Breed-dependent differences in the onset of fear-related avoidance behavior in puppies

Morrow, Mary N.; Ottobre, Joseph S.; Ottobre, Ann C.; Neville, P.; St-Pierre, N.R.; Dreschel, Nancy A.; Pate, Joy L.

doi:10.1016/j.jveb.2015.03.002

Cited by 40 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Research suggests that protocols should vary across breeds because they differ in the age of onset of fear-related behaviors (Morrow et al, 2015). The advantages associated with maternal care, social interaction with littermates, learning social signaling, and avoidance of sudden traumatic events all support later and gradual weaning of puppies destined for working environments.…”

Section: Management Of Weaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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: Management Of Weaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Rooney

Clark

Casey

2016

Journal of Veterinary Behavior

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“…Fear can be triggered by various stimuli, such as novel or intense stimuli, special evolutionary danger, social interactions with conspecifics, and conditioned stimuli [ 7 ]. Fear-based behavioral responses include aggressive behavior [ 8 , 9 ], avoidance responses [ 10 ], flight [ 11 ], withdrawal [ 12 ], and immobility (freezing or crouching) [ 13 , 14 ]. As fearful subjective states cannot be directly measured by self-report in dogs, the experience of fear is based on proxy measures of behavioral responses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic Variants in the STMN1 Transcriptional Regulatory Region Affect Promoter Activity and Fear Behavior in English Springer Spaniels

Xiao-lin

Zhang

et al. 2016

PLoS ONE

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Stathmin 1 (STMN1) is a neuronal growth-associated protein that is involved in microtubule dynamics and plays an important role in synaptic outgrowth and plasticity. Given that STMN1 affects fear behavior, we hypothesized that genetic variations in the STMN1 transcriptional regulatory region affect gene transcription activity and control fear behavior. In this study, two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), g. -327 and g. -125 , were identified in 317 English Springer Spaniels. A bioinformatics analysis revealed that both were loci located in the canine STMN1 putative promoter region and affected transcription factor binding. A statistical analysis revealed that the genotype at g.-125 produced a significantly greater fear level than that of the genotype (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the H4H4 () haplotype combination was significantly associated with canine fear behavior (P < 0.01). Using serially truncated constructs of the STMN1 promoters and the luciferase reporter, we found that a 395 bp (−312 nt to +83 nt) fragment constituted the core promoter region. The luciferase assay also revealed that the H4 () haplotype promoter had higher activity than that of other haplotypes. Overall, our results suggest that the two SNPs in the canine STMN1 promoter region could affect canine fear behavior by altering STMN1 transcriptional activity.

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“…In studies with small sample sizes, such as Malm (1995), and Malm and Jensen (1997), it may be difficult to obtain significant results and draw any strong conclusions. The use of different breeds may also be confounding as development and behavioural reactions may be breed--specific (Morrow et al, 2015). However, sometimes, such as when developing a test or questionnaire to describe a dog in general terms, validating the test using a large number of breeds may be beneficial and provide more reliable test results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Experience, Maternal Care and Behavioural Test Design : Effects on the Temperament of Military Working Dogs

Foyer

2015

Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations

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Domestication has resulted in animals with broad variations between as well as within breeds, which allows for the selection and breeding of animals for preferred traits. This selection has affected both the genotypes and phenotypes of animals. In dogs, it has allowed for breeding for different purposes, such as companionship or the performance of specific tasks, e.g., herding, hunting, searching and protecting. Each of these types of working dogs has specific traits that are, in part, controlled by genes; however, genes are not solely responsible for the variations in the traits of an individual. The environment also plays a role, which has been studied in rodents and primates in recent decades. For instance, it has been shown that the amount of maternal care that a rat receives as a pup affects its temperament later in life; the more maternal care, i.e., licking, grooming and arched--back nursing (LG--ABN) that a rat receives, the more stress resistant, less reactive and more explorative it will be as an adult. However, the question is whether this is also true for dogs, and the investigation of how temperament in dogs is affected by environmental factors early in life is the main objective of this thesis. Three of the studies presented in this thesis focused on investigating the general parameters, particularly maternal care, that influences offspring behaviour to contribute to the understanding of temperament development in military working dogs. One of these studies concentrated on the environmental factors that influence dogs early in life, and the results indicated that some factors, such as parity, litter size and birth season, affect temperament later in life. Another study investigated how females take care of their young, and the results demonstrated that females vary in their maternal style during the first three weeks postpartum and that this variation affects the temperament of the offspring. The third study focused on factors in the home environment, and the results showed that dogs approved through the evaluative temperament test were significantly associated with being hyperactive or restless and having difficulty settling down in the home environment. However, those dogs were also left home alone for more hours in a day than non--approved dogs. To be able to operate functionally, a military working dog needs to possess certain traits, or a certain temperament, and a vital characteristic is the way it responds to and copes with stress. This was investigated during an evaluative temperament test used to select dogs suitable for further training. Surprisingly, the results in the fourth study showed that the dogs approved for further training had significantly higher levels of salivary cortisol both before and after the test compared with the non--approved dogs. These findings may be of profound importance for understanding individual variations in behaviour and improving breeding schemes for working dogs. POPULÄRVETENSKAPLIG SAMMANFATTNINGFör över 15 000 år sedan började våra anfäder avla ...

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Breed-dependent differences in the onset of fear-related avoidance behavior in puppies

Cited by 40 publications

References 29 publications

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Genetic Variants in the STMN1 Transcriptional Regulatory Region Affect Promoter Activity and Fear Behavior in English Springer Spaniels

Early Experience, Maternal Care and Behavioural Test Design : Effects on the Temperament of Military Working Dogs

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