The Human-Dog Bond with Dr. James Serpell, BSc, PhD

About Dr. James Serpell, BSc, PhD:

Director at PennVet’s Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society, co-creator of C-BARQ (vetapps.vet.upenn.edu/cbarq/), author of The Domestic Dog, founder of the International Society for Anthrozoology, committed to the scientific study of human-animal interactions, Professor of Animal Ethics & Welfare at UPenn, and has published many studies and articles on canine behavior, health, and welfare. If you're curious to learn more about Dr. Serpell's work, we encourage you to read this book chapter on companion animals by Dr. Serpell.

Transcript

Dr. Judi Stella [0:01] Welcome, everyone! Thanks for joining us. I’m excited to introduce today’s webinar guest, Dr. James Serpell. Dr. Serpell is a Professor of Ethics and Animal Welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and Director of the Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society. He’s the creator of C-BARQ, the first standardized dog behavioral assessment survey, which is a widely used tool in behavior research across the world. He has published many research papers in the areas of zoology, cultural anthropology, and animal behavior and is the editor of The Domestic Dog, which is the primary source in understanding dog behavior and our interactions with them. Welcome, Dr. Serpell!

Dr. James Serpell [0:45] Hi, Judi. Thanks for inviting me. Pleasure to be here.

Dr. Judi Stella [0:50] So today, we’re going to talk about the human–dog relationship. I read that paper that you had sent around to everybody; I hope people got a chance to look at that. One of the things that I find really fascinating is how widespread the pet keeping is, across both times (so starting in Ancient times) as well as across cultures. Can you talk a bit about that: the human–dog relationship and how it changed over time?

Dr. James Serpell [1:16] People sort of have this idea that pet keeping is something that’s restricted to affluent Western society, maybe other developing countries that are starting to get more Westernized. But actually, if you look at the anthropological literature, you find that pet keeping is widespread across the board, particularly (it seems) among hunting and gathering societies. I think people are puzzled by that. They think: why on earth would hunter-gatherers waste their time keeping pets? It raises a whole host of interesting questions about human behavior and human evolution. The fact that we know that humans are quite unusual in the amount of (what they call) alloparenting they do—in other words, looking after the infants and the young ones of other people. Humans are very prone to adopting other people’s babies and looking after them. That’s something we do. It’s probably part of our heritage. It looks like this tendency to want to look after other individuals, as well as our own infants, extends to the infants of other species as well. What happens in many of these societies is that they go out and hunt for some animal, and they’ll kill the mother but then they’ll adopt the baby and bring it back to the village and it will be reared like a member of the family, essentially. Most of these animals eventually drift back into the wild when they reach adulthood but while they’re young, they’re cared for very carefully as if they were members of the human family. Pet keeping really seems to be part of our human heritage. I strongly advocate the theory that pet keeping is what gave rise to animal domestication in the first place. Animal domestication was probably one of the most transformative things that ever happened to our species, that really changed things fundamentally. You could say that pet keeping was really the key that unlocked that door, that enabled people to actually coexist and live together with other animals in a sort of domestic partnership. I think this is what happened with the wolf, actually. The wolf started off life as being a baby wolf that was adopted and looked after by human hunter-gatherers. It hung out with the people. Once it had been socialized with humans, it treated the humans as members of its pack. And the humans treated the wolf as a member of their family. It was out of that kind of association that we really developed the domestic dog. 

Dr. Judi Stella [4:25] Yeah, that’s interesting because I know there’s still a lot of discussion around domestication: Did wolves self-domesticate, more similar to how we think of cats? That’s interesting. There’s a lot of talk (because we do have such a close relationship with our companion animals) around the terminology that we use to describe those relationships. Do you think it matters if we call them a pet or a companion animal? If we call ourselves guardians rather than owners? Do you think that has any impact on the relationship that we have or how we think about our companion animals? 

