Some time ago, I wrote an article titled Pass It On, Redirected Aggression in Cats and Dogs.  In that article, I wrote: “Redirection of a behavior is one of three forms of conflict behavior seen in animals, and humans.  The other two forms of conflict behavior are “approach-withdraw” and “displacement behavior,” which I’ll discuss in future blog entries.”  But I never did… so let’s talk about the other two now.

The example that I gave in that earlier blog was: “(conflict) behaviors are methods for resolving internal conflicts: a hungry dog, faced with a bowl of food and an aggressive canine owner of the food might express any of these three ways of resolving a conflict between approaching for food and fleeing the aggressive owner of the food.”  Another example might be a dog which has been severely frightened.  One of the ways of resolving this internal conflict in drives and motivation, in fact physiological and neurological demands, is familiar to most of us: approach-withdraw, or “flight or fight” as it is commonly, but incorrectly, called.  The other, like redirected behavior, is less well known, the least well known and often the most confusing option: displacement behavior.

Flight or fight: I guess “flight” is ok as a term: dogs and cats don’t actually take flight, but the use of the term “flight” to mean a hurried departure is quite correct.  Animals, including humans, placed into a conflict situation, will often attempt to resolve that conflict through a sudden, almost desperate, withdrawal, a “flight” from the conflict, or by a sudden, again almost desperate and totally out of character, attack or “fight”.  Thus, one example of an “aggressive” dog.  Is this an aggressive dog?  Sure, by the strict definition of aggression, a dog approaching a person or other dog, clearly behaving in such a way as to drive away or remove that person or dog.  But what is also important, in establishing risk or in treating the aggressive behavior, is the motivation: if this is a conflict-resolution behavior, that tells me something much different than if I can establish that it is a habit, a learned behavior, a genetic trait, a function of early deprivation, or any of the other myriads of possible causes and triggers for aggression.

One characteristic of this approach-withdraw behavior that I often see in this behavior is perseveration: the animal (and I know a few people like this) will run away, a little ways, stop, gain their nerve, begin to return and “fight”, lose their nerve, back away into a “flight”, and often hit a balance point, almost rocking back and forth in this conflict situation.

Another behavior that I have seen in these situations, and not one I recommend intentionally testing for, is when a dog in this conflict situation does attack, you can frequently turn the behavior off very quickly by simply shifting the behavior back over the balance point into a flight.  A loud “Hey!” in the face of such an attack has generated a sudden stop, turn, and run on more than one occasion.  The dog, and I have had cats like this too, was in a conflict situation, decided to attack (“fight”) but could easily be switched back to the flight decision by an increase in the scariness of the stimulus.  Again, not an effect that you want to count on, just in case it’s NOT conflict behavior, but it can save the day once in a while, and help you to explain what happened to your client.

How about the third form of conflict resolution, displacement behavior?  It’s an odd one, and more controversial as to its value and cause.  Perhaps you have been in a situation in which there is a conflict, some stress, a dog that is unsure of what it should do.  That dog’s body language signals will be in conflict, flicking from fearful and anxious to aggressive.  Suddenly, the dog will… urinate… or stop and eat a flower… or sit up and beg, or do some seemingly totally unrelated behavior.  This is displacement behavior, an outlet to the conflict.  We see it in humans all the time: some conflict, a disagreement at home among spouses, and suddenly one of them will jump up and light candles, or start to fold laundry.

The animal (or husband?) is in conflict and needs to resolve that conflict, and there are three ways of doing so: approach or withdraw from the stimulus perceived to be causing the conflict (“flight or fight”), redirecting behavior towards another target (often aggressively, in dogs and cats), or take your mind off it, by exhibiting a displacement behavior.  Watch for all three of these in the animals (husbands, wives, and kids count) in your life: your dog, your cat, animals at the dog park, or at the zoo.  Examples are common!  And maybe understanding these sometimes-puzzling behaviors can make our lives a little bit better, or at least a little less confusing.

An interesting paper appeared in a recent issue of Behavioural Processes (2009, vol. 82, pp. 355).  The author, William Helton from New Zealand, examined results from three published studies in which breed and head shape were reported, to answer the question of whether morphology (head shape, in this case) reflected intelligence in dogs.  Now, a little background because there a lot of caveats associated with this work.

First, what do we mean by head shape?  The classic measure of head shape, used here, is the cranial index.  This is the ratio of the width of the skull to the overall length of the skull, and can be easily measured with calipers.  But of course, this is only one possible way to measure a skull shape.  It turns out that dogs are interesting for this kind of question because, through our breeding, we have produced a wide range of head shapes, on a continuum of cranial indices.  So extremes in the cranial index values reveal dolichocephalic dogs (with a long cranium, the running dogs and sight hounds; think greyhound) and brachycephalic dogs (with a very wide cranium, bred for fighting and holding, grasping; think Staffordshire Bull Terriers) and in between, mesocephalic breeds, whose heads are less extreme in length or width.  So we can divide breeds into three parts of this continuum, or ask as the author did, whether dogs of extreme shapes, the breeds that are more specialized in their breeding, might have a lower or higher intelligence.  One hypothesis might be that medium-head-shape dogs, of less specialized duty (historically), might be less intelligent.

Another issue is, “what do we mean by intelligence, and how was it measured?”  A very good, and very difficult, question.  We really have VERY little data on the cognitive capabilities of breeds of dogs (or of course, of most species of animals).  But some work HAS been done on what might be one aspect of intelligence: trainability.  Now, while we have a few studies on this topic, among breeds, we still have very little.  But one way that has been used to “get at this question” has been to survey experienced dog owners, especially those with a broad exposure to breeds, to rank the PERCEIVED trainability of various breeds.  One good source of such information is obedience judges, and Coren has published these very consistent and repeatable results in a number of places.  So now we are no longer talking about intelligence, or even trainability, but perceived trainability… but it’s the best we’ve got, until we do more research!

