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Canine Reports
Quarterly Newsletter of the Canine Cognition and Behavior Lab at the University of Florida
SUMMER 2012
VOL. I, ISSUE 2
CCB Lab Asks, Who Knows the Canine Nose?
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By Nathaniel Hall
“Oh, you must smell other dogs on me,” is a
common phrase we say after our lovable
pooch sniffs us more thoroughly than usual.
After one uncomfortably long investigation
by my own dog detective, I became curious;
what does she really smell?
We actually know very little about which
odors in our dogs’ environments influence
their behavior. For example, we know dogs
can detect odors with the right training, but
do all trace odors influence your dog’s
behavior? Does my dog really respond to the
smell of the McDonald’s I had for lunch
hours ago?
We first wanted to determine how quickly
dogs can learn to associate an odor with
food. We gathered a group of 20 local dogs,
and gave them 24 attempts to learn to
identify a novel odor (anise extract from the
kitchen).
The task itself was very simple, and
designed to take as little training as possible.
First, dogs were given two bins of pine
shavings. One bin had a buried cotton pad
doused with anise; the other had a plain
cotton pad. Dogs were trained to “alert” an
observer by rooting around in the bin and
throw the shavings about (similar to the
hokey pokey). Once a choice was made, the
observer called out “choice” and the dog
was given a treat if the choice was correct.
We also ran control trials to make sure our
clever hounds weren’t pulling a “Clever
Hans” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Clever_Hans for a brief history on the
Clever Hans effect).
In only 24 trials, dogs were performing
significantly above chance, but only by a
small margin. We also found that some dogs
Bessa, a high performer in our odor
detection experiment, makes a
successful discrimination. As it turns
out, we know very little about how our
dogs respond to different smells in
their daily environment.
were able to detect odors very reliably, while others did not. This brought us to our next question:
Could we design a test that could identify dogs that show the most potential to be odor detectors?
To answer this, we gave dogs more days and more attempts to learn the task so we could assess if
some dogs would perform consistently better than other dogs. In addition, we tested if our task led
dogs to attend to odor cues more than visual cues, by also testing dogs on a simple black from
white visual discrimination.
Once again, we found a wide variety of performance levels, allowing us to identify those dogs
that quickly learned the task. We also found that dogs performed better with the odor
discrimination than the visual discrimination. This suggested to us that dogs were more likely to
attend to the odor cues than to the visual ones.
We also found that our subjects performed better when the experimenter delivered a treat after the
dog had made its choice, compared to when the dog was allowed to access the treat itself by
digging in the pine shavings. These results lead us to believe that food odor is a powerful odor
that can influence performance.
Overall, we found that some dogs can quickly learn to selectively respond to certain odors.
Because not all dogs learned to respond to the odor, there appears to be a range in individual
performance that will be interesting to explore in future studies.
Nathan Hall is a third-year graduate student in the CCB Lab. His e-mail is [email protected].
In our second issue we’ve devoted a special
section on love and our dogs. Do they really
show us love in their eyes? Or is the way to a
dog’s heart really through its stomach? Read
inside!
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The Look of Love?
Why Your Dog Watches Your Every Move
By Jessica Spencer
Have you ever noticed your dog looking up into your eyes, and
wondered what she’s thinking? Is Fluffy staring at me because she
loves me? Or because she wants food? Recent research has taken the
first steps in uncovering the mystery behind those puppy-dog eyes.
Some experts believe that over thousands of years of domesticating
dogs from wolves, humans were selectively breeding dogs to pay
more attention to them. The end result is that dogs are genetically
wired to gaze at humans, making it easier for them to understand and
communicate with us.
The problem with this idea is that it doesn’t consider the possibility
that dogs simply learn to pay attention to people through their daily
interactions with them. Can we train dogs to gaze at us more, or less?
Is there something special about looking at humans, or can dogs also
learn to gaze at an inanimate object? Does it work the same way for
wolves, dogs’ non-domesticated relatives?