Dr. James Serpell [5:06] That’s an interesting question. Some people think the term “pet” is demeaning and that we shouldn’t use the term. Some people think we shouldn’t talk about ownership of companion animals, that we should treat them more like adoptees, as it were, and call ourselves guardians. I think one state—I’m not sure if it’s Connecticut or Rhode Island—actually put that on the statute books some years ago, that pet owners should be regarded as guardians. I understand that while the intent was to put more legal responsibility on the owner, in practice, it hasn’t made any difference. But I haven’t had much follow-up on that, so I’m not sure it’s made any difference. For me, pet keeping or “pets”are a broader concept and “companion animals” — you should reserve that term for animals that actually serve as companions, whereas “pets” covers a broader range of things. A goldfish in a fish tank is a pet, but it may not offer you a lot of companionship. Although some people say they get a lot of companionship from their goldfish, so I wouldn’t entirely discount it. I just feel like, for practical purposes, pet keeping or pets is a broader idea. These days, people even talk about pet plants, houseplants. Again, that’s broadening it even further. You’re dealing with an organism that doesn’t respond at all in the immediate sense, but it may grow better or whatever as a result of the care you provide it. 

Dr. Judi Stella [7:02] We’re all living through this pandemic, so this question has to come up: How do you think the pandemic has changed the human–dog relationship, if it has, and what do you predict will happen to that relationship post-Covid? 

Dr. James Serpell [7:15] I’m a bit worried, actually. I think an awful lot of people have adopted—it’s clear that a lot of people have adopted animals during the lockdown, probably just because they’re starved of company and they’re starved of companionship. They’re also at home all day, so there’s plenty of opportunities to care for and interact with the animal. Sooner or later, that situation is going to end. These animals are going to be at home alone for a lot of the time. This is not a situation that they’ve been well-prepared for, probably, because they’re used to having the owner there 24/7, all the time. We certainly know that dogs react badly to that type of separation. Whether we’ll have an epidemic of separation-related problems or not, I don’t know, but certainly it’s something we should prepare for. Cats—people underestimate how attached cats can get to their owners. Cats certainly show signs of separation-related problems. We may see it in cats as well. I think it’s great—the way animals have been able to contribute to our wellbeing during this dismal period of our lives—but I do worry a bit about what will happen when life returns to normal. 

Dr. Judi Stella [8:45] So what do you think we should do? Do you think there’s anything we should do to start prepping them? I know there’s been some talk with the behaviorists and things about getting the dogs ready—just start leaving them and getting out a little bit for short periods of time to get them used to it, but do you have any recommendations from your end? 

Dr. James Serpell [9:02] Yeah, I think the classic approach would be to gradually desensitize them to separation. Initially just go out for a very short period and then come back and don’t make a big deal out of it. Don’t reward them spectacularly when you come back because that’s going to excite them and get them all keyed up in expectation of your arrival. Just be very lowkey about it. Don’t make a big fuss about it. Just gradually increase the amount of time you’re leaving them on their own. Don’t push it too fast. Take it step by step. If possible, recruit your neighbors. Find out from your neighbors whether the animal started to howl or whine or make a noise when you go out so that you get a sense of what’s going on, or if you feel like it, you can put up a camera and actually monitor what the animal is doing when you go out. There are common sense kind of things you can do to, hopefully, desensitize your animal to separation, basically. 

Dr. Judi Stella [10:23] Okay, good advice! There’s been a lot of research looking at the benefits of companion animals to their humans: lower blood pressure, more exercise, those types of things. But there’s also been research that indicates the opposite, that that’s not always a great relationship. It doesn’t always benefit people. Can you talk a bit about that research and why we think there are these conflicting findings? 

Dr. James Serpell [10:48] It is puzzling, I grant you. My perspective would be that you have to look at the relationship between people and their pets or their companion animals in the same way that you’d look at a relationship with a spouse or with a friend or with anybody new. Sometimes those relationships go really well, and they’re extremely rewarding and beneficial to the people who participate in them. But sometimes they don’t work out so well, for a variety of reasons. It might be a function of the person and the person’s (for example) unrealistic expectations of the animal. Or it might be a function of the animal having some kind of behavioral or temperamental issue that puts them at odds with the person and, as a result, the person doesn’t find that relationship as rewarding as it might be. In fact, if the problem is bad enough, it could actually be detrimental to the relationship. It could actually harm the person. We have to understand that relationships vary in quality. Not all marriages are made in heaven, if you like. Some don’t work out very well. We need to be aware of that and try to fix it, if we can. If we can’t fix it, then maybe it’s time to find a new owner for the animal—one who won’t be so badly affected by it. 

