A standardized behavior test for potential guide dog puppies: Methods and association with subsequent success in guide dog training

Asher, Lucy; Blythe, Simon; Roberts, Rena; Toothill, Lisa; Craigon, Peter J.; Evans, Katy; Green, Martin J.

doi:10.1016/j.jveb.2013.08.004

Cited by 70 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Instead, an inverse correlation between fear of slippery surfaces at 8 weeks and 11 months was found. Similarly, Asher et al (2013) found that puppies which scored as more confident on a ramp (1/5 stimuli tested) were less likely to qualify as guide dogs. These discrepancies may be partially due to using deficiencies highlighted in the puppy test to direct remedial training.…”

Section: Reliance On Testing Puppiesmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Details of the commonly used tests are often undocumented (e.g., UK military; Rooney et al, 2003). Some are published, including some of the tests used for guide dogs (Serpell and Hsu, 2001;Asher et al, 2013), police dogs (Slabbert and Odendaal, 1999;Svobodová et al, 2008), general service dogs (Wilsson and Sundgren, 1997), improvised explosives devices (IED) detection , and military dogs (Haverbeke et al, 2009;Sinn et al, 2010). Predictive testing is fraught with difficulties, and the extent to which this is objectively assessed is variable.…”

Section: Testing For Fearful Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Rooney

Clark

Casey

2016

Journal of Veterinary Behavior

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The causes of fear and anxiety in working dogs are multifactorial and may include inherited characteristics that differ between individuals (e.g. Goddard and Beilharz, 1982; 1984a,b), influences of the environment (Lefebvre et al., 2007), and learned experiences during particular sensitive periods (Appleby et al., 2002) and throughout life. Fear-related behavior compromises performance, leads to significant numbers of dogs failing to complete training (e.g., Murphy, 1995;Batt et al., 2008), early withdrawals from working roles (Caron-Lormier et al., 2016), and can jeopardize dog and handler safety. Hence, amelioration of fear and anxiety is critical to maintain dogs in working roles and to ensure their well-being. Although current methods of selection and training are seemingly effective at producing many dogs which work in a remarkable array of environments, some dogs do not make the grade, and longevity of service is not always maximized. Programs should strive for optimal efficiency and they need to continually analyze the value of each component of their program, seek evidence for its value and explore potential evidence-based improvements. Here we discuss scientific evidence for methods and strategies which may be of value in reducing the risk of fear behaviors developing in the working dog population and suggest potentially valuable techniques and future research to explore the benefit of these approaches. The importance of environmental influences, learning opportunities, and effects of underlying temperament on the outward expression of fear and anxiety should not be underestimated. Identification of characteristics which predict resilience to stress are valuable, both to enable careful breeding for these traits and to develop predictive tests for puppies and procured animals. It is vitally important to rear animals in optimal environments and introduce them to a range of stimuli in a positive, controlled, and gradual way, as these can all help minimize the number of dogs which develop workinhibiting fears. Future research should explore innovative methods to best measure the relative resilience of dogs to stressful events. This could include developing optimal exposure protocols to minimize the development of fear and anxiety, and exploring the influence of social learning and the most effective elements of stimulus presentation.

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Section: Reliance On Testing Puppiesmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Testing For Fearful Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Rooney

Clark

Casey

2016

Journal of Veterinary Behavior

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“…In the companion dog literature, undesirable characteristics, such as aggression, chasing, high energy, unfriendliness, distractibility, fearfulness, destructiveness, vocalisation, disobedience, soiling inside, jumping on people, and escaping [68] are the main reasons owners relinquish dogs to shelters. The former six have been explored in assistance dog research looking at breeding and selecting for suitable puppies [69][70][71]. However, to date, the latter six undesirable behaviours have not been studied in the assistance dog literature.…”

Section: Puppy Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Raising an Assistance Dog Puppy—Stakeholder Perspectives on What Helps and What Hinders

Loc

Howell

Benton

et al. 2020

Animals

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Assistance dog puppies live with their raisers for up to 16 months before entering advanced training and, hopefully, becoming qualified to help people with a disability. Almost half of the puppies fail to meet the behavioural standards required for assistance dogs, and some puppy raisers produce more behaviourally favourable puppies than others. It is unclear what factors influence puppy-raising practice quality. To understand this, we interviewed 17 participants, including experienced puppy raisers (n = 8), provider organisation staff (n = 4), and those who have served both as puppy raisers and staff (n = 5). Results of a thematic analysis suggest three groups of influencing factors, namely intrapersonal factors, social support, and puppy characteristics. Intrapersonal factors such as expectations, competency, perseverance and passion were reported to influence puppy raisers’ experiences, puppy-raising quality, and continuity of service. Contextual factors such as availability of social support (informational and emotional supports) and less-demanding puppies both led to positive puppy-raising experiences, while the former also contributed to puppy raisers’ perceptions of competency. Future research should quantitatively examine the interrelationships of these factors concerning puppies’ behavioural development. Meanwhile, organisations could consider these factors when developing their recruitment and puppy-raiser support programs.

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“…We should also note that the potential link between individual differences in ASD-like behaviors in dogs and (social) learning performance is an intriguing yet understudied field. It has been shown, for example, that puppies that react negatively to being petted by a human handler are more likely to be withdrawn from the guide dog training program than more sociable subjects (Asher et al, 2013) and dogs that show predisposition towards stereotypic behaviors differ from the normal population in terms of their cognitive flexibility (i.e., they show greater resistance to extinction in a reversal learning task, Protopopova, Hall, & Wynne, 2014).…”

Section: Translational Approaches To Understand Autism: Potentials mentioning

confidence: 99%

The dog (Canis familiaris) as a translational model of autism: It is high time we move from promise to reality

Topál

Román

Turcsán

2019

WIRES Cognitive Science

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Selecting appropriate animal models for a particular human phenomenon is a difficult but important challenge. The difficulty lies in finding animal behaviors that are not only sufficiently relevant and analog to the complex human symptoms (face validity) but also have similar underlying biological and etiological mechanisms (translational or construct validity), and have "human-like" responses to treatment (predictive validity). Over the past several years, the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) has become increasingly proposed as a model for comparative and translational neuroscience. In parallel to the recent advances in canine behavior research, dogs have also been proposed as a model of many human neuropsychiatric conditions, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this opinion paper we will shortly discuss the challenging nature of autism research then summarize the different neurocognitive frameworks for ASD making the case for a canine model of autism. The translational value of a dog model stems from the recognition that (a) there is a large inter-individual variability in the manifestation of dogs' social cognitive abilities including both high and low phenotypic extremes; (b) the phenotypic similarity between the dog and human symptoms are much higher than between the rodent and human symptoms; (c) the symptoms are functionally analogous to the human condition; and (d) more likely to have similar etiology. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Comparative Psychology Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition K E Y W O R D S autism spectrum disorder, dog, model, translational validity

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A standardized behavior test for potential guide dog puppies: Methods and association with subsequent success in guide dog training

Cited by 70 publications

References 10 publications

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Raising an Assistance Dog Puppy—Stakeholder Perspectives on What Helps and What Hinders

The dog (Canis familiaris) as a translational model of autism: It is high time we move from promise to reality

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