So now, to the results of this work: what is the relationship between head shape, especially extremes of head shape, and ranking of perceived trainability (our stand-in for intelligence)?  Well, to a degree not accountable by simple chance, medium-head-shape dogs are perceived to be more trainable, and dogs with more extreme head shapes, whether long or wide, are perceived to be less trainable.

There are some other interesting findings to go with this main point.  For instance, what else does head shape tell us?  It turns out that the shape of the head also tells us a lot about the visual abilities of dog.  Breeds with long heads, associated with coursing or hunting by long-distance running, like greyhounds, have a retina designed with a wide area of receptivity: their vision is most acute in the horizontal and at the horizon.  Breeds with wide heads have their greatest receptivity in the center, like primates including us, and thus have their best vision in the center and close up.  So there are differences in the nervous system associated with head shape and there certainly could be differences in other facets of their brains and learning abilities.  Perhaps it is true that highly specialized breeds, so specialized that they LOOK different, might not have needed a broad intelligence to do their job, while your basic, unspecialized, medium-head-shape dog needed more wits to get the job(s) done!

Or perhaps this study tells us more about human perception.  Perhaps there is something in us that tells us that things that look different are (have to be?) different in other ways.  The answer lies in learning more about the actual intelligence, or at least the actual trainability, of dog breeds, a project that we at Companion Animal Solutions have begun, and that other ethologists around the world are undertaking.  The questions never end, and I hope that if you have questions, you will contact us here at Companion Animal Solutions.

Back in the fall of 2008, I presented a blog titled A Reading List in Animal Behavior, Part One. I went on in that article to say, “So here I present a highly personal reading list in ethology.  In this entry, I suggest some reading in basic ethology, and in a later entry, I will focus in readings in applied animal behavior.”

But it never happened.. no follow-up blog on the most relevant material, applied ethology!  So, forthwith, the rest of my list… the disclaimer, as before: this is a personal list.  These are the sort of readings, applied in this case, that I would, and have, “required of students of this field, beginning at the undergraduate level and right on through graduate or board-certification work in ethology.  These are the books that my students, graduate and undergraduate, read.  And these would provide the foundation for an excellent library in animal behavior.” Note: We’ve made book and DVD recommendations about dog behavior, cat behavior, and parrot behavior on the Companion Animal Solutions web site under the Books & DVDs section. For the books below, we’ve linked the titles of these books to places you can order them.

Applied Animal Behavior for the Lay Audience

These are books for the educated owner: I hope that most trainers, veterinarian technician and veterinarian with an interest in behavior have read these. The first three are simply classic, must-reads: I strongly encourage all dog owners, and all of my behavior-issue clients to read these.

Donaldson, Jean.  1997.  Culture Clash. James and Kenneth. This book focuses on the differences between primate [human] and dog behavior, social organization, and communication. Jean’s other fantastic books include Dogs Are From Neptune, Oh Behave! Dog From Pavlov to Pinker, and practical problem solving books like Mine! and Fight!

McConnell, Patricia.  2002.  The Other End of the Leash. Ballantine Books.  This book focuses on dog-primate communication, or the lack thereof.  Based on Trish’s PhD dissertation work and a lifetime of learning about dogs and humans.

Pryor, Karen. 1999.  Don’t Shoot the Dog!  The New Art of Teaching and Training. Bantam. This is the original book that defined the new field of positive-approach dog training.

There are some follow-ups to the themes described in the books above:

McConnell, Patricia.  Various. Trish has an extensive series of How To booklets, all of which are excellent: Cautious Canine, Feisty Fido, Surviving a Multi-Dog Household, I’ll Be Home Soon, et al.  These build, in more practical terms, on the ideas developed in her best-seller books.

Reid, P.J., 1996.  Excel-erated Learning: Explaining in Plain English How Dogs Learn and How  Best To Teach Them.  James and Kenneth Publishers, Oakland, CA

Ryan, T. 1998.  The Toolbox for Remodeling Your Problem Dog. Howell Book House, New York.

These two books are by leading canine learning specialists, and build on the concepts of a positive reinforcement approach, and understanding the broader behavior of your dog, the context in which your dog behaves.

Wright, J. C. 1994.  Is Your Cat Crazy? Macmillan Publishing Co., New York.

Wright, J. C. 1999.  The Dog Who Would Be King.  Rodale Press,  Emmaus, PA.

And then, how does all this conceptual material come together: first, John’s books bring you into the world of a behavior specialist, an academic bringing the science that we have learned about dogs, and cats, to bear on specific behavior problems… and at the same time, educating about dog behavior and learning in an entertaining way.

Markowitz, H. 1981.  Behavioral Enrichment in the Zoo, Van Nostrand Reinhold. Finally, as an ethologist, I find this book to be fascinating: applied animal behavior principles, but with application to exotic animals.  This is the behind-the-scenes story of a series of imaginative, and highly successful, attempts to produce natural behaviors in captive animals.

Puppies and Puppy Selection

Then how about the big issue: what kind of dog should I get?  Here are two good suggestions for reading on this subject, again based on good science.

Hart, B.L. & Hart, L.A. 1988.  The Perfect Puppy. How to Choose a Dog by Its Behavior.  W.H. Freeman, New York.

Rutherford, C. & Neil, D.H.  1992.  How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With, 2nd Ed. Alpine Pub., Loveland.

More Advanced and Professional Books

There are many references used by behavior specialists, certified applied animal behaviorists and board-certified veterinary behaviorists: these are a few of the more accessible ones.

Askew, H.R., 1996. Treatment of Behavior Problems in Dogs and Cats. Blackwell Science, Cambridge, MA.

Bradshaw, J.W.S.  1992.  The Behaviour of the Domestic Cat.  C.A.B. International, UK.