Dr. Judi Stella [12:38] Yeah, it’s interesting. I often wonder about that, too—if it’s the quality of the relationship is what is driving the benefits of the companionship versus the dog itself, like, just having a dog. 

Dr. James Serpell [12:55] We do have some studies that have suggested that. A study many years back, conducted in New Zealand, looked at what they call “behavioral compatibility” between the owner and the dog. It was a mixture of how the animal behaved and what the owners expectations of the animal’s behavior were. What they found was a direct correlation between the benefit of the relationship to the owner and this degree of behavioral compatibility. So, the more compatible they were, the more likely they were to benefit. When you think about it, that makes a ton of sense. We can’t expect all relationships to work out well. 

Dr. Judi Stella [13:39] So, some of this research also has looked at oxytocin. Can you talk a little bit about oxytocin and how we think that impacts that relationship and how we view our companion animals? 

Dr. James Serpell [13:53] Oxytocin is a hormone that’s secreted in the brain. The traditional area in which we see oxytocin operating is in bonding between mothers and their infants. During childbirth, mothers experience a huge surge in oxytocin. The infants experience a big surge in oxytocin when they’re looking at their mothers and when they’re breastfeeding. There’s this interaction going on between the mother and infant that stimulates oxytocin secretion in both the mother and the infant. It’s also about attachment formation. Oxytocin released stimulates the release of dopamine, which is part of the brain’s reward system. So, both mother and infant are experiencing a strong sense of reward from this type of interaction. What we do know now is that humans and animals, like dogs, also seem to show this oxytocin release when they’re interacting, particularly during what’s known as mutual gaze (when they look at each other’s eyes). That makes sense, the way people respond to their pets is very much like the way in which parents respond to their children. Again, you’d expect that kind of interaction to happen. But what’s interesting is that oxytocin release is also associated with suppression of the stress system. Stress hormones like cortisol go down when people are having these kinds of oxytocin surges. This gives you a kind of link between these positive social relationships and then a mechanism for that to actually affect your health through suppression of the stress response. That’s the story. The evidence for the story occurring in human–pet relationships is still incomplete because there’s a lot of people still doing research in this area, but I think it’s currently the most promising line of evidence. 

Dr. Judi Stella [16:15] It’s really interesting. I have tried to follow that literature to the extent possible. Let’s talk about a couple of your recent publications. There were two of them that you were a co-author on. One looked at how owner personality impacted the prevalence of behavior problems in dogs. And then there was another one that looked at the treatment outcomes for dogs that were at the behavior clinic, right? And how the personality of the person impacted those outcomes? Can you tell us a little more about what was found in those publications?

Dr. James Serpell [16:50] The first one was a follow-up on some earlier work I did a long time ago that found an apparent association between neuroticism in owners of Cocker Spaniels (it was a study that was restricted to Cocker Spaniels), and the reason for that was this population of Cocker Spaniels had a high prevalence of what they called Cocker Spaniel Rage Syndrome—in other words, sudden, seemingly unpredictable outbursts of aggression towards the owner. Anyway, we were commissioned by the Cocker Spaniel folks in the UK to study this. We did find an association with owner personality. Owners who came across as reporting themselves to be neurotic (that is to say kind of shy individuals, retiring kind of people who had a lot of difficulty with social interactions)—they tended to have more aggressive dogs. We did a follow-up on this because I was very puzzled by the result in some ways, and I wanted to really understand what the mechanism was. Was the dog picking up on the owner’s personality trait and somehow that was making it more aggressive, or was there some kind of mediating factor? One of the theories we developed that it might have to do with how these people train their dogs. The idea would be that neurotic owners are using more coercive or punishment-based training and that this is why they were getting more aggression. The second study failed to find that. We found no association at all with how the owners were training their animals. But we did continue to find some direct associations between the owner personality and the dog’s personality. None of the associations were particularly strong, except for one thing, which was that men who were suffering from depression were much more likely to use punitive training methods with their dogs than other people, and that included women with depression. Women didn’t respond to their dogs in the same way that men did even though they were depressed. If you look at the literature, it’s not surprising that men respond (apparently) to depression differently from women across the board, so I guess that makes sense. 

