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Speaker1:
Hello and welcome. I’m doctor Kristina Spaulding. And this is the Research Bites podcast brought to you by Science Matters. Academy of Animal Behavior. We foster conversations about science and its application to animal training and behavior in an effort to improve well-being for animals and the people they live with. Please enjoy geeking out about the science of behavior. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Research Bytes podcast. I am getting back into the process of releasing regular podcasts, so we should be getting back on schedule now. I have updated and streamlined my process for releasing podcasts, and my hope is that they will be able to come out much more regularly now. There will be a little bit of a of a lag time before we have more interviews for you. But in the meantime, I’m going to release some solo episodes, talking, of course, about science and research. So I want to start by talking about a couple of connected myths having to do with science. The first one is the myth that science is elitist and doesn’t apply to real world training and behavior. And the second myth is closely related. That is the myth that there is one clear cut answer when it comes to training and behavior related questions. If you are skeptical that you can learn science, feel it’s over your head, or feel it doesn’t relate to what we do on the ground with dogs. Then this episode is for you.

Speaker1:
This episode is also for people who just love anything and everything about science. Because I will, of course, be getting into some nitty gritty science in this episode. Let’s get started. I’m going to start very briefly by talking about who I am and what my background is, just in case anyone listening to this is not familiar with my background. So I got my undergraduate degree in Wildlife Ecology, and towards the end of my college years, I started volunteering and then was hired at our local animal shelter. And very quickly after I graduated from college, I opened my own dog training and behavior consulting business. So that was in 2001, and I worked in dog training and behavior for about. 15 or so years before I went back to graduate school to get my PhD in Biopsychology. So by the time I got my PhD, I had had extensive experience in dog training and behavior. And I was able to take what I was learning in the PhD program and apply it to what I already knew about working with dogs. And so I think this gave me a really unique perspective in the value of learning, both from hands on experience and trial and error, from direct training, as well as the benefit of scientific research and how much we can learn from that avenue of inquiry. And so I feel really strongly about being able to bring together these two worlds, because I think that they are both essential and both extremely valuable and valid in their own right.

Speaker1:
And they will be so much stronger if we can increase the understanding and communication between both these aspects of the field, the academic aspect and the hands on aspect. So that brings me to our first myth, which is that science is elitist and doesn’t apply to the real world. And we could take this one step further and say that academia or academic learning is elitist and doesn’t apply to the real world. And so the first thing I want to say is that that is often the case. I mean, I just want to acknowledge that academia has historically and often still does do an absolutely terrible job of being open and inclusive to non-academics. So I just I want Want to recognize that right off the bat. And I don’t think it has to be this way. So let’s just focus on science for right now. You don’t have to go to an Ivy League school or have a graduate degree, or even have an undergraduate degree to be able to understand science. It is often presented that way, and many of the old guard academics and scientists still think that way. But many of us, meaning those of us with PhDs that are doing research or just teaching about research, disagree and want to make it more accessible. And I do not think that the only path is through formal college education.

Speaker1:
I love that path. I loved it for myself. I think it’s wonderful for others. And I think for a variety of reasons, it’s not the right path or a realistic path for other people. And I don’t think that those people who aren’t able to take the traditional academic progression, you know, I don’t think those people should be excluded from learning about science, because honestly, I think science is so cool and so exciting and has so much to bring us in terms of animal training and behavior, that I want everyone who wants access to that to have access to it. So let’s talk about this idea that research doesn’t apply to actual dog training and behavior, or animal training and behavior, and that it’s too abstract. It’s too based on theory. It’s it’s too centered in the ivory tower. And again, I agree that that can happen. And in fact this is changing. But I mean, for many years we didn’t have research on dogs at all basically. However, for the last 20 years or so, we have had research on dogs and it is continuing to increase and broaden in scope. But, um, to date, there really are a very small handful of studies that look specifically at training methodology, particularly experimental studies. There’s just not a lot of studies on that topic. And at the same time, there is a lot of research that’s done on dogs that may not apply to dog training and behavior.

Speaker1:
Gaze following research is one example of this. So there’s a pretty active area of research looking at how dogs follow human gazes and other, uh, human communicative gestures. And yes, this may to some degree apply to training and behavior. But really, the people who are doing this work are primarily interested in how and why this behavior evolved in dogs. Because it turns out that dogs are better at following those human communicative cues than chimpanzees, which are our closest living relatives. So that is an interesting question, I think, but it does not necessarily apply to everyday training and behavior. So, uh, so absolutely, it’s true that there’s research out there that’s being done on dogs. That doesn’t apply a whole lot to what we do, but it is not all like this. Some of the science is very applicable to what we do, even if it’s not directly looking at specific methods. And there’s more and more research coming out that is easier and easier to directly apply to working with dogs. So I’m just going to run through a list of areas of study that are varied to somewhat active in animal behavior, and how they are related to helping dogs. So we have research coming out fairly regularly on the impact of pain on welfare and behavior. So again, not looking directly at specific training techniques or methods, but you can see how understanding how pain and health impact behavior would be very, very important when it comes to preventing and addressing behavior issues in dogs and again other animals as well.

