to arrive at a house rather than a kennel; he had, after all, already been transferred from one animal control to another. He was 4 years old, or at least that’s what we were told, though he grew a little in his first few months with us. He was understandably nervous at arriving in a new place with people he did not yet know, and I spent a lot of those early days petting him. He would lie on his side, sprawled across the room, and I would kneel down and stroke him, his fur soft and thick. However long this went on, when I stopped he would raise his big head, lick his lips, and sometimes paw at me for more. But although he liked petting, in other circumstances he would shy away from our hands as if we were about to hurt him.
Everywhere we went, people complimented his looks. I could not believe such an amazing dog had waited so many weeks for someone to adopt him. He was friendly, handsome, and took up a lot of space. He would not make eye contact but I had the feeling, whenever my back was turned, that he was watching me. He had beautiful pale blue eyes, almost white, ringed with black eyeliner. When he moved, he left little bits of fur behind; shedding continued all summer and whenever I brushed him, I seemed to remove enough fur to make a whole other dog. He wasn’t quite sure what to do and nor were we. How much to feed him, how many walks a day, what kinds of games he would like—all of this we had to find out. He wasn’t interested in people we met on walks, though he tolerated their patting, but he loved meeting other dogs. Several times I felt my arm yanked as he pulled to sniff another dog. Pretty soon we decided he needed a friend.
An Australian Shepherd was listed at our local shelter, without an online photo or any information yet. This seemed to be a trainable breed according to my research on the internet, so we took Ghost to meet him. The dog was at the groomer, and we waited on chairs in reception for him to come back. Ghost lounged patiently on the floor. The Aussie’s return was delayed, and we came home only to get a phone call saying we should go right back. It was almost closing time by then, and we took the Aussie, beautifully groomed and in a bandanna, for a very short walk. Ghost seemed to like him, so that was that. We called him Bodger. In the space of six weeks, we had gone from no dogs to two dogs. (Oh, and two cats, because while we waited to meet Bodger, a tabby cat kept looking at Ghost through the glass, so we brought him home too. And since he needed a friend, he was quickly followed by a pretty tortoiseshell.)
I kept being puzzled by things I read about dogs or saw on TV. Your dog was not supposed to go in front of you on a walk, except Ghost was a sled dog and they had to be in front of a sled or they couldn’t pull it. You had to eat before your dog, but that wasn’t convenient as it suited our routine to feed the animals first. You should be able to take things like bones out of your dog’s mouth. Well, that just seemed stupid! Ghost had big teeth and I wasn’t about to risk finding out what they might do. Besides which, he was agreeable when it came to swapping things. If I wanted the ball back, he would gladly trade it for some treats. Why be confrontational when you don’t need to be?
I’ll be honest: Bodger was a bit nuts. He was jumpy and mouthy, barked nonstop, and seemed to pull in all directions at once on the leash. He constantly nudged us for attention but was quick to growl when we looked at him. Left to his own devices for a moment, he would grab his tail in his mouth and spin in never-ending circles. Some of the people who met him in those first few weeks assumed we would take him straight back to the shelter. It might have been tempting, except we felt we had a responsibility towards him now. He hadn’t been well socialized, apparently, and no one had ever taught him what to do. We just had to teach him. At least he was house-trained. And he seemed to understand the bit where his job was to keep Ghost company. Life was suddenly about keeping both dogs happy, which was not as easy as you might think.
I would like to say those myths about eating before your dog and so on that I saw on TV have faded away, but they are still widely believed. And at the same time, what we know about dogs—really know, that is—has dramatically increased. Even though there’s a lot still unknown, we have a better understanding of dogs than ever before.
LEARNING ABOUT DOGS
WHEN I DID my PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Nottingham, I taught a range of topics in basic psychology. I even helped students dissect sheep’s brains, teaching them to identify the different parts such as the hippocampus (important for memory and emotions) and the olfactory bulb (important for smelling, as you might guess from the name). I still remember the smell of preservative and the grayish-yellowish color of the brains. And I taught Psychology 101 tutorials with first-year undergraduates on topics such as how animals (including humans) learn.
Six students at a time would crowd into my office for their tutorial, a small participatory class that is a standard in the British university system. For the topic of animal learning, I asked students to come with examples of types of reinforcement and punishment. One of my own examples was about my ginger-and-white cat, Snap. At night when it was time for him to come in, I would call him and shake the treat packet. When he came in the kitchen door, I would give him a treat. This is an example of positive reinforcement because giving a treat made him more likely to come when called the next night. Although most students had thought of human examples, some had examples from their family dog. This is such useful information for anyone who has a pet. It’s one of many reasons I wish everyone studied some basic psychology, because when we understand the rules of behavior, it makes for a happier relationship with your dog.
Aside from occasional tutorials or conference talks I attended, I didn’t think much about animal learning until we adopted Ghost. It was then I was confronted both with the reality of having a real live dog to care for and the difficulties of finding good advice. In 2012, less than a year after adopting Ghost, I started my blog Companion Animal Psychology with the aim of finding out more about what science tells us about how to care for dogs and cats. I found a rich vein of canine and feline science to write about, and many people eager to learn more. The burgeoning field of canine science means there is something new to learn, even for lifelong dog people.
On the one hand, those principles of reinforcement and punishment are central to how we live with pets, and on the other hand, what we know about animals’ thoughts and feelings has been completely transformed. From thinking of animals as simply responding to stimuli, as American psychologist Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner believed, we now recognize animals as sentient beings. We know our pets have thoughts and feelings, including about us. And that means we have an even greater responsibility to take care of them in ways that recognize them for what they are—clever beings who become attached to us and have complex needs of their own.
One of the findings that piqued scientists’ interest in dogs came in 1998 with the simultaneous but separate discovery by Dr. Brian Hare and Prof. Ádám Miklósi that dogs can follow pointing gestures—something that chimpanzees, our closest relatives, cannot. Since then, research on dogs—their behaviors, emotions, responses to humans, etc.—has flourished. And not just on dogs, but all kinds of animals. Back when I helped students dissect sheep brains, humans and other animals were seen as far apart, with many abilities attributed to humans alone. It’s as if, over time, the gap between humans and other animals has shrunk substantially (of course, it’s just our perception that has changed). For dog lovers, it’s hard to imagine that scientists used to think animals did not experience emotions. But now scientists are interested in everything dog, from the origins of domestication to the “guilty look,” from puppy development to play behavior. One of the great things about canine science is that so much of it has implications for animal welfare and how we can best take care of our dogs.
The same year I started my blog, I began to volunteer with my local branch of the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BC SPCA), one of the leading SPCAs in North America. I wanted more experience with dogs and cats, and felt grateful to them since they were the source of three of my pets. A year later, I was lucky enough to win a scholarship to Jean Donaldson’s prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers, a science-based course that teaches fast, efficient dog training as well as behavior modification for issues like fear, food guarding, and aggression. And finally I set