[19:35] The second study you talked about was a study we did which was looking at how owner personality and owner attachment might affect the likelihood of a dog with behavior problems getting better as a result of treatment or not getting better as a result of treatment. We were looking at the association there: What aspects of the owner could interfere with treatment outcomes if the dog was being treated for a behavioral problem? Again, it was a lot like many of these studies one does. It really raised more questions than it answered. But what we did find was that there were associations. Owners who classed themselves as being extroverts seemed to have better outcomes for their dogs than owners who were less extroverted/more introverted. There were some anomalous results as well. Conscientious owners (for some reason) had poorer outcomes than less conscientious owners. This doesn’t make a lot of sense. One can try and come up with possible stories as to why that might be the case but really the answer is we don’t know. Also, things like the dog’s age made a difference to outcomes. The dog’s sex made a difference to outcomes. Multiple factors going on here. That was the base for the study but, like I say, all of these studies seem to raise more questions than they answer, which is both good and bad because they give you something to work on next but sometimes you’d like to have a definitive answer. 

Dr. Judi Stella [21:37] Yeah, it would be nice, wouldn’t it? I find that all really interesting, because obviously we’re always looking for ways to improve outcomes for patients, whether they’re in the behavior clinic or in any other service in veterinary medicine, so that’s interesting to see that we couldn’t quite answer that question the way we wanted. Another study that you published recently was looking at the therapy dog industry. We do have a lot of breeders that are interested in having their dogs work in therapy programs. Your paper suggested that the industry is not well-regulated and that that could have some negative outcomes, both for people and for dogs. Can you talk a little bit about what you found in that one? 

Dr. James Serpell [22:23] The two main findings that bothered us in that survey were the large number of organizations that posed no time limit on the amount of time the animal could spend in these therapeutic situations. The reason that bothers me is that I think often it’s the owner of the dog who is driving the thing. There are clearly some dogs that really enjoy it, seem to enjoy every minute of it, can’t get enough of it. That’s certainly not true of all of these dogs. In that case, the owner may want to go on doing it, but the dog maybe has had enough and would rather go and do something else or go and rest or just be on its own and not have to deal with interacting with strange people all the time. I was quite surprised at how many organizations essentially imposed no limit on how long these dogs could be used for these types of activity. And also there’s no limit on the frequency. You could go for, like, an hour once a week or you could go for an hour every day. Clearly that’s not the same from the dog’s perspective. It’s important not to overload the dog. I think maybe some owners don’t realize that interacting with unfamiliar people is not necessarily an activity that many dogs enjoy. Strangers are a source of stress for me. We just need to be aware of this. We just need to be sensitive to the fact that animals don’t necessarily enjoy interacting with strangers. They may be strangers with physical disabilities or strange behavior that isn’t typical of normal, healthy adults and in that situation, it may be an additional stressor for the animal. That was one thing from the animal’s point of view. From the human point of view, one of the things that we were disturbed by was how few organizations imposed limits on the feeding of raw foods to dogs. I know feeding raw food to dogs is a very controversial area, and many people strongly advocate for this, but the scientific evidence strongly suggests that dogs that are fed raw foods are more likely to transmit pathogens to both each other and to their owners and other people who handle them. The last thing you want to do is to be introducing pathogens into hospital settings, where there are people with compromised immune systems and all sorts of other kinds of problems that make them susceptible or more susceptible to these types of pathogens. That was a big concern we had, that the vast majority of these organizations don’t have rules about that. If you want to feed your dog raw food and take it into a hospital, that’s fine with them, but clearly it’s probably not fine from the hospital’s perspective—if they knew it, which, often they don’t even know. 

Dr. Judi Stella [26:07] It’s interesting. I think when we talk about how we use dogs and the jobs and things that we use them for, the research tends to look at the benefits for the people but not the impacts on the dogs. That is really important, to make sure that we maintain their wellbeing while we’re using them for these services. I don’t think that that’s a field that is well-studied (or at least I haven’t come across a lot). There’s just not a ton of research looking at how the dog responds to any of these things. I defer to you. Is there much research in this or things that we should be looking for?