Speaker1:
Cat studies are coming out left and right now. Um, I you know, it used to be almost never that I would see a cat study. And now I’m probably seeing new cat studies every month, looking at cognition tests that are examining how dogs think and which problems they are able to solve and how, and then examining how those cognition tests correspond to the dogs behavior in their daily life. And that’s something else that’s being done. Research on habit and how habitual behaviors are formed and how they are changed is something that is very relevant to the everyday work that we do with dogs. Impacts of trauma. Right. How does that impact behavior? How does that impact fear learning. How does that impact attention to threat? All of those things are going on. Work on impulsivity and emotional regulation and how that relates to behavior, including aggression and the impacts of stress on behavior. So just to give one small aspect of all the work that’s being done on stress. We now know that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to stress, as are young puppies. But I think for a very long time in the dog training world, we were really very, very focused on puppies up to, you know, four months of age or so.

Speaker1:
And then after that we kind of figured, well, as long as they got socialization, they should be okay. Well, it turns out that that’s not true. And animals continue to be very susceptible to stress during the adolescent period and can be very deeply impacted by that. So knowing that and knowing what we can do to build up improved Resilience in our animals is hugely relevant to what we do every day. So even though. There is not a lot of research on specific things like what is the best way to reduce on leash reactivity in dogs? What is the most effective method for teaching a recall? We don’t have those kinds of studies. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have lots and lots and lots of research to sift through that can help us help more dogs and more people. So the fact that we don’t have a lot of these direct studies does make it a little bit harder to define what science based training means, because, again, there’s not a whole lot of research on the specifics, But to me, what it means is that you’re keeping up with this related research that can really help change our perspective, change our ways of thinking about behavior and how we approach it, and therefore. Increase our ability to have successful outcomes. Keeping up to date with that research, I think, is part of being a science based trainer, and then also getting training in the skilled interpretation and application of that research.

Speaker1:
And this is hard to do. This is what would typically happen if you went through a college, right. Formal academic education. This will happen to some degree in Undergraduate science programs. It will happen a little bit more in master’s programs, and it will happen to a very great degree in PhD programs where you’re really, um, being deeply trained in research, how to do it, how to interpret it, and how to apply it. And so obviously that’s one path. But I think that there can be other paths. There’s books out there that can be pretty effective. I of course have several courses where I spend quite a bit of time, uh, focusing on the research and how that applies to working with dogs and to a lesser degree, other species. My focus is on dogs, but a lot of this applies to other mammals at least as well. So that’s what Research Bites does. That’s what Unlocking Resilience does. There’s podcasts out there. Um, not just this one, but other ones that people can listen to. And just what I would encourage people to do is do what you can. You’re not going to be able to do it all, and that’s okay. I literally quit my full time job of working with clients so that I could stay up to date with the science and teach it to other animal professionals.

Speaker1:
So unless you’re prepared to quit your full time job or part time job of of working with animals, you’re not going to be able to do it all. Even I can’t do it all right. But anything that you can do to improve your understanding of what research is out there, how to interpret it and how to apply it, is going to make a difference in your work. It will improve your improve your ability to help animals and their people. So that is my explanation of why I think that science matters. And I want to talk a little bit more about the myth that there are clear cut, black and white answers to behavior. So many of us were taught in school, at least, uh, at least elementary school and high school, that there was only one right answer. Right. We had to know the right answer so we could get the question right on the test, which is often a multiple choice test. In my opinion, this is a huge disservice to students. When I was teaching undergraduates at the university, the students were coming in to their college classes believing there was one right answer and they would get very distressed and very angry when myself, as well as other professors, would tell them that the answer depended and that there was not one right answer. And I think this is because of how the education system is set up in the United States and many other countries as well.

Speaker1:
When it comes to real life, there is very rarely one clear cut correct answer. And learning and behavior are complicated. There’s no getting around that. Behavior is inextricably linked to biology, which is also complicated and vice versa. So everything that we do behaviorally, all learning, is being deeply influenced by biology. And the biology of the animal is also being influenced by the behavior and experiences of that animal. The way that our brains operate and the way That the body operates fundamentally influences how we perceive and interact with the world around us, as do our genetics and the microbiota that are living in our bodies. So, for example, this is one of my favorite things to talk about. Did you know that mice that are infected with toxoplasmosis lose their fear of cats? Why does this happen? Because toxoplasmosis needs a predator host to complete its life cycle. And so? So over time, there were these small variations in how toxoplasmosis might impact behavior, which is probably through how it’s impacting the bio. I mean, it is through how it’s impacting the biology of the animal. And in those cases where it may be reduced fear in mice a little bit, those mice become became more susceptible to predation. And so those strains of toxoplasmosis. Were more likely to complete their life cycle and continue to reproduce or replicate. And therefore, that strain that influenced the behavior in that way became a little bit.