Fraser, A.F.  1992.  The Behaviour of the Horse.  C.A.B. International, UK.

Hart, B.L. 1985. The Behavior of Domestic Animals.  W.H. Freeman and Co., New York.

Hetts, S.  1999.  Pet Behavior Protocols.  What To Say, What To Do and When To Refer. AAHA Press, Lakewood, CO.

Voith, V.L. and P.L.Borchelt, Eds. 1996.  Readings in Companion Animal Behavior. Veterinary Learning Systems, Trenton, NJ.

Serpell, J., Ed. 1995.  The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behaviour and Interactions with People. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York.

Thorne, C., Ed.  1992.  The Waltham Book of Cat and Dog Behaviour. Pergamon Press, New York.

Turner, D.C. & Bateson, P., Eds. 1988. The Domestic Cat: The Biology of Its Behaviour. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Waring, G.H.  1983.  Horse Behavior. Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, NJ.

So that’s my reading list in applied animal behavior, from both an academic and a popular view.  Combining the books in this list with the previously listed readings in general ethology would generate an impressive library in ethology with a focus on applied animal behavior.

Feel free to leave me a comment if you have a favorite book to recommend, or a question about a book you’ve seen or read, or a specific topic in animal behavior for which you would like a reading recommendation.  Time to read!

** I must credit my colleague, Daniel Estep, PhD, for developing the original form of these reading lists, which I have modified and annotated considerably.  Any changes and added editorial opinions are strictly my own, unless Dan likes any of them.

I have expressed my concern about confrontational behavior modification techniques in earlier blogs: the use of “positive punishment” or dominance and pack theory-based techniques, especially in the hands of untrained users, has been shown to be ineffective and to produce negative side effects.  Hiby and colleagues demonstrated that positive reinforcement techniques produced a significantly better response to obedience tasks than did positive punishment techniques (see references below).  Blackwell and colleagues showed that dogs trained using positive reinforcement methods were less likely to exhibit later behavior problems while dogs trained using punishment were more likely to exhibit later fear-related behaviors (see references below).  These are just some examples: there is an expanding literature on the significantly greater effectiveness of positive reinforcement techniques as well as the lack of effectiveness of aversive or confrontational methods, methods which are related to incorrect ideas about the role of dominance and pack theory in dogs.But in addition to the lack of effectiveness of confrontational techniques, I have expressed concerns about increased risks to owners.  This can be seen regularly on a popular dog training program on television, where aggressive responses by dogs being exposed to confrontational techniques are seen.  And these responses are exhibited towards both the trainer and towards bystanders like owners and family members.  These aggressive responses are a result of either inappropriate use of dominance challenges, like “alpha rolling” and “dominance downs” or the result of purely fear-based responses to punishment.  I see these responses in my own cases frequently, in dogs which have experienced confrontational methods of behavior modification.

But it’s not just my observations: in the January (online) issue of Applied Animal Behaviour Science (vol. 117 (2009) pg 47–54), Meghan Herron, Frances Shofer, and Ilana Reisner publish the results of a study which examined the risk towards owners of owner-executed behavior modification techniques in the form of dog aggression responses.  The retrospective survey technique determined the type of behavior modification attempted by owners of dogs brought to the University of Pennsylvania Behavior Service, as well as where the owner had learned the method, the effectiveness of the method in the owner’s eyes, and the rate of aggressive responses in the dog.

The study included 140 dogs, 90 purebred and 40 mixed breeds, and 41 breeds were represented with no breed representing more than 6% of the sample.  Presenting complaints, which could be multiple, included aggression to familiar people (43%), aggression to unfamiliar people (48%),  aggression to other dogs (40%), separation anxiety (20%), specific fears and anxieties (32%), and a small number of other issues.

The most commonly used confrontational techniques were leash correction (75%), prong or pinch collars (38%), and the use of muzzles (38%).  Aggressive responses on the part of the dog was noted at rates ranging from 43% (for hit or kicking the dog) to 3% for kneeing the dog for jumping, and include rates like 11% for choke or prong collars, 38% for forced release of objects, 31% for alpha rolling, 29% for dominance downs, and 26% for grabbing jowls or scruff.  Even indirect confrontational techniques elicited aggressive responses from dogs in 30% (stare down), 20% (spray bottle), and 41% (growl at dog) of cases.  In contrast, postive reinforcement techniques elicited aggressive responses towards the owners in 0% (clicker training, Look at Me training, pheromones, and increased exercise) to a mere 6%  (trade food for object training) of cases.

There is considerable scientific literature which argues against the idea that most behavior issues are a result of dominance issues or a lack of “alpha” status of owners, instead suggesting that most aggression issues result from fear (self-defense) and anxiety-related issues.  It is equally clear from the scientific literature that confrontational methods like alpha-rolling, forced or dominance downs, and pinch collars increase the levels of a dog’s stress, anxiety, and fear; thus it is not surprising that the use of these techniques were reported to be associated with high levels of aggressive response.  Interestingly, the most commonly reported source of these techniques was television, and while the research did not ask for specifics, it can be assumed that many of these techniques were learned from a popular television show hosted by Cesar Millan.

This study reinforces my own observations that dogs frequently respond aggressively to these confrontational techniques, from fear and anxiety, and that these techniques tend to make these conditions worse, continuing a spiral of deteriorating behavior, often resulting in either attacks on owners, redirected attacks on other humans, dogs, cats and other animals in their environment, or surrender of the unmanageable animal to an adoption facility.  Add to these issues the well-illustrated fact that confrontational methods are not effective, and any reasonable, science-based dog owner should conclude that these techniques have no place in the world of our dogs.  The science of ethology, modern animal behavior, is continuing to drive home this point in hard data.

