Companion Animal Psychology

By Zazie Todd, PhD Happy New Year! Good health and happiness to all our readers in 2016. These were the top posts of 2015. Which were your favourite? And what would you like to see covered here in 2016? 1. Different dog breeds, different sensitive period? A study of three breeds finds differences in the sensitive period, and shows socialization should begin before you even take your puppy home. - See more at: http://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/2015/04/different-dog-breeds-different.html#sthash.yaKUk2kL.dpuf A study of three breeds finds differences in the sensitive period, and shows socialization should begin before you even take your puppy home. 2. Re-arranging metaphors for dogs The problems with the wolf pack metaphor go deeper than you think. 3. What do young children learn from pets? Is a better understanding of biology something that young children learn from dogs and cats? 4. Where do cats like to b...

Pavel Sepi/Shutterstock Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year to all our readers from Companion Animal Psychology. By Zazie Todd, PhD

Why you should go to puppy class, what to look for in a class, and why it could be the best investment you make in your dog. Photo: Grigorita Ko/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. Puppy classes provide important socialization opportunities and early learning experiences for puppies up to 5 months old. Puppy class is not just about training, it’s also (even mostly) about socialization. Let's look at why socialization matters for your pup, and then how to find the best class near you. Puppy Class and  Socialization Socialization matters because dogs go through a developmental stage when happy, positive experiences with new people, dogs and things are important, and help to set them up to be happy, calm adult dogs. We know this because studies that kept puppies in isolation (e.g. Freedman, King and Elliot 1961 ) found they became very fearful. Many dog t...

A selection of favourite photos from the blog.  By Zazie Todd, PhD One of the things I enjoy about writing Companion Animal Psychology is picking out the photo for each week’s post. I wait until I’ve finished the first draft, and choose the photo before I go back to edit. It feels like a treat to browse through the images. Most of the time I’m looking for a photo in which the animal is happy and relaxed. Although there are some gorgeous studio shots, I tend to prefer more realistic settings. There are some stories for which any puppy or kitten would do, but other posts need something specific. Sometimes it’s not obvious what kind of photo is best to illustrate a story, and then I’m looking for some kind of connection, a metaphorical thread that links the visual to the prose.  pjmorley (Shutterstock.com) This photo of the mouse scampering away from the sleeping cat makes me smile. I used it to illustrate a story about the role of animals in everyday life, based...

What keeps goldfish happy in their tank – and how do we know? Photo: The Gallery/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. You’ve heard about the importance of enrichment for companion animals (like dogs ) and for zoo animals, but what about goldfish? Fish are the third most popular pet - kept by 12.3 million households in the US - so it’s an important topic for animal welfare. Different types of fish might have different preferences. A new study by Miriam Sullivan (University of Western Australia) et al investigates. Enrichment “is particularly important for goldfish and other pet fish for two main reasons,” Miriam Sullivan told me. “One, people tend to underestimate how smart fish are, which probably means they spend less time and effort on enrichment for their fish compared to other pets like cats and dogs.” “And two, fish health is really closely connected to t...

When people with a kitten are given behavioural advice, their pet is better-behaved at 1 year old. By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. A new pet can be hard work, and if people don’t fully understand the needs of their animals, behaviour problems can result. A new study investigates whether education for owners at their first vet appointment is the answer.  People with a new kitten (3 months old) were given 25 minutes of standardized advice on caring for cats. The study, by Angelo Gazzano et al (University of Pisa) compared the behaviour of these cats at just over 1 year old with that of a control group where no behavioural advice was given. The authors say, “providing simple, relatively short advice at the very beginning of a kitten-owner relationship is not only important in pleasing the owners, protecting cat welfare, and [the] cat-owner relationship but also i...

A study of over 16,000 adoptable dogs finds black dogs don’t take longer to be adopted after all. Photo: Istvan Csak/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. Understanding what people look for in adoptable dogs can make a big difference to animal shelters. It makes sense to target promotions in order to stop dogs having lengthy stays. But you can only do this if you know what people want.  The idea that black dogs wait longer for a new home than dogs of other colours has been around for a while. New research by Heather Svoboda and Christy Hoffman (Canisius College) suggests it does not exist, at least at the two shelters they surveyed. Christy Hoffman told me, “ We did not find evidence of Black Dog Syndrome, but we did find that shelter outcomes tended to be worse for brindle dogs and, not surprisingly, bully breeds. A relatively recent paper by Brown et al...

Recently readers were invited to send in photos of their happy dogs with the #makeyourdoghappy hashtag. These are my favourites. It was very hard to choose - thank you to everyone who sent photos and gave me permission to share them. By Zazie Todd, PhD Erin Beckett says “Radar LOVES force free training. He gets so excited for our training sessions.” @Misa212 sent in this gorgeous photo of Trigger and her clicker. Helen Verte says, "Dudley's only been trained force free and he's always ready to offer a behavior for something delish. Besides food, and chase-me games, belly rubs make him incredibly happy and content!" Gill Land says “ Daks loves everyone and everything and knows how to have fun. ” Shelly Fourie says of Sasha, "My 3 year old Jack Russell waiting for her next treat." William Henderson says, "Colin is a happy boy." @5_pups sent in this wonderful photo o...