Speaker1:
More common over time. And that’s how these things happen. Basically, what I’m saying is that there was an adaptive advantage to mice becoming easier to catch and consume, because that promoted the life cycle of toxoplasmosis. Osmosis. Um, there’s also some research in humans that suggests that we may be more social when we are in the early stages of an infection, such as flu. So not when we’re feeling sick before We’re feeling sick when we are carrying the virus and, um, contagious, we may become more social. So that’s just one example of how biology can influence behavior. As I already said, on the flip side, of course the environment impacts our brain and it also impacts our genetic expression. That’s through epigenetics and our microbiome. And these different aspects of the body and behavior all interact with each other. So stress changes the brain, it increases anxiety, it impairs cognitive function. And it does things like increase the risk for cardiac disease, autoimmune disorders and diabetes. In addition, chronic pain for example, can increase the risk of depression. So there’s this bidirectional influence between behavior and health and between sort of the internal body systems and the external environment. These are only a few examples of the large variety of ways or large variety of factors that that influence behavior, and then how those factors interact with each other and the environment. And so I hope this makes it clear that there is way too much complexity here to have simple black and white answers, especially when you also add in individual variation and that each individual, which is basically a sum of all these different factors I’ve been talking about, is going to respond differently to different experiences.

Speaker1:
And so if we don’t understand that complexity, and I don’t mean don’t mean that you need to understand every single aspect of it, because really, no single person can understand every single aspect of it because there’s so much going on. But what I mean is that you need to understand that it is complex. If you don’t understand that behavior is complex, that will limit how much you can help dogs. So let’s take an example. I’m going to talk about negative reinforcement. And this is a little bit of a controversial topic. But I think that it’s a really important topic. So not everyone listening to this podcast is going to be coming from the same place. So I’m going to define negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement happens when a behavior leads to the removal of something unpleasant, which then strengthens the behavior. So for example if example, if you have a headache and you take medicine that makes that headache go away, you are probably going to be more likely to take that medicine in the future because you took the medicine. An unpleasant thing. The headache was removed. That behavior of taking the medicine is then reinforced as a result.

Speaker1:
So that’s what negative reinforcement is, is when the animal does something that causes the removal or lessening of something unpleasant. So in dog training, a very common example of negative reinforcement is methods of training, where an electric shock is administered to the dog until the dog responds with the desired behavior. So again, in this case, the shocks are aversive to the dog, which in theory makes them more likely to respond to the cue. Again, it’s complicated, which is why I say in theory, but often that will make them more likely to respond to the Q, because displaying the Q behavior will make the shocks stop. So I don’t recommend training this way, because there are a number of welfare concerns and a number of potential unwanted side effects. But this is an example of negative reinforcement. And because this is a method that involves aversives, many trainers have taken this to mean that all negative reinforcement training is bad because by definition a negative reinforcement training there has to be an aversive present. But I want to take a closer look at this. So yes, negative reinforcement is focused on the removal of an aversive. And we certainly don’t want to add aversive experiences like shocks to our animal’s experience of the world. But what happens if those experiences are already there? They’re already happening and they’re not fully avoidable. So what about exposure to scary noises or strangers or other dogs in a city environment where there’s limited opportunities to escape those things, or at least to escape them reliably? What about grooming and veterinary care? Right.

Speaker1:
Um, could we fully avoid veterinary care? Yes. But in many cases, that is going to have a very detrimental impact on the welfare of the animal. Right. And so we have to try and consider balancing these things. And so in these cases aversive things are happening anyway. And and if we if our goal is to avoid aversives and to avoid aversives, we didn’t take our dog to the vet. That’s not actually going to avoid aversives because they will then be exposed to other aversive experiences like getting sick and injured without treatment. So, um, it turns out that if we teach animals that they have control over scary things through negative reinforcement, that that may actually decrease their fear. And so many aspects of cooperative care actually rely on a combination of positive and negative reinforcement. So in cooperative care, if the dog gives us or again, whatever species we’re talking about gives us a start signal, let’s say we’re we’re examining their ears. So the dog gives us a start signal. We look in their ear and then we give them a treat. That’s positive reinforcement. But what happens when they give us a stop signal. So they’ve given us their start signal. We start to go look in their ear.