Here are the references to which I refer in my blog:
Blackwell, E.J., Twells, C., Seawright, A., Casey, R.A., 2007. The relationship between training methods and the occurrence of behaviour problems in a population of domestic dogs. In: Proceedings of the 6th International Veterinary Behaviour Meeting. Fondazione Iniziative Zooprofilattiche e Zootecniche, Brescia, Italy, pp. 51–52.

Hiby, E.F., Rooney, N.J., Bradshaw, J.W.S., 2004. Dog training methods—their use, effectiveness and interaction with behaviour and welfare. Anim. Welfare 13, 63–69.

The modern science of animal behavior, which we call ‘ethology’, has come a long way in the past few decades, from a largely observational, descriptive science to a modern, quantitative science based on solid foundations of evolutionary biology and quantitative methodology.  One of the most common situations in which I realize this is when I see, read, and hear old, out-dated animal behavior concepts and ideas and long-ago-rejected hypotheses used by pet animal behaviorists.  Many trainers and veterinarians received whatever animal behavior education they might have gotten long ago, and often have not stayed up to date.  As a professional and academic ethologist, I of course have the time and professional need to peruse the latest journals, read and review the latest textbooks, and make sure that my university courses are up-to-date.  But when I enter the world of companion animal behavior, I am often taken back to a time long, long ago, to terms presented even to me in my long-ago introductory courses as historical concepts, mistakes, or simplifications used only for pedagogical purposes.

Let me give you a few examples: I think that they fall into four categories.  There are concepts that we now know simply are not true: Fixed Action Patterns fall into this category.  Fixed action patterns were a concept from the early days of ethology, mid-20th-century, in which animals were thought to display some behaviors that were absolutely of genetic origin, the classic “hard-wired” behaviors (another term we are trying to dump!).  When gull chicks saw a red dot on the parent’s bill, they “automatically” gaped their mouths open to get food.  The behavior was thought to be fixed or unchanging, burned into the animal’s brain pathways by their genes, and never to be changed or modified in any way.  But then we discovered that they could get better at it, quicker or more discriminating as they grew older: wait, that’s not genetic, that’s called learning!  So the behavior was NOT fixed.  Finally, the field concluded that there really was no such thing as a fixed action pattern.  We went through the usual struggle of dying concepts, modifying the concept to death, trying to keep it alive, before finally burying it and moving on.  But I still hear trainers referring to highly stereotyped, very ‘fixed’ behaviors performed in response to a clear signal as a Fixed Action Pattern, or at the very least, as being ‘hard-wired’, whereas we now know that there is no hard-wiring.  It immediately dates the user of the term to a certain generation and suggests a lack of later education in ethology!

There are concepts that are sort-of, basically true but that we now know are far more complicated, and thus the original terms and concepts simply don’t do the job any more: the Nature vs. Nurture dichotomy falls into this category (as do many dichotomies: the world is not a black and white place).  This issue is related to the concept of the fixed action pattern, but this one has taken longer to die.  Why?  It’s the caveat about being kinda, sorta right.  But here the point is that it is not a dichotomy.  No matter where we look, it’s a continuum, from highly genetically controlled (but never entirely: see point above) to virtually entirely environmental, what we in applied animal behavior would call ‘learned’, but again, never without a genetic component to the behavior.  So now we use terms like ‘genetic predispositions’ or ’strong learning component’ and really talk about these two ends of the continuum as explaining a proportion of the variability in a trait, a concept that is on a continuous, not a dichotomous, scale.

Another example of this continuum issue that I hear all the time is the question of whether dogs have a ‘dominance hierarchy’ (beyond the fact that most companion animal behaviorists are working with VERY old ideas about what a dominance hierarchy is: another blog topic altogether!).  So all dogs, individually, and all dog breeds, have to either possess (be influenced, include in their behavioral repertoire) a dominance-based form of social structure, or not.  Wolves have a dominance hierarchy-based social system and dogs do… or do not, depending on your point-of-view.  OK, first, the existence of dominance hierarchies in wolves (as well as numerous other species) varies on the basis of ecology, their lifestyle, prey, metabolic needs, etc.  So it’s not open-and-shut for wolves.  Now for dogs: the facts show clearly that the use of dominance, the importance of dominance hierachies in the life of, even the ABILITY to communicate such information, varies widely from breed to breed, due to our artificial selection of this, and more often, other related traits, like coat color, hair type, and temperament.  So it’s a continuum: for some breeds, social structure is VERY important; for others, it can influence their behavior; and for yet others, they can’t even recognize these signals.  A major disaster that we see regularly in metropolitan dog parks is when the first type meet the third type, without supervision: but again, perhaps a topic for another blog.  And the same goes for the common argument that while dogs may have social structure, they don’t include humans in their hierarchies… again, as an across-the-board claim, it’s clearly wrong.  Some breeds do, some breeds don’t.

Back to other old animal behavior concepts and terms: there are also concepts which were originally just that, only a concept, and for which we have never discovered a mechanism.  A nice idea, but without a mechanism, just not useful anymore.  These are often terms and concepts that describe a phenomenon functionally or descriptively but which have no mechanistic, explanatory power behind them: an example is Instinctive Drift.  Unfortunately, this term has led to a term more commonly used in applied animal behavior, Predatory Drift, based loosely on the idea of instinctive drift, descriptive of something that we see occur but without any mechanistic, useful purpose.  The same behavior can be more clearly and with a stronger empirical basis explained in other ways.

Another example of this phenomenon that I ran into recently is the “Hydraulic Model of Drives,” created in the mid-20th-century by the father of modern ethology, Konrad Lorenz.  It was actually called the Psycho-Hydraulic Model, and many believe that it was actually a little ethology joke: the description of his model was based on a European toilet system, a water closet (geeks are just SO funny!!).  But for a decade or two, it was tested as a model, but by the end of his career, in the ‘70’s, even Lorenz had abandoned it for more powerful models, models which fit the data that we were collecting.  So this model has taken its historic place, and certainly acted in a heuristic fashion to generate considerable discussion and much experimental work before being rejected in the end.  But it lives on in the literature and discussions of some dog trainers!

