as universally “safe” or universally “dangerous,” as people might like.
Human behavior prior to a bite is an important piece of the puzzle. Owczarczak‐Garstecka et al. (2018) analyzed dozens of bites from YouTube videos and found that human contact‐related behaviors increased approximately 20 seconds prior to the bite. Petting, restraining, and “standing over” the dog were observed frequently. On the dog’s part, behaviors such as low body position, head turning, and panting, as well as staring and stiffening, increased approximately 30 seconds prior to the bite. These findings are valuable: they suggest that bites are not “coming out of nowhere,” highlight the value of the “ladder of aggression” theory (Shepherd 2009), and suggest that people could notice dog signals and respond in turn. The ladder of aggression suggests that dog responses to threatening or stressful stimuli (social, environmental, or other) tend to be graded. A dog is apt to yawn, lick, look away, or move away before growling, snapping, or biting. These cues, proceeding from subtle to overt, aim to increase distance, and while not all dogs will exhibit all signals, the ladder concept provides a general or average progression. These subtle behaviors demand attention because if ignored, dogs might learn that these behaviors are ineffectual and develop a lower threshold for more overt distance‐increasing indicators, like growling, barking, baring teeth, lunging, and even biting.
Abnormal behaviors are also present in captive environments and suggest a negative affective state. While taken from the normal repertoire of the species, these behaviors are inappropriate in terms of the manner and context in which they are performed. They can be repetitive, unvarying, and seemingly without immediate goal or function (Mason 1991), or they can be goal directed but abnormally repeated or performed outside typical contexts (Dodman et al. 2010). Abnormal repetitive behaviors (ARBs) manifest differently between species, and in dogs, pacing, spinning or tail chasing, and bouncing off the wall are common. Dogs also chase shadows and perform oral motor patterns like enclosure biting, excessive licking, excessive drinking (polydipsia), flank sucking, feet chewing, snapping at the air (fly snapping), and/or excessive grooming. Studies have also found an increased incidence of certain ARBs in particular breeds, such as flank sucking in Dobermans, tail chasing in bull terriers, and shadow/light chasing in herding breeds (Tynes and Sinn 2014).
While ARBs can develop as a coping mechanism to poor environments, they can persist even after environmental improvement and even be present in highly enriched settings (Garner 2005). In poor environments, ARBs could offer a sort of “do‐it‐yourself” enrichment, and non‐stereotyping individuals in poor environments could be in a worse state than stereotyping individuals (Mason and Latham 2004). Factors such as individual coping styles and kennel space could affect ARB presentation (Protopopova 2016). While ARBs could perseverate because of reinforcement, they are suggestive of an experience of chronic rather than acute stress, at some point (Polgár et al. 2019).
Overly generalized treatment plans are typically not recommended. Sequential behavior analysis of shelter dogs performing any form of ARB found that sequences ranged from highly repetitive to quite variable, suggesting ARBs necessitate personalized care strategies (Loftus et al. 2018). Abnormal behaviors can vary in underlying motivation and triggers (Hall et al. 2015), and thwarting behaviors could increase distress or the frequency of new deleterious behaviors. Underlying medical conditions or pain should also be considered.
Similar motor patterns can appear in both positive and negative affective contexts (Csoltova and Mehinagic 2020). For example, “nose lick” may appear in both frustration and positive anticipation contexts (Caeiro et al. 2017; Bremhorst et al. 2019). With this in mind, context and total motor patterns, as opposed to a single behavior in isolation, contribute to meaning. Motor patterns in line with wanting, seeking, or liking are suggestive of positive affect states (Yeates and Main 2008).
Young dogs may spend up to one‐third of their awake life in object, social, or locomotor (movement) play; unlike most mammals, dogs continue playing regularly in adulthood (Horowitz 2002). Dogs not only play with one another but readily and often with humans and even other species. Since play appears to be pleasurable, it might seem non‐functional, but in fact it is an integral part of dog social and physical development (Rooney and Bradshaw 2014). Cooperative behaviors such as turn taking and self‐handicapping appear in social play, demonstrating that dogs are gauging their play partner's size and skill level (Horowitz 2009b). While play uses many behaviors that would be considered aggressive in other contexts—biting, jumping on, tackling, chasing—within play the intensity of the behaviors is moderated; rarely does play turn into aggression. Recognizing and giving space for play is important: play is not only rewarding for the dog and part of normal social life, it can be used as a reward in training, is suggestive of good welfare, and is thought to improve health and well‐being (Sommerville et al. 2017). See Chapter 13 for information on play and playgroups in shelter dogs.
1.6 Influences on Dog Behavior
Ask a beagle to herd sheep and you will come face‐to‐face with a confused beagle as well as genetic influences on behavior. Though genetic influences can be strong and quite prominent in terms of appearance and behavior, they are tendencies, not inevitabilities. Additionally, genetics—often discussed at the breed or breeding‐line level—is just one influence on behavior, and this section highlights other factors, such as sterilization and shelter environment, that also contribute to why dogs do what they do.
1.6.1 Breeds and Behavior
The result of just a few hundred years of specific breeding has made dogs as diverse in size and morphology as the Great Dane and the Maltese. Appearance‐based variations have driven the breeding of dogs with markedly different body sizes, head sizes and shape, nose lengths, weight, leg lengths, coats, tail lengths, and shape (Bateson 2010). As discussed earlier, changes in “communicative anatomy” can affect intraspecific social behavior (Horowitz and Hecht 2014). While dogs have existed as a separate species from wolves for thousands of years, for most of that time, there were not segregated, genetically isolated breeds. Ancient art and writing suggest that there were distinctive types of dogs, from mastiff‐type dogs and saluki‐shaped dogs, to small, terrier‐like lapdogs. However, these were not “purebred” dogs as the word is used today. Dogs were selected for their function: for instance, for herding, guarding, hunting, and as companions (Grier 2006). Today, by contrast, there are an estimated 400 breeds as well as “mixed breeds.” The word “breed” is now used to describe a genetically closed population of animals whose members share many physical and behavioral traits. While early dogs were the result of normal evolutionary processes and geographic segregation as well as some human selection, today’s “purebred” dogs are entirely the result of artificial selection: that is, dogs are specifically bred with other dogs of the same genetic lineage (Serpell and Duffy 2014). Initially, dogs with desirable traits and appearance were mated with dogs of similarly desirable features, creating new named breeds: German shepherd, pug, golden retriever, Akita, and so on. Some breed members resemble the imagery of ancient dogs, but there is no evidence of a continuous link between the purebred mastiffs and salukis of today and the ancient versions. Shortly after the inception of a breed line, the line is genetically closed, and future pups must be bred exclusively from other members of the breed (Wayne and Ostrander 2007).
The rise of purebred dogs began in the late nineteenth century with the advent of dog breed clubs and dog shows, also known as “the dog fancy”. In contrast with the function‐based selection of early dogs, purebred dogs have been bred largely to have a particular appearance consistent with a breed “standard”—the description of the ideal appearance and temperament of members of a breed. Extreme breed standards for specific appearance can be physically damaging: to give just one instance, dogs with large heads, such as the Boston terrier and bulldog, must be birthed surgically since they cannot fit out the birth canal of their mothers (Bateson 2010; numerous other deleterious predispositions are described in Asher et al. 2009).
Distinct