Dr. James Serpell [26:50] There is some research. Again, it’s rather contradictory. Some of the studies suggest that the dogs show no apparently ill effects from an hour-long therapy session. Other studies suggest that the length of the individual sessions is less important than how frequently the dog has to do it. If they’re doing it a lot, in other words, if they’re doing it many times a week—that seems to have a detrimental effect on the dog. Like most of these things, we need more studies to try and isolate the key factors that are impacting the animal in these types of settings. 

Dr. Judi Stella [27:40] That brings me to my next point. I want to talk a little bit about C-BARQ and what that does measure. Does it inform us at all about personality and temperament of the dogs? And then is that a way forward with putting dogs into jobs that they are more suited for? 

Dr. James Serpell [28:03] C-BARQ is a behavioral survey instrument and questionnaire that we developed many years ago now, to measure the prevalence of what we call behavior problems in the dog population. That was the original goal of developing this tool, so that we could get a better handle on how prevalent some of these problems are in the dog population, because up to that point, we were relying basically on the animals that came to trainers and behavior clinics to determine how prevalent these problems were. Of course, those are the extreme animals that are coming to clinics. We started to work with C-BARQ, and it soon got kind of co-opted for a variety of other purposes. A lot of guide dog schools started to use the C-BARQ as a routine way of measuring the behavior of their trainee guide dogs when they were living with puppy raisers. Interestingly, after many years, we’ve collected a vast amount of data on guide dogs as a result. We’ve been able to demonstrate that the C-BARQ is quite good at predicting which dogs will be successful and which dog won’t, which is interesting. It is essentially temperament-type information. It’s about how the dog responds to different stimuli in its environment. It’s not a cognitive test at all. It’s not measuring cognitive abilities or intelligence or anything like that. It’s much more to do with emotional responses to the environment. But it turns out that these emotional responses to the environment are very important to the success of these working dogs. More recently, we’ve also been looking at detector dogs—dogs that are being trained to detect odors, especially things like explosives. Again, we found that some of these aspects of the dog’s personality (when it’s young, when it’s in the puppy-raising phase) are also able to predict how successful those dogs will go on to be as detector dogs, even though it has nothing to do with how good they are at smelling odors. It’s just about their personality, if you like. It’s become an amazing tool now. It’s used all over the place in all kinds of situations. Animal shelters are using it. Dog breeders are using it to follow up with the people who buy their puppies, because they want feedback from the people who buy their puppies as to how the puppy is doing in terms of its behavior. I really like that. To me, it’s a real sign of a responsible breeder who actually wants to know. They want some quality control. They want to be able to say, “Yeah, I’m producing good puppies. These puppies are going on and becoming great pets.” Similarly, they want to know if there’s a problem. If a problem arises, is that something to do with the breeding of the dog or was it something in the dog’s environment that triggered that? I think it seems to have endless uses, ramifications. I’m constantly surprised by the kinds of things people are using it for. Some people are using it to study the effect of the Fukushima Earthquake on dogs in Japan—things like that. The effect of novel diets on behavior in dogs all over the world. It’s fascinating. 

Dr. Judi Stella [31:57] It is really fascinating. It has evolved quite a bit! It’s interesting that it’s being used. Like, it’s generalizable. Populations of dogs all over the world, too, because I’ve seen publications, like you said, from Japan and all over the place. Somebody actually asked where is this tool? Where could breeders find this if they wanted to use it?

Dr. James Serpell [32:19] www.cbarq.org 

Dr. Judi Stella [32:26] I just want to circle back a little bit about pet keeping in general. Can you just talk a little bit about the impact that it has? We know that there’s positive impact, but there're also negative things that can come out of pet keeping, right? For the human population as a whole. And also from a welfare perspective, for the dogs: What problems exist? 