Finally, there are concepts that are simply made-up, never really true, often derived from wherever those old wives produce their tales: a classic example of this is the ‘alpha roll’ or ’scruffing’ of  dominant wolves towards their subordinates, and thus assumed by some trainers and veterinarians to be a useful concept in the domestic dog.  Domestic dogs are evolved directly from gray wolves: the evidence is quite clear on that now, but there is no such thing as alpha rolling, in wolves or domestic dogs… so why do some trainers keep using it?  It’s punishment, pure and simple.

So let’s kill some of these useless concepts and terms: Fixed Action Patterns, Nature vs Nurture and hard-wired behaviors, Predatory Drift, and the alpha roll.  Let’s get modern: pick up a good textbook in animal behavior… I have a great reading list available.  Don’t date yourself… we ethologists have come a long way in a relatively short time, and companion animal behaviorists have much to contribute to the modern science of ethology, but to do so, we have to stay up front with the science.  Contact me if you are interested in more ways to do this: if there is enough interest, I’ll write a future blog about it.

It’s been an interesting week.  Last Friday, a local trainer and colleague, Grisha Stewart of Ahimsa Dog Training contacted me to ask if I would discuss Cesar Millan’s techniques with a reporter from KOMO-TV here in Seattle. To see video of the piece broadcast by KOMO-TV, click here, or click on the image to the right. Millan was in town for a meet-and-greet and fundraiser for a local pet shelter.  I leaped at the chance, as the science that I do as an ethologist very much clashes with his approaches, and I have been working hard to get the word out to the public about the serious side effects of his techniques.

In our practice, we see MANY cases of dogs with severe aggression, and in performing our detailed background interviews and assessments, we find that the dog has gotten worse following treatment with behavior modification techniques similar to those of Millan’s, whether administered by the owner, based on what they think that they know of the methods, or administered by local trainers who use similar techniques.  These cases elegantly support what we already know from the science of animal behavior, called ethology.

What are Millan’s techniques?  They involve a combination of exhaustion, flooding, and a very traditional use of aversive learning, more commonly called punishment.  What is lacking from his approaches is any sort of positive social interaction, rewarding of proper behavior, “positive affect” as it is called by the psychologists.

Exhaustion as a behavior modification technique is now being debated for its role in anti-terrorist torture techniques, and we know from decades of learning research that exhaustion actually decreases learning.  Flooding as a useful technique in humans has lost its adherents due to its potentially negative side-effects and its ineffectiveness: a vaguely similar but much more useful technique is called desensitization.  Flooding is basically the process of “breaking” an animal (or human), a technique now also rapidly losing favor in the horse training world.  Finally, Millan makes heavy use of punishment, but which he, completely incorrectly, describes as being part of dog pack dominance behavior.

We know that the use of any one of these techniques will produce fear, anxiety, and a well-documented phenomenon known as “learned helplessness.”  Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to act or behave helpless in a particular situation, even when it has the power to change its unpleasant or even harmful circumstance. Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation (Seligman, 1975).  This condition has been heavily researched, originally by Seligman’s group at Cornell University.  It is one of the conditions we see in post-traumatic stress disorder (a similar condition from which many of the “badly behaved” dogs that are brought to Millan, and to our practice, are suffering), and it is what we see in many of the animals that have been handled using Millan’s techniques.

It’s also interesting to note that we biologists, ethologists, studying the behavior of animals in the world around us would NEVER be allowed to apply the techniques that Millan uses to the crows, primates, killer whales, and other animals that we find so fascinating… and we wouldn’t want to: these techniques tell us nothing and do not help us learn any more about our fellow wildlife.

Given that we know that any of these techniques can produce horrible side-effects, one of the worst things about Millan’s approach is that he combines the use of all three.  For these reasons, because we know so much more about dog behavior than Cesar Millan fans realize, because the use of these techniques, especially when we know better, is unethical, I was happy to speak to the KOMO reporter.

As always in the our world, everything is not black-and-white: will Millan’s techniques produce a change in the behavior of a dog, a decrease in aggression in the specific context in which he does the training and in the trainer’s presence?  Yup… and we see that on the National Geographic Channel.  But at the cost of what severe long-term and side-effect consequences, which we do not see on the National Geographic Channel?

Do I suggest in my own work that many a dog’s problems arise from boredom and lack of exercise, especially younger dogs and those bred for high energy, and do I therefore recommend a greatly expanded exercise program, even training your dog to (voluntarily) run on a treadmill?  Yup… but note the voluntary part!

Do some breeds require a clear social structure and “get into trouble” without it, and do I therefore sometimes recommend affirming and clarifying a social structure, using proper social communication signals that dogs recognize?  Yup, but notice the part about “some breeds” and proper social signals, which do not include shock collars, “helicoptering” a dog on a choke collar, alpha-rolling a dog (wolves don’t DO this!!!), or any other aversive techniques.

The approaches that we, and most of our colleagues, use are based on science, on a knowledge of animal behavior and psychology that has grown by leaps and bounds (little pun intended) in the past few decades.  We no longer use concepts like fixed action patterns, instinctive drift, and nature vs nurture; we know that punishment doesn’t work in dogs… our view of the animals with which we share this planet, and with which we associate every day, has become far more complicated, and far more fascinating.  I love my job!

We always love to hear from our readers, so feel free to let us know your thoughts on the KOMO piece. We know that this is an emotional topic for many people, so just a gentle reminder to be respectful when you post. You can also send email to Joel Moreno, KOMO-TV: jmoreno@komotv.com.