Based on our knowledge of learning principles, we designed an
experiment to test whether we could increase or decrease how much a
dog gazes at a person’s face. If a dog receives a treat every time it
makes eye contact, we should see an increase in this behavior. By this
logic, if we stop giving out treats for gazes, we should see gazing
decrease.
This is exactly what happened. Over a mere 10 minutes of training,
dogs increased their gazing at us from an average of five seconds in
every two minutes before training to 37 seconds in two minutes at the
end of training. We also saw gazing decrease once we stopped giving
treats for gazes. So, gazing is not completely hard-wired; it can be
learned through experience.
Photo courtesy of Wolf Park.
Wotan gazes into the eyes of Pat Goodman, head curator at Wolf
Park, Indiana. This photograph was taken during an experimental
session to determine if gazing is a behavioral trait that is hard-wired
in domestic dogs. If so, wolves would not show the same patterns of
gazing. However, Jessica’s study revealed that gazing, just like many
other behaviors emitted by dogs, are under operant control.
Next, we tested whether dogs would respond in the same way when the target of their gaze was a stuffed animal instead of a human.
During the first two-minute period, dogs started looking at the toy for only two seconds. After training, gazing increased to approximately
15 seconds per minute. This duration decreased again once treats were withheld. Since we observed the same pattern of gazing at both
people and inanimate objects, there may not be anything special about looking at a person; the dog simply looks at any target more when
past experience of doing so resulted in something that it has been rewarded for gazing at.
If dogs have been specifically bred to look at people more during domestication, then we shouldn’t expect to see the same patterns of
gazing in wolves. However, when captive, hand-reared wolves were tested the same way as dogs, we found similar results. The wolves
increased their gazing at a person from only one second in two minutes before training to 12 seconds in two minutes after training. Once
again, gazing decreased back to one second when the wolves stopped earning treats for their gaze responses. The same pattern was
observed when they were trained to look at the stuffed animal instead.
Obviously, most owners don’t purposely train their dogs to watch them. But they don’t need to. Every time your dog looks at you, and you
then give him attention or food or a walk outside, he is learning, “I get good things when I keep my eye on Mom!” So the next time you
catch Fluffy peering up into your eyes, you can rest assured that you’ve done a good job teaching her that you are the source of happiness
(even if you weren’t trying).
Jessica Spencer is a third-year graduate student in the CCB lab. Her e-mail address is [email protected].
Calling all dog owners: We need participants!
The Canine Cognition and Behavior Lab is conducting new behavioral studies on dogs suffering from
problem behaviors, including compulsive behaviors (e.g. tail-chasing, light-chasing) and food-related
aggression (either to owners or other dogs).
If you would like to volunteer your pooch, please e-mail [email protected]. Thank you!
The way to a dog’s heart...
is through its stomach!
By Erica Feuerbacher
Dogs are typically regarded as “man’s best friend,” giving us unconditional love. Is this a romantic view of our canine friends or an
accurate description of their interactions with humans? How the dog-human relationship develops and is maintained are two questions
that have not received much scientific attention. Do our dogs engage with us because we provide food, or toys, or access to fun
activities? Or do they just like being with us?
We began investigating these questions by asking how brief social interaction (four seconds of praise and petting) compares to a small
piece of food as a reward for dog and wolf behavior. We tested shelter dogs at Marion County Animal Services, owned pet dogs, and
hand-reared wolves. Shelter dogs were used because we expected that, due to their limited access to human attention compared to
owned dogs, they might really enjoy social interaction. On the other hand, petting and praise might only be meaningful if it comes
from someone the dog cares about, such as an owner. To address this, owners of the pet dogs served as experimenters delivering social
interaction or food to their dogs. Finally, we expected that dogs would show a sensitivity to human social interaction that might be a
product of domestication. Thus, we also tested hand-reared wolves, the dog’s wild ancestor, to assess the effects of domestication.
