What is your cat revealing to you when she purrs? What is your dog expressing when he yawns or wags his tail? Understanding your cat and dog’s behaviour and the way they communicate with you, will enable you to better understand their needs and strengthen your relationship with them. This MOOC is divided into five topics, the appliance of science; behaviour and body language, senses and perception; challenges for the human-animal relationship, including pet problem behaviour; and how to improve the quality of life for cats and dogs in our care. At the start of the course we ask you to consider what you feel is important to your cat/dog and what your cat/dog means to you? We explore the world of cats and dogs and how our relationships with them vary around the world and have changed over time. We ask if we can really know what our animals are thinking or trying to communicate through their facial expressions and behaviours. From our beloved pets to street dogs, shelter dogs/cats and welfare challenges, we explore the world from their perspective and examine how their genetic make-up may influence their behavioural responses and choices. We dispel common behavioural myths by looking through a scientific lens, asking questions about the function and development of their behaviour.. We explore how their senses help them to interact with their world and how they communicate with each other and us! Finally, we ask whether we impose unrealistic expectations on our cats and dogs and how this affects their ability to live alongside us. We ask, what can we do to be more responsible pet owners and to ensure the welfare of all cats and dogs in society? This MOOC explores different scientifically validated methods that can help you to better understand your pet, to enrich their lives and help you to be a more educated and confident pet owner. We hope you enjoy the course!
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From the course by The University of Edinburgh
The Truth About Cats and Dogs
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From the lesson
Living with humans
In week 4, we explore the domestic environment and how our cats and dogs adjust to this (or not). We will also discuss what behaviours may arise due to the unrealistic expectations that we may impose on our pets. The videos this week, will help you recognise the signs of fear, frustration, and anxiety, as well as other behavioural problems in cats and dogs. At the end of the week, you will be able to complete the fourth graded quiz.
Meet the Instructors
Miss Hayley Walters, RVN
Welfare and Anaesthesia
Dr Heather BaconVeterinary welfare edcuation and outreach
Jeanne Marchig International Centre of Animal Welfare Education
Professor Nat WaranProfessor of One Welfare
Eastern Institute of Technology, Napier, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.
Dr Amy MieleLecturer in Clinical Animal Behaviour
Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education
Okay, we've had another question in this week about
someone's dog who they say is very submissive when meeting other dogs,
when out on walks.
But this behavior actually means that none of
them will attack her. So it's working for her.
She doesn't growl, she just creeps in and crouches on her tummy,
and it's a bit difficult when you're on a walk because very assertive dogs will
come over and she will just crouch down initially and not move at all,
and after a few minutes they seem to be fine with her.
They've got the attitude of, let them sort themselves out off the lead,
as being on the lead seems to make the more assertive dogs worse.
Okay, so your dog's very sensible.
This behavior is working for your dog.
What she is doing is not submitting.
He or she is not submitting to the other dog,
a word that we don't generally use very often with dog training.
What your dog is doing is showing appeasing behavior.
When a dog is feeling fearful,
there is a ladder which you'll have seen on week two,
I believe, I think, week four,
that they go up before they ever have to reach the biting stage
and it starts off very low level signals of whites of the eye showing,
licking of the nose, gaze averting,
making themselves look very non-threatening.
If the thing that's making them stress doesn't disappear,
doesn't move away, then they have to creep up that ladder,
which can be, the next thing would be to roll on their back,
and show that they are of no threat.
And I like to think of it as the equivalent of if someone
starts on you in a pub and they're really staring at you you go,
hi, I'm of no threat to you. Show your hands.
I'm no threat and similar with dogs,
roll on their back, crawl on their belly,
hunch themselves, make themselves small.
I'm no threat to you.
And this is what your dog is doing before any threat has been shown to her.
So she's very very sensible,
and it appears to be working for her because the other dog see her
as completely non-threatening and she avoids fights, all the time.
So I probably won't be too worried about this behavior.
I think she's being very sensible.
Perhaps she has been attacked in the past and now this is
her go to behavior and it's working.
If it didn't work for her,
then she would have to creep up that ladder a little bit further,
and the next thing would be to stiffen up and stare.
Perhaps she'd have to growl at the dog,
if the dog listened to that,
it would move away but if it didn't,
her next thing would then be have to snap and and do a full on bite.
So this is, this is great that she is doing this.
What we want to make clear,
is that this isn't really submission.
If it was submission it would suggest that she would go no further.
But because this is appeasing behavior,
if the other dog keeps on at her,
she will have to go further to sort the situation out.
Using submission is a little bit
dangerous to use because it suggests the dog will not bite.
And we see this with dogs reacting like this to children.
A person thinks the dog is being submissive to the child.
The child keeps on annoying the dog.
The dog then has to go up and correct the situation with more of an issue.
We also had a similar question which related to somebody's dog,
who didn't understand these types of appeasing signals and was actually then escalating,
when other dogs were interacting and telling him no,
back off, back off.
