I have written before about the relationship between emotional state and the ability to cope with stress. Stress resiliency is so important because the inability to effectively cope with stress is linked to a wide variety of mental and physical health disorders. In dogs, this often manifests as an increased likelihood of behavior issues. And,… Continue reading Emotional Well-Being and Sensitivity to Reinforcement and Punishment
Working with animals that suffer from high levels of anxiety and fear is heartbreaking. They are suffering in a very real way and, as much as we want to help them, dramatic progress is often difficult. There are many possible causes of intense fear and anxiety, but in this blog post I’m going to focus… Continue reading Trauma, Chronic Stress, and the Brain
Ethology is the study of animal behavior in the natural environment. It examines animal behavior from an evolutionary perspective. That means there is a focus on the adaptive function of behavior. Ethology allows us to understand the wide range of factors that influence dog behavior. This knowledge improves our ability to interpret behavior, identify and… Continue reading Ethology, Natural Selection, and Aggression
For this month’s blog post, I am sharing the most recent summary of a Research Bites webinar. Normally, these are exclusively for members, but I wanted to make this one available as a sneak peak of the kind of information that is covered in Research Bites. November’s topic also happens to be extremely important for… Continue reading Executive function – what is it and why does it matter?
Adolescence. We all know what it’s like. Raging hormones, wanting to be the center of attention, rebellion, risk-taking behavior–and those all-important social relationships. I’m talking about humans, but is it really so different in our dogs? Adolescence in dogs starts around six months of age (in females, it begins when they enter their first estrous).… Continue reading Rethinking Adolescence
Thank you to everyone for the wonderful feedback about the first installment in this series! I am thrilled to hear that so many people found it helpful! Of course, finding a paper is only the first step. The next thing you have to do is read it! This can be extremely intimidating, especially if you… Continue reading How to Read Research Articles in Animal Behavior
There has been a huge increase in the number of studies being conducted on applied animal behavior, which is great news for those of us in the field! Keeping up with the research gives us great power to improve the outcomes of the dogs – or other species – that we work with. Scientific literacy… Continue reading The search for gold – finding scientific papers
Why Does Learning About Science Matter? This is an article I wrote awhile back, but I never posted it on my blog and I’d like to give it a little wider audience because I think it’s such an important topic! What if you found out that, as a field, we have only scratched the surface… Continue reading Why Science Matters
Over the years, I have been increasingly interested in adolescent dogs for a number of reasons. First, this is a hugely challenging period of time for dog guardians – and an age when many dogs are given up. It’s also probably a challenging time for the dogs themselves. That would explain why their behavior often… Continue reading The Terrible Teens – Adolescence in Dogs
Stress resilience is the ability to effectively respond to stress. In humans, higher levels of stress resilience are associated with decreased susceptibility to mental health disorders. Poor stress resilience is associated with mental and physical health concerns and decreased quality of life. Basically, stress resilience is key to living a good life. Dogs that have… Continue reading Building resilience: effort, reward, and stress coping
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