Speaker1:
It becomes too much for the dog. And they give us their stop signal. So we stop looking in their ear. Their behavior just stopped. An unpleasant experience. That is negative reinforcement. And what is happening here is that we are giving our animals agency over the experience. And that agency has the power to reduce fear and passivity, and to increase the animals ability to cope with stress in the future. And in this particular case, what’s happening is we’re finding a way where we can administer that important grooming and that, you know, essential veterinary care in a way that is much less distressing to the animal than if we just forced it upon them. And yet we’re still using negative reinforcement. And so this is just an example. This is one of many, many examples of why it is important to take into account the complexity and the nuance of learning and behavior, instead of making really broad statements that this is always bad or this is always good. So I would not use, um, electric shocks as part of training. And there are cases where I would use other types of negative reinforcement. So it’s not that negative reinforcement is bad across the board. Um, we really have to look at exactly what is happening. So it’s not black and white. We really need to have this understanding of the complexity of learning and behavior to be able to fully explain behavior and to choose appropriate approaches to the prevention, um, and to the prevention of behavior issues and the modification of behavior issues.

Speaker1:
So when I’m answering these questions about training and behavior, my answer is so often some version of it’s complicated. It depends. And we need more research. Science is often not clear and there are not simple explanations or simple solutions. But that doesn’t mean that it has nothing to offer. There aren’t always simple explanations or solutions to behavior either. So we actually want an approach, like a scientific approach that is well matched to the complexity of life. And as I said before, as we increase our understanding of this complexity, we will get better at improving the lives of animals and improving the lives of the people that they live with. Another thing to understand about science is that it is always changing. And this is actually a strength. It is not a sign that researchers don’t know what they’re talking about or that they’re not committed to anything. What’s happening is that as the information changes, our opinions and our approaches are changing. So I have a quote here from Daniel Mills where he says in a paper that he wrote, scientific disagreement is common. But based on rational argument and should never be personal. It is not about winning the argument, but rather getting to the truth. He also says that science does not seek to establish absolute truths. So I know this sounds like a paradox.

Speaker1:
I suppose it is a paradox, but both of these things are true. And of course, I’m not saying that all scientists are perfect and that they never make arguments personal, because of course that happens. But The way that we are trained is that we need to focus on what is true. And so we need to build on our knowledge and use evidence to try and get at what is correct. And as we get more evidence and more data, sometimes that picture changes as we learn more. Sometimes it becomes clear that what we thought was correct is not. And so we change our opinion. That’s how it should happen, right? I mean, we don’t if you learn that an approach that you’re using doesn’t actually work or let me let me change it. If if researchers learn that a treatment for a disease is not actually working as well as we thought it was, we don’t want them to keep using that treatment for the disease, Right? We want them to change. So this is another quote by a woman named Marilyn Robinson, who also has a PhD. And she says that science’s genius is self-criticism. When you find out that the universe is accelerating and is accelerating in its rate of acceleration, that is not supposed to be true. And the moment that scientists find out that all major assumptions have been overthrown, there is rejoicing in the scientific community.

Speaker1:
And that is the authority of science for me. So again, that’s coming from Marilynne Robinson. And I think this is so true. I have seen this happen. I have seen commonly held beliefs about what we thought was true get knocked down by incoming evidence. And the response is not grief, it is joy and celebration that now we understand it better. And that is what I think we all want to strive for, is to always continue learning and to celebrate it when we get new information, even if and maybe especially when it challenges our existing beliefs and our existing approaches. And that is why I think that science is so important, and that it’s so important that we do what we can to keep up with the latest research and how it applies to animals. Thank you everyone. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you found this episode interesting and now you’re wondering how can I learn more? I really want to know more about science now. I have a couple of offerings that you may be interested in. I have a membership program called Research Bytes, where we cover the recent cutting edge science on dog training and behavior. Each month. So I’m actually taking research papers on dog behavior and training that have been published, and I am breaking them down to translate them and make them understandable to people who do not have a heavy duty science background.

Speaker1:
And then we’re talking about how this information applies to the work that we do every day with dogs. So if you’re interested in learning more about that, you can visit my website, Science Matters, llc.com and go to the Research Bytes page. There’s also a link in the show notes. I also have a class starting in early February called Unlocking Resilience, and that is really a deep dive into the impacts of stress on our animals and how we can build resilience in our animals to prevent and overcome the impacts of stress. This course is also very heavily science based, so if you’re interested in that, you can go to the same website and look at unlocking resilience under education. And finally, if you want something that is a super easy starting point, I have a book all about the impacts of stress in dogs called The Stress Factor in Dogs. You can find that at dog wise. We have that available as a paperback, an e-book, and an audiobook. And that link, of course, is also in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Research Bytes podcast. If you enjoyed this content and would like to learn more, please visit. Why Science Matters, LLC. For more information, you can also find the link in the podcast description. The website has information on upcoming events as well as my monthly research, webinars and upcoming courses. I hope to see you there. Thank you.

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