Cats, like all mammals, are social creatures.  While cats are far less social than dogs, to think of cats as asocial is wrong.  The degree of social behavior and the ability of an individual to adapt to a changing social environment varies with species (certainly cats are less social than dogs), breed (Bengal cats are less social than domestic short-hairs), and individual personality.  Even individual personality is dependent on factors like genetics (or what we often call temperament) and learning or socialization.  So genetics play a big role, at the species, breed, and then individual level.

A recent study looked at how young cats reacted to familiar and unfamiliar people and to a novel object, and showed that the social personality of the father (genetics) as well as the degree of early socialization (learning) influenced the later degree of social stress in human interactions, but only the genetics influenced the (nonsocial) response to a novel object.  This is a nice example of the interaction between genetics and learning.  And of course, this is true of all mammals.

So cats are less social than dogs… and some cats are genetically at the nonsocial end of the cat continuum.  This means that not all cats can be housed socially.  This is true of dogs as well, just much less common.  But there is that one important variable, learning and the environment, that gives us something that we can manipulate, or a tool to maximize the odds that a cat that we own will be sociable.

The next factor to understand is the concept of critical periods, again common in all mammals.  This is another process by which genetics and experience interact: critical periods are genetically-controlled time windows in the brain in which certain experiences are dramatically more likely to be remembered and to influence later behavior.  In kittens, the critical period for positive effects of social experience is approximately three to eight weeks of age (with some variability, 2-12 weeks to be sure).  Evolutionarily, in the wild, this is the period in which kittens learn who their parents and siblings are: these are “friendlies” with whom you can safely socialize.  These are also “not-mates” thus preventing inbreeding issues.

So cats will generally only socialize well with siblings (who they experienced at 3-8 weeks old), and even this is true only in females… males become entirely nonsocial, except for brief periods for mating.  In captivity, it is VERY difficult to have more than one male in a household, even if they are castrated, unless they were socialized with a lot of other cats in the 3-8 week window.  And remember, this behavior and response is all on a continuum: there are plenty of examples of social male cats but of course, there are many examples of big problems as well.

So given that there is a critical period for socialization at 3-8 weeks, what does this mean for our companion cats?  A common issue is a kitten adopted from its litter prior to 12 weeks and who is wonderful with humans (who handled it in the socialization window), but attacks any other cat.  Or a young cat that was part of a feral litter, who is socialized only with its littermates and has a very hard time socializing with humans, whom it only encountered well after the socialization critical window, or other cats, with whom it was not socialized and perhaps has even had some negative, competitive interactions.

We have been talking about positive social experiences: how about negative or traumatic experiences?  The same effect works in this case: traumatic or unstable social experiences in the 3-8 week window have a much stronger, more lasting effect than the same experiences at other times.  A recent study, for instance, showed that poorly socialized cats exhibited higher levels of stress when housed in a social setting, whereas cats with a positive early history of socialization showed no differences in social stress in solitary or social housing situations.

So what does this tell us about introducing a new kitten into a household?  First, take into account the history.  In many cases, for instance in shelter adoptions, there is very little history, but if there is any information about the personalities of the parents, this may be important.  Then, what is known about the kitten’s early socialization?  Finally, how was the cat housed, and at what age, in the shelter, or even elsewhere?  All of this information will tell you something about how the cat will react to a social situation.

Then, when introducing a new kitten into a feline social setting, the two big rules are: Go Slow and Keep It Positive.  Introductions should proceed slowly, only as fast as the participants want.  Keep cats separated by doors, windows, furniture, or baby gates, and introduce them to each other slowly.  Keep it positive, make everybody want to play the “meet the new cat” game.  Provide food rewards or attention to reward good social behavior: make it a party!  But don’t push strange cats together: each bad interaction, hiss, or fight provides a negative connotation to the interaction, and enough of these just teach the cats to avoid each other as much as possible.  Finally, encourage socialization as early as possible: the more a kitten is handled (gently and without trauma, of course) by as many humans as possible, and the more different cats it encounters (again, in a positive way), the greater the chances of later problem-free social behavior.

I am frequently asked about readings in animal behavior.  One of the nice things about practicing in a region like Seattle is that our audience is so well educated.  So not infrequently I have clients who want to learn more, want to read more about animal behavior.  Most often, they want to read more about what we call Applied Animal Behavior.  Applied animal behavior is the relatively new field which deals with the behavior (and misbehavior) of our companion animals based on a scientific approach that extends from the modern academic field of animal behavior, or ethology.  Ethology was historically based in Europe, and is a field of biology and psychology, that is, it is a sub-discipline of evolutionary biology.  The basic precepts of ethology are that behavior has a genetic, and thus evolutionary, basis, overlaid with environmental influences (learning and experience), that we can best learn about the behavior of animals by learning about the behavior of close and distant relatives in natural environments which allow the expression of species- (or in the case of dogs, breed)-typical behaviors.  It is an approach that traces its roots, like all the rest of modern biology, back to Darwin in the mid-1800’s, and one that has been revolutionized, again like many topics in biology, by the DNA/genetics revolution.  The mapping of the entire dog genome at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in recent years has begun to confirm the long-standing assumptions of ethology.So here I present a highly personal reading list in ethology.  In this entry, I suggest some reading in basic ethology, and in a later entry, I will focus in readings in applied animal behavior.  These are sort of readings, both basic and applied, required of students of this field, beginning at the undergraduate level and right on through graduate or board-certification work in ethology.  These are the books that my students, graduate and undergraduate, read.  And these would provide the foundation for an excellent library in animal behavior.

General Readings in Animal Behavior and Ethology: Textbooks
I have not listed years because there are many editions: the more recent, the better, but any will do.  These are the basic textbooks in animal behavior, with Alcock and Drickamer being the most advanced “serious” texts.  Klopfer’s book is a little different, taking a historical and personality approach to the basics of behavior.