Dr. James Serpell [32:52] I mean, the problems are a human problem. One we’ve already talked about: the human has unrealistic expectations of the animal. This is a particular problem with first-time dog owners who have no early experience of dogs. They didn’t know what to expect. They may have an inflated idea about what will happen when they get this animal. And then the animal doesn’t fit the bill. Many owners will, sadly, respond to those types of conflict with the animal with punishment. We know that punishment is detrimental to the welfare of the animal. It’s detrimental to the relationship with the owner. Once you go off down that road, you’re really storing up trouble for both yourself and your pet. Stay away from punishment. If you want to train an animal, always use rewards if you can. That’s just common sense, when you think about it, because animals don’t understand when they’ve done wrong: that’s the key thing. We assume that animals know when they’ve done wrong, but nine times out of ten, they have no idea why you’re so mad at them. Absolutely no idea. So all you end up teaching them is that you’re a thoroughly unpredictable and not very nice person, and they have to deal with that. That’s just hard on the animal, really. There are endless other ways. People overfeeding their animals—that’s becoming an increasing problem. Obesity in pets is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. Veterinary practices are seeing it all the time. It’s a sensitive issue because often the owners don’t want to talk about it. My veterinary colleagues are talking about this all the time. As in humans, obesity is bad for the health of the animal, so that’s another one. I mean, there are much more general ones. Letting cats out of doors in areas that are environmentally sensitive, because cats are serious predators on wildlife. They have a huge impact on some areas. Not in downtown Philadelphia, where there isn’t much wildlife, but certainly out in the countryside or anywhere where there’s natural spaces where there are wild species—cats are a problem. Another one is coming up recently. There’s discussion about competition between humans and their pets for food. This might sound like a crazy idea but, increasingly, pet owners are going for very high-end diets for their animals that incorporate, instead of just the leavings from slaughterhouses (which is what pet food used to consist of) to actually using high-quality meats and proteins that, in theory, could certainly be eaten by people. That’s one for the future, I think. People aren’t really focusing on that very much yet, but I think in time, with more and more interest in the environment and caring for the environment, this is going to be an issue going forward that we will need to address. 

Dr. Judi Stella [36:42] For sure. I know there’s that new diet in Europe that’s looking at inside protein for pets because it’s high-quality and it could be something that we could use that wouldn’t compete. One last question and then we’ll open it up for the audience: What is the most important thing that we need to understand or do better to establish and maintain a good relationship with our dogs? One bit of advice for us. 

Dr. James Serpell [37:14] We’ve already discussed it up to a point, and that is: as pet owners, we need to understand the psychology of our animals. I don’t mean that that necessarily means we need to take a course in companion animal behavior, but there are plenty of good reference materials out there that can give you a good perspective on how these animals think and how they perceive us and how they perceive our behavior. Having that kind of level of empathy for the animal—being able to see the world, as it were, from the animal’s point of view—would make a huge difference in how people interact with their animals and treat their animals. Every time I go out for a walk, I see people walking their dogs and doing stupid things with their animals that just shows a complete lack of insight into how that animal sees the world. They are causing that animal unnecessary stress, unnecessary harm. It’s stressing them out as well, because I don’t think they want to be doing this with their animal, but they’ve lost control of the situation through a failure to really understand how the animal sees the world. I think that’s really the key to the whole thing: it’s being able to step outside of your own human-centered worldview and actually try to understand how the world looks from the perspective of your animal. 

Dr. Judi Stella [39:23] I love that. I think that’s great advice. I see the horror shows when I take my dogs out for a walk, too. It always makes me feel bad for some of those dogs, too. That’s great advice, because they’re not little human beings, right? We enjoy them and love them and think of them as our children, but they’re not. They’re not little human beings. We have to let them be dogs. Some of the behavior problems, I think, are not really behavior problems. They’re just dog behaviors. They’re just normal dog behaviors, and we’re not giving them outlets for it. It would go a long way if we did. This has been great. We have several questions, so let’s see if we can answer some of these questions. What do you think of Volhard’s Puppy Aptitude Testing for puppies?

Dr. James Serpell [40:14] I don’t think much of any of these puppy aptitude tests. The main reason for that is—well, first, the scientific evidence that there’s any kind of predictability to these tests is very, very limited. There’s almost no evidence that these early puppy tests predict anything about the adult dog, although very few studies have actually done a decent analysis of that. My main thinking is that those puppy tests are usually done around 7, 8, 9 weeks of age (sometimes a little later) but at that age, the dog’s nervous system is not fully developed. Its brain is not fully developed. I would not expect anything you learn about a puppy at that age to be predictive later on—except possibly extreme fear. So, if you have a puppy at that age who’s really paralyzed with fear by certain types of stimuli in their environment, that (to me) would be a bad sign and probably would be predictive of long-term anxiety in those types of situations. Apart from that, I don’t have a lot of faith in puppy tests. 

