Becker L. & Heckert T. (2000). The Death of a Pet: Implications for Loss and Bereavement Across the Lifespan, Journal of Personal and Interpersonal Loss, 5 (4) 361-395. DOI: 10.1080/10811440008407852 Smith A. (2012). Pet Loss and Human Emotion: Whats New?, Death Studies, 36 (3) 292-297. DOI: 10.1080/07481187.2011.590443 Field N., Orsini L., Gavish R. & Packman W. (2009). Role of Attachment in Response to Pet Loss, Death Studies, 33 (4) 334-355. DOI: 10.1080/07481180802705783 Read More..
“Does your dog know when you are sad?” Puzzling question, perhaps?
We get a range of answers from dog owners, from the confident “Yes!” to “Maaaaybe?”, and the hopeful “I like to think so...”. Many dogs are considered to be part of the family, and we expect our family members to empathize with us when we are sad.
A recent study found that dogs showed submissive behavior (licking and nuzzling) when an adult person pretended to cry but not when she is humming1. Does the licking and nuzzling behavior mean that the dog understand that we are feeling sad? (I hear YES-es). Or can it be that because we are crying, we ignore everyone including our dog, and so, our dog will nuzzle us seeking attention and/or comfort?
(source)
There have been many studies showing that animals (e.g. rodents, birds, chimps) experience distress or concern (empathic response) when observing either kin or non-kin in distress. For example, giving electric shocks to rats and pigeons. The observer experienced a change both behaviourally and physiologically, and these responses are often considered as an experience of emotional contagion, an elementary form of empathy. Emotional contagion is essentially the spreading of all forms of emotion from one person (or animal) to another (like the spreading of joy or distress through a crowd - think of a flash mob dance effect filtering through a crowd)2. Hearing a baby cry can be quite distressing. What happens to us when we, the observers, hear the cry? We respond by getting up and checking on the crying baby, “increased attention”. Our body also releases the stress hormone cortisol when we hear the cry, regardless of age or parenting experience3,4. Also, we can tell if the crying is urgent or not. We do, sometimes find crying aversive (imagine a baby crying non-stop throughout your long-distance flight).
Flickr/thedalogs
In our study, we wanted to know if dogs and humans show a similar physiological response to a baby crying. We had three questions:
We know that dogs are attached to humans, so would dogs show increased attention to a baby crying and babbling?
Exposure to uncontrollable white noise is considered aversive and elicits submissive behavior.If dogs find crying aversive, would dogs show submissive behavior towards crying as well as white noise?
Do dogs show an increased stress response (measured in their salivary cortisol levels) to a baby crying compared to white noise and a baby babbling, similar to humans?
We had 75 dogs and 74 humans listen to one of three sounds. A human baby crying:
A human baby babbling: Or white noise: Each sound was played at an average volume of 82 decibels – similar to chamber music in a small auditorium (not loud enough to cause hearing damage, but it is loud). We collected saliva before and after listening to one sound from both dogs and humans for their cortisol levels. We also analyzed dogs’ behavior while the sound was played, and collected sound ratings about how aversive people found the sounds.
What did our three questions reveal? First, we found that both dogs and humans showed an increase in cortisol levels only after listening to crying, but no changes to baby babbling and white noise. Second, dogs showed increased attention to both the crying and babbling sounds, but not to white noise. Third, dogs displayed increased submissive behavior (e.g. the dog’s body and head were lowered, the ears were held flat and back, the tail was lowered and sometimes slightly between their legs or wagging rapidly side-to-side, the tongue pro-truded slightly, or the dog raised one leg in a hesitant or placating manner) to the crying and white noise, but not to babbling. Additionally, human participants rated the white noise as more aversive than crying (see table below for a summary). We also analyzed other possible aspects that might have influenced the dogs’ responses such as time of testing, demographic data e.g. neutered status and sex, acoustic features in the sounds (pitch and melody), and even dog owners’ unintentional cuing. We found that the responses shown were a result of distress, evident from crying.
You might ask why submissive behavior was shown during crying and white noise. Let’s start with white noise. Our human participants perceived white noise as more unpleasant compared to crying. Humans tend to cover their ears and animals also show similar avoidance, and what better way than to lower your head? On the other hand, with crying sounds, one is generally more subdued (sympathetic concern) especially when you can hear the distress meaning in the sound. The combined behavioral indicators during these sounds (e.g. lowered posture, shaking, stimulus avoidance) points toward submissive behavior. In humans, an increase in cortisol and attention is interpreted as a demonstration of emotional contagion3,4. This unique pattern of physiological and behavioral responding to crying in our study is most consistent with (a) emotional contagion in dogs, providing first evidence that dogs, like humans, experience a physiological response to human infant crying, and (b) suggests the first clear evidence of cross-species empathy (i.e. canine emotional contagion to human distress).
Author
Min Hooi Yong has recently completed her PhD under the supervision of Professor Ted Ruffman in the Department of Psychology, University of Otago, New Zealand. You can follow her research, or Prof Ted Ruffman. This study has been published in the journal “Behavioural Processes”:
Yong, M. H., & Ruffman, T. (2014). Emotional contagion: Dogs and humans show a similarphysiological response to human infant crying. Behavioural Processes, 108, 155–165.
Min Hooi Yong
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the dog owners and their dogs who participated in our study, and to Stephanie McConnon, Mary Saxton, and Barbara Lowen for allowing us to use their dog videos. Mia is a female English Setter aged 3, Annie is a female Border Collie aged 9, and Flack is a male mixed breed (Collie/Husky/Heading) aged 4.
References
1. Custance, D. & Mayer, J. Empathic-like responding by domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) to distress in humans: An exploratory study. Anim. Cogn. 15, 851–859 (2012). 2. De Waal, F. B. M. Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 59, 279–300 (2008). 3. Fleming, A. S., Corter, C., Stallings, J. & Steiner, M. Testosterone and prolactin are associated with emotional responses to infant cries in new fathers. Horm. Behav. 42, 399–413 (2002). 4. Giardino, J., Gonzalez, A., Steiner, M. & Fleming, A. S. Effects of motherhood on physiological and subjective responses to infant cries in teenage mothers: A comparison with non-mothers and adult mothers. Horm. Behav. 53, 149–158 (2008).
Thank you, Min, for discussing your research on Do You Believe in Dog? View other guest contributors here ~ Julie & Mia
Thirdly - its dog bite prevention week in the USA right now! We cant all own Tara the Hero Cat (and to be fair, as much as she is worthy of her notoriety and 20million+ hits on the viral video showcasing her ninja skills, she didnt actually prevent the bite - although Im pretty confident she helped prevent it being a whole lot worse). If you somehow missed what on earth Im talking about - check out this clip of amazing Tara (but a warning, it does show security camera footage of a child being attacked by a dog and the subsequent wounds):
Now that we know a bit more on how to efficiently teach complex object-related actions, we are curious to know what happens when we want to teach different kind of complex actions, like body movements. We also want to know whether introducing social learning in dog training could have an effect on learning cues for trained action. 
Claudia Fugazza