I'm not interested in interacting with you.
He was still persisting and not responding either to any kind of appeasing
behavior or any kind of low level threat behavior such as growling,
staring or stiff body posture.
And so he was forcing the other dogs to escalate
their behaviors into aggression simply to get rid of him because he was so annoying.
And the owner was asking,
can we do anything about this,
and why does it happen.
It's likely that as a young dog,
as a puppy, during socialization perhaps,
this dog didn't have a good level
of experience of interacting and communicating with other dogs.
We have to remember that we take dogs away from
their mothers and their siblings when they're
often around the age of eight to nine weeks old.
We bring them into our human households.
It's really important that their learning how to be dogs doesn't stop there,
and that they get lots of positive dog interaction and also are able
to pick up on appropriate social signals and cues from other dogs.
Certainly in our experience,
dogs that have spent lots of time interacting with other dogs when they're young,
and particularly during that critical socialization phase,
are usually very good at communicating with other dogs.
Whereas dogs that have to spend more time with humans when they're young,
perhaps can be lacking in dog social skills.
So get your dogs, get your puppies out there. Get them meeting.
Don't make a really novel experience to meeting other dogs.
They should be meeting other dogs all the time so that they
keep learning how to behave appropriately around them.
Absolutely. Okay, and so our last question just relates
to obesity in dogs and cats and it seems to be an increasing problem within our pets.
That absolutely seems to be the case in the UK,
and it's reported in other Western countries as well.
There are a number of different reasons for this.
We know for example, that in some breeds of dogs such as the Labrador Retriever,
the type of dog that we select for,
that makes a good family pet,
that is trainable and obedient,
and there also seems to be a genetic relationship with selecting for those traits,
and also selecting at the same time for hunger within those breeds.
And if any of you have Labradors,
you'll know how greedy they can often be as a breed.
That greed makes them very trainable because they respond very quickly to food.
But it also means that they can feel hunger a lot more than other dog breeds,
and that means that they are much more food motivated,
much more likely to steal,
and much more likely to overeat if we allow them to.
Other factors in addition to breed,
that may contribute to it obesity are neutering.
Neutering is obviously an excellent way of controlling dog and cat populations,
and we know there are too many dogs and cats in the world,
in relation to the long term homes that are available for them.
However, neutering also reduces metabolic rate,
by about 20 percent.
That means neutered dogs and cats need a smaller amount
of food because their energy requirements are lower.
So it's very important to reduce your pet's diet after they've been neutered.
So it's economical to neuter them too.
It can be economical to neuter them.
And the other factor and I think probably one of the most significant factors is
quite similar to the type of obesity that we see in humans as well.
We spend a lot more time sitting down.
We're often more sedentary.
We're working longer hours.
And if we think about the types of activities our dogs and cats have been bred for,
things like sheep herding,
hunting, and guarding, then those dogs are bred to be active all of the time.
Similarly with our cats,
they would normally be domesticated or evolved
to be rat catchers or to be mouse catchers,
to be doing some kind of job around the home
and to be outside roaming around all of the time.
And so the levels of activity for our modern dogs and cats
is really a lot lower than perhaps it has been previously,
and this is also contributing to the obesity issues that we're seeing.
So it's really important that when your cat meows,
that you don't just respond with food.
And it could be meowing for attention.
It could be meowing because it wants some kind of positive human interaction.
Play again with your cat.
Get some fishing toys. Get a laser pointer.
Be safe, obviously with your laser pointer,
no lasers in the eyes.
But those kind of games can be really rewarding for your pet cats.
Obviously with your dog,
lots of nice walks,
off lead exercise where that's possible, playing fetch.
All of these kinds of interactions,
they're great for improving muscle strength for
reducing obesity and also for reinforcing the human animal bond.
And really when we think about it,
when we've got pets in our lives,
we've got them because we enjoy that interaction.
And so we need to show them love in a meaningful way,
and that's not necessarily reaching for the biscuit tin,
which might make us feel better in the short term,
but in the long term it's potentially dangerous for the pets that we choose to keep.
Yeah, it's difficult because if you have
a dog sitting in front of you and it's looking like it's hungry or wants food,
and we do like feeding our animals, that's okay.
But what you, as a quick tip,
what you could be doing is weighing out
your dog's daily measure of food or your cats daily portion of food,
dip it into a jar, that is that dog or cats daily allowance.
And if you want to reward them,
do any training with them,
they've been well-behaved, take it out of that daily allowance.
What's left at the end of the day is what they'll get for dinner.
So that you're not giving them breakfast and dinner and then plus extra treats on top.
You work out the portion for the day and anything comes from that.
Absolutely. That's a really good tip.
Okay, thank you very much for your attention this week.
It's been great to talk to you.
And we look forward to speaking with you next week.
Thanks a lot. Bye.
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