Dr. Judi Stella [41:37] This question is from Ramona. She wants to know: I keep hearing that when a dog is bad, it is the trainer. How much does the breeding environment and training influence the behavior, especially with dog breeds that are known to bite or be more aggressive? There’s a couple of things to unpack there. 

Dr. James Serpell [41:56] Yeah. The reality is you can’t separate the two. Yes, a dog’s genetics, say, will contribute to how it behaves as an adult, but the extent to which it contributes is very much determined by the environment in which that dog is reared and the kinds of experiences it has, particularly during its early weeks of life. You can’t really separate the two. It’s quite possible that a dog from the get-go is going to be a difficult dog; it’s going to have behavioral traits that make it incompatible with most people. But most dogs, even dogs that come from breeds which are stereotypically dangerous breeds, if properly handled when they’re young, there’s no reason why they should show these aggressive behaviors or whatever when they’re older. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. You can’t really separate the two. 

Dr. Judi Stella [43:11] Can we just touch on the “dog breeds that are known to bite or be more aggressive”? Is there any data to support that there’s actual breeds or it’s just individual differences and has to do with some of their experiences? 

Dr. James Serpell [43:27] There is no breed that’s reliably aggressive. Within any breed, you’ll find an enormous amount of individual variation. What you’re talking about is bell-shaped curves. One breed’s bell-shaped curve maybe shifts slightly to one side compared with another breed’s bell-shaped curve, but there’ll be a lot of overlap between the two. Yes, within any breed, you can potentially find individual dogs that are highly aggressive. In some breeds, you may find a few more. 

Dr. Judi Stella [44:09] We had a question related back to the Spaniel Rage: We had a Spaniel who was diagnosed with Spaniel Rage and was later determined to have had a badly herniated lumbosacral disc with significant spondylosis, indicating that it had been there for a while. The dog had started biting, and it took the vets over a year to diagnose it. Do you believe that medical undiagnosed conditions like this could play a significant role in dog aggression or is it a rare thing? 

Dr. James Serpell [44:41] Without a doubt. Any dog that’s biting people or showing signs of aggression—I would recommend has a very careful veterinary examination before anything else because it could well be a physical problem that the dog’s reacting to (in other words: pain). Having said that, there were studies (for example) of owner-direct aggression in Springer Spaniels, another breed where there seems to be a problem. In that study, it was possible (I believe) to trace the problem to one particular lineage of dog. That suggests there was some genetic basis for the problem. One should always be aware that there are many reasons why dogs can be aggressive. Pain is a common one. 

Dr. Judi Stella [45:39] What are good puppy behavior predictors of successful working dogs?

Dr. James Serpell [45:49] Depends on what you mean by puppy. With young puppies, I don’t think there are many good predictors. Once a puppy’s above 4, 5, 6 months of age, you’re looking for animals that are not too reactive to their environment. They’re relatively calm. Obviously they’re puppies, so they’re going to be probably more reactive than an adult dog would be, but when you’re looking within that rage of characteristics, you’re looking for puppies that are relatively unreactive, puppies that are super sociable, get along with people really well, enjoy companionship, enjoy contact with people, are not possessive about their toys or their food. In other words, they’re not growing every time someone comes close to something they like. They’re all pretty much the kinds of things that you would expect. You want a well-balanced dog that’s going to grow up to be a kind of calm and methodical and not-too-reactive adult. 

Dr. Judi Stella [47:08] Are there any findings between certain breeds or types of breeds and the resulting bonds with humans? Are some dogs better pets than others? 