Each dog or wolf simply had to touch its nose to the experimenter’s hand. After making the response, it received either brief petting
and praise, or a small piece of food. We measured how many times the dog or wolf would do this. Across shelter dogs, owned dogs,
and hand-reared wolves, food was clearly the most powerful reward. Being deprived of human interaction or receiving the attention
from an owner did not seem to affect the dogs’ willingness to work for human contact. We did have one interesting outlier: one pit bull
at the shelter was just as willing to work for social interaction as she was for food.
These results demonstrate that food is a very powerful reward for dogs and supports the use of treats when training canines. But does
this mean we are simply treat dispensers for our dogs? Certainly the delivery of food is likely involved in producing and maintaining
dogs’ interactions with humans, but, at the same time, our results do not capture the whole human-dog relationship. These are
questions we are hoping to answer through future studies. Whether or not dogs find our attention reinforcing, it does not diminish how
reinforcing their interactions are for humans. Understanding why dogs are social with humans is an interesting theoretical question, but
it also has practical implications for building strong relationships between newly adopted dogs and their families, as well as how we
train dogs.
Erica Feuerbacher is a doctoral candidate in the CCB Lab. Her e-mail is [email protected].
Dogs emitted a nose touch on the
experimenter’s hand to receive either
social or food reinforcement
Dog receiving social reinforcement
Dog receiving food reinforcement
We are very grateful to the following facilities that also have recently hosted studies conducted by the Canine
Cognition and Behavior Lab:
• Camp Marlin Doggy Daycare (Gainesville, FL)
• Full Moon Farm (Black Mountain, NC)
• Marion County Animal Services (Ocala, FL)
• Shy Wolf Sanctuary (Naples, FL)
• Alachua County Animal Services (Gainesville, FL)
• Wolf Park (Battle Ground, IN)
• University of Doglando (Orlando, FL)
• NiteHowls Sanctuary (DeFuniak
Springs, FL)
Notewo!hy CCB Lab Achievements
Erica Feurerbacher’s paper, titled “Relative
efficacy of human social interaction and food as
reinforcers for domestic dogs and hand-reared
wolves” is in press at the Journal of the
Experimental Analysis of Behavior
The CCB Lab received a
grant from the AKC Canine
Health Foundation to
investigate the behavioral
epidemiology of Canine
Compulsive Disorder.
Individuals may donate
funds to support this grant
at http://www.akcchf.org/
research/funded-research/
Nathan Hall, Lindsay
Mehrkam, and Sasha
Protopopova
successfully defended
their Master’s theses in
the Department of
Psychology at the
University of Florida.
Jessica Spencer successfully defended
her Master’s thesis, titled,
“Demonstrating Operant Control of
Gazing Behavior in Domestic Dogs
(Canis lupus familiaris) and Gray
Wolves (Canis lupus lupus)”
Dr. Nicole Dorey’s paper titled,
Lindsay dog problem behavior
“Decreasing
with functional analysis: Linking
diagnoses to treatment” is in press at
the Journal of Veterinary Behavior
Sasha Protopopova
received third place at
the Morris Animal
Foundation Veterinary
Scholar poster
competition for her
research titled, “The
Effects of Social Training
and Other Factors on the
Adoption of Shelter
Dogs.”
Monique Udell, Jessica
Spencer, Nicole Dorey, and
Clive Wynne’s paper titled,
“Human-Socialized Wolves
Follow Diverse Human
Gestures... And They May Not
Be Alone” was accepted to the
International Journal of
Comparative Psychology.
If you would like to make a donation to the Canine Cognition and Behavior Lab,
please include this form with your contribution of the following amount:
$10
$20
$50
$100
Other amount _______
Checks should be made payable to:
University of Florida Foundation
and mailed to
University of Florida Foundation
PO Box 14425
Gainesville, FL 32604
In the memo section of your check, please put the fund number: F014627.
Please go to our website at www.caninecognition.com to learn more about us and how to
become a participant in one of our studies. Check us out on Facebook too!