Alcock, J.  Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach
Drickamer, L. et al.  Animal Behavior: Mechanisms, Ecology and Evolution
Goodenough, et al.  Perspectives on Animal Behavior
Maier, R.   Comparative Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary and Ecological Approach
Klopfer, P.:  An Introduction to Animal Behavior: Ethology’s First Century (a very readable introduction to the history of modern animal behavior)

Evolution
To understand modern animal behavior, you need to understand evolution, and these books will give you a great start to a huge scientific discipline.

Brackman, A.: A Delicate Arrangement
(a description of the relationship, or lack thereof, between  Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace)
Darwin, C.: The Origin of the Species
(the classic that started it all, not an easy read and not the best introduction to evolution as we now understand it: read it for the historical perspective)
Dawkins, R.: The Selfish Gene
(a wonderful and thought-provoking book about the implications of modern Darwinism)
Dennett, D.: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
(a very recent book by a philosopher of science about the deeper implications of Darwin’s view of evolution)
Gould, S.J.: (numerous collections of essays — sometimes controversial, always entertaining: take some of it with a grain of salt)
Stone, I.: The Origin
(an historical novel about Darwin’s life: a great introduction to his life and times)

Personal Accounts
I put these here to provide a very accessible introduction to how ethologists think and work.  Many of these have been best-sellers in the population literature, but all provide a glimpse into the world of the modern animal behaviorist.

Fossey, D.: Gorillas in the Mist
(one of “Leakey’s Women,” along with Goodall and Galdikas, this and the next two books illustrate the payoffs to patient, time-consuming field work and the risks of attempting to do science without training)
Galdika, B.: Reflections of Eden
(Leakey student’s study of orangs in Indonesia)
Goodall, J.: In the Shadow of Man
(Leakey student’s study of chimpanzees)
Heinrich, B.: Ravens in Winter
(fascinating and eccentric study of a difficult-to-study species)
Lorenz, K.: King Solomon’s Ring
(very readable insight into the early days of ethology, one of my most recommended readings in behavior)
Mowat, F.: Woman in the Mist
(a different, and more objective, view of Fossey’s work and life with gorillas)
Schaller, G.: Year of the Gorilla
(story of the early work with wild gorillas which laid the groundwork for Fossey)
Tinbergen, N.: Curious Naturalist
(the life and studies of one of the founders of ethology)
Wilson, E.O.: The Naturalist
(autobiography of the brilliant Harvard scientist who established the direction of much of behavior research for years to come: winner of several book awards)

Advanced
These are books that delve into the details.  These are more advanced, a little “thicker” than most of the books listed above (except maybe the textbooks), but these show you the details, and the future, of research and learning in animal behavior in general.

Axelrod, R.: Evolution of Cooperation
(very readable intro to game theory and the evolution of social behavior)
Lehner, P.: Handbook of Ethological Methods
(the bible for methodology in animal behavior research)
Mech, L.D.: The Wolf
(detailed report of a long-term wolf research program)
Poundstone, W.: Prisoner’s Dilemma
(a biography of an interesting character, John Von Neumann, who invented game theory, and the application of games to human behavior)
Wilson, E.O & B. Holldobler: The Ants
(the main resource on ant behavior: readable too!)
Wilson, E.O.: Insect Societies
(everything you wanted to know about ants, bees, and wasps, and probably more)
Wilson, E.O.: Sociobiology: A New Synthesis
(the book that started an entirely new field)

So that’s my reading list for general animal behavior… later, I will present a similar sort of list but more specifically directed at applied animal behavior, from both an academic and a popular view.  Feel free to leave me a comment if you have a favorite book to recommend, or a question about a book you’ve seen or read, or a specific topic in animal behavior for which you would like a reading recommendation.  Time to read!

So back to fishing the Keys: aquatic applied animal behavior in action!  In the Keys for a fishing-immersion, 50th birthday trip, I described the offshore trip in my last blog.  But what I was really looking forward to was the flats-fishing: two mornings, out before sunrise (ouch!), and in position on a 2-3 foot deep sand and grass flat, in a boat designed to float in less than 1 foot of water, watching for the characteristic changes in the surface of the water that revealed the movement and feeding of bonefish, tarpon, and sharks under the surface.  It’s a more subtle kind of fishing than offshore running-and-gunning for open-ocean species, and when a bonefish finally slurps that shrimp or lure and accelerates away to peel 300 feet of line off your reel in a matter of seconds, there is nothing like it.  I had successfully fly-fished for bonefish in lagoons on the north side of the island of Cozumel in Mexico (that’s another story altogether), but for the much spookier, more experienced fish here in the Keys, we were fishing with live crabs and shrimp.

So the approach is more like the wildlife photography that I had been doing since I was a teen-ager, and in which my son was quite active now: a stalk, a stake-out, a quiet move to a (hopefully) better location.  Keen eyes (some keener than others) watching for the evidence of an animal’s passage, attempts to predict the movement of feeding animals: again, applied animal behavior in action.  All set in an absolutely gorgeous tropical setting, with exotic birds (frigates, ibis, endangered herons and pigeons) to watch at the slow times.

How’d we do?  Not bad: our guide was Captain Ann Holahan out of Islamorada (boneranger.com), and she first moved us to a channel on the edge of a flat to try for tarpon, the huge, leaping species that has excited so many anglers in the past like Zane Grey and George H.W. Bush, who had caught a 130 pound tarpon a few hundred yards from our location a few months ago.  We dropped a couple of crabs over the side, and watched the sun rise… in what seems now like a very short time, my line was tight.  But no jumping, just repeated high speed runs, each run peeling off a hundred feet or more of line in that, oh, so satisfying whine of the reel that signifies a BIG fish.  Without the characteristic jumps, it didn’t seem like a tarpon: perhaps just a big lunker nurse shark, a relatively unexciting and very common species.  But the speed was too much.  Thirty-five minutes of fight later, and the brilliant silver flash of a very large permit neared the surface: 40 pounds of a beautiful fish, not a record but a very large fish, probably a tournament winner if we had been in a tournament.  A Captain Ann client had boated a 60+ pounder a few months earlier: she’ll need to be careful or she’ll have to switch her reputation from bonefish to big permit.  For those not familiar with Caribbean or tropical sport fish, a permit is a vertically-flattened, high-speed swimming, flats-crab-and-shrimp-feeding fish related to jacks and pompanos.  It’s a sport fish, and we grabbed a very quick photo and performed a smooth release.