Dr. James Serpell [47:23] Surprisingly, we don’t find a lot of difference in terms of the amount of affection and attention that dogs show towards their owners, but we do find qualitative differences. A lot of what people call the “ancient breeds”—things like Siberian Huskies and the Akita, the Shiba Inu—people talk about them as being relatively aloof, so they’re not very demonstrative in their affection or they deliver their affection in a different kind of way. Often, it’s very sudden and very effusive, but then they break off and get interested in something else very quickly. It’s something that owners of these types of dogs often describe. There’s one theory that maybe they represent a stage in dog evolution. Maybe there was less selection for these types of characteristics, the strong attachment to humans that some breeds show. On the other hand, the people who like those breeds like them for those very same characteristics. It’s not necessarily something that appeals to everyone. 

Dr. Judi Stella [48:45] That’s interesting. Isn’t there some recent research looking at the more strongly they’re attached? Some of the breeds like Cavaliers that they say are strongly attached—that they also tend to have more separation anxiety? Is that not fully fleshed-out? I remember reading something about that recently. 

Dr. James Serpell [49:05] When we were developing the C-BARQ, we found two quite distinct domains between dogs that show separation problems and dogs that show very strong attachment, which surprised us because we thought they’d be very much overlapping. But it maybe suggests that separation anxiety is to do with a dog’s general gregariousness. The dog does not like being alone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the dog has a particularly strong attachment for someone. It just doesn’t like being alone; it gets distressed by being alone. I don’t know the particular study you’re referring to, but there’s been conflicting evidence. Again, some studies suggest that they are related; other studies have suggested that they’re not so strongly related. There might be different types of separation anxiety. There’s the dogs that howl and yell and complain/scream for their owners to come home and other dogs that just take the sofa apart while the owner is out. Those might be two different types of dogs, really. We don’t know. 

Dr. Judi Stella [50:24] Just another thing we don’t know that much about. We need to do more research, right? What age do you feel is the best age to let a puppy go to its new home, and do you feel siblings and mother play a role in a puppy’s mental soundness? 

Dr. James Serpell [50:37] Interesting question. We have evidence from C-BARQ data that puppies that are rehomed prior to 7 weeks of age tend to develop a whole host of behavior problems. Anything between 7 and 9 or 10 weeks, you see a reduction in behavior problems, which fits with the original ideas of people like John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller from way back in the ’50s and ’60s. They wrote all about how to socialize a puppy. What they didn’t talk about much was the detrimental effects of taking the puppy out of the litter too young. Our findings suggest that this is a potentially very traumatic thing for a puppy, to be rehomed before 7 weeks of age. Most puppies aren’t properly weaned at that age. You can wean them, and many organizations do wean them. In fact, in some cases (especially with big dogs), the mother won’t wean them. Instead, she’ll just walk away and leave them so they don’t have much time to nurse. The evidence to date suggests 7-9 or 7-10 weeks is the best time to rehome a puppy. You can leave it later, as long as the puppy is getting plenty of experience of the world it’s going to have to live in—meeting new people and meeting new situations. But I don’t recommend it because if you leave a puppy in a kennel beyond about 12 weeks, you’re going to have real problems. 

Dr. Judi Stella [52:30] This one’s interesting, too: My Border Collie just had puppies 2 weeks ago and seems more bonded to me than ever. Is this likely to be a permanent development? 

Dr. James Serpell [52:44] That one’s stumped me. I don’t know. I’ll be interested to hear. 

Dr. Judi Stella [52:51] One last one! How would you handle an orphan puppy in reference to not having litter mates or a bitch to raise it? 

Dr. James Serpell [53:01] I mean, in that situation, you just need to make sure that that puppy is very, very well-socialized and exposed and habituates to all kinds of situations it’s going to have to deal with as an adult. Those young puppies are (in some sense) emotionally handicapped, so you’re going to have to respond to them as if they’re going to have difficulties. 

Dr. Judi Stella [53:45] Very interesting! Thank you so much! This has been great. I hope everyone enjoyed this. I enjoyed it; it was fun talking behavior for a little while. Thank you so much again for joining us. We hope to have you back soon sometime!

Dr. James Serpell [54:01] It was a pleasure talking to everyone! 

Nicole Engelman [54:07] Keep a lookout for an email from Good Dog with a recording of this webinar. If you aren’t yet a member of our community, you can apply to join at www.gooddog.com/join so you can stay up to date on future webinars, just like this. Thank you, everyone!