Later that morning, we moved to the true flats, about 2 ft of water, and my son watched and waited while small bonnethead sharks (smaller relatives of the hammerhead shark) move up the current towards our boat.  A quick and very accurate cast of a shrimp in front of them and he hooked up for a wild ride.  In this shallow water, the trick during that blazing initial run is to raise the rod as high as you can in the hopes of preventing the fish from wrapping your fragile line around a piece of coral in the sand.  He got it up high, began to gain line, and brought a ten pound shark up next to the boat before it broke away: sharks have such sharp teeth that a thin wire leader near the hook is required to assure a catch, and this would scare off a bonefish (our primary target) and hence we were not using one.  Boating a shark would therefore be a much bigger challenge and he did well to get it close.  Nothing for the rest of the morning, although we saw bonefish and sharks, but none came within casting distance.

Two days later, we are out again, hunting for bonefish again, and again, skunked.  We moved around, and eventually started working on some little sharks, but it was not to be, and we went home mildly frustrated but still riding a high from that permit, and happy to be outside, in the Keys, on the water, and learning a LOT about flats fishing.  We’ll be back soon, we always are, and now we can add flats-fishing to our repertoire.

I hope you enjoyed this little departure from dogs and cats and their trials and triumphs; let me know if you’d like to hear more about animal behavior, science, and field experiences by clicking on the Comments button below.  If you have general animal behavior questions, or questions about the science of animal behavior, send me a note, and I will try to address them in future blogs.  If you have a great flats-fishing story, send it along as well.

I just got back from a three week vacation in the Florida Keys. Even on vacation, I am involved in animal behavior. I grew up in the Keys and left there when I was about 14 years old, returned several times in the ‘70’s while I was in college on the East Coast, but in 2002, I had not returned since a brief visit in 1982. In 2002, with a wife and a nine year old son who had never seen Florida, much less the Keys, we returned, and we all fell in love (again, for me) with the string of 142 islands extending south of Miami to Key West, a mere 90 miles from Havana (130 miles from Miami!). It’s got a laid back Caribbean attitude, the feeling of small towns and islands (those who love the San Juan Islands will know what I mean: I get the same island feeling there), beautiful weather, and yet, U.S. amenities, currency, domestic airfare status, language, and all of the other good (and of course, bad) things that go with being part of the United States.

And it has the best all-around fishing in the world. I grew up fishing the Keys, of course, where you catch something within minutes (seconds, even) of dropping your line in the water, where you never know what you’ll catch (snapper or grouper one second, a parrotfish the next, and the next, a shark). There are at least four fundamental styles of fishing from which to choose: flats (the shallow warm-water home of bonefish, permit and sharks), backcountry (fishing the mangrove swamps of the Everglades for redfish, sea trout, and groupers), the reef (home of snapper, grouper, jacks, and barracuda), and off-shore (the big-game fishing of Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway for dolphinfish, sailfish, tuna, and marlin).

My wife and son and I enjoyed our first fishing so much, from bridges throughout the Keys, that we bought a 17-foot boat that we keep in dry storage in Marathon, our favorite part of the Keys. We have begun to improve our proficiency at reef fishing, the type of fishing which requires the least skill and specialized equipment. I view, in many ways, fishing as simply aquatic applied animal behavior. You have to know your species, their typical behavior patterns and haunts, well enough to be able to predict how they will react to certain stimuli, like oh, say, a live shrimp or a feathered lure dangled in front of them. You need to know a lot about their sensory systems, movement patterns, food habits and triggers for feeding behavior, and of course, you need to apply this information appropriately to be successful. The same can be said of hunting, or of wildlife photography (another hobby of my son’s). For a professional animal behaviorist who loves his work, what’s not to like.

So for my recent 50th birthday (aaah, that’s a big one), I promised myself that I would begin to move my fishing expertise to a new level, by hiring a guide(s) to explore some other kinds of Keys fishing on my next visit; indeed, to plan our next trip around some serious fishing experiences. And thus, three weeks in the Keys, with an emphasis on fishing. We got our boat in the water, of course, and had a blast fishing the reefs of both the Atlantic Ocean and Florida Bay: snapper of three species, houndfish, grunts, chubs, and more. Even my mother, in her very spry 70’s, came out and fished (although she says she was along just to watch the sunsets!). But the big treats included an off-shore trip on a 28-foot twin outboard powerboat rigged with multiple trolling rods and lures, where we did what is called ‘run and gun’ for offshore species like dolphinfish and tuna. This involves heading out beyond the reef, about nine miles offshore, and watching for ocean birds which have located schools of baitfish. Where the birds are attacking the baitfish from above, there are usually big-game fish attacking from below (aha, more applied animal behavior!). We spent six hours from 9-18 miles offshore in the Gulf Stream, in 5-8 foot swells, straining our eyes at the horizon to see feeding birds, running to meet up with them, and trolling our (hopefully enticing) lures nearby. The result: seven dolphinfish and five small tunas, all 6-8 pounds each and all great eating. There is NOTHING like tuna salad made with truly fresh tuna!

Two other mornings were early ones: flats fishing, the epitome of stalking in which you are positioning yourself on flats that are 2-3 feet deep, and watching for visible signs of fish to move across the flats: bonefish, rays and skates, permit, redfish, sharks, even tarpon over 100 pounds, all on the flats to feed on shrimp, crabs, and clams and snails. My experience flats-fishing the Keys in my next blog.