The information available in canine urine is astounding. From a proper sniff, dogs can learn about the sex, reproductive status, diet and stress level of dogs who have been there before. Urine is used to communicate about territories, to mask the smell of other dogs, to detect females who are likely to be reproductively receptive and to compete with other individuals. It’s no wonder that our canine friends find urine so compelling that they are irresistibly drawn to it. As anyone who has spent even a little time with dogs knows, urine sniffing is a favorite pastime.
A recent study called “Length of time domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) spend smelling urine of gonadectomised and intact conspecifics” was conducted to investigate whether gonadectomy (being spayed or neutered) affects urine-sniffing behavior. Since gonadectomy has significant impacts on body chemistry, it has long been suggested that it disrupts the flow of information available through urine that dogs have evolved to detect over many generations.
Researchers tested the affects of gonadectomy in urine sniffing by recording how long dogs sniffed urine from intact versus gonadectomized individuals. They found that dogs spent more time sniffing urine from spayed or neutered dogs than from intact ones. One possibility is that the dogs are spending a longer time sniffing such urine because they are trying to figure out the information it contains. Because it may have a combination of chemicals that is different than the range of compounds that the dogs have evolved to understand, it may be harder for them to make sense out of it.
Interestingly, this study contradicts the findings of Lisberg and Snowdon, whose 2009 paper also analyzed the investigation patterns of unfamiliar urine and found that dogs spent more time sniffing urine from intact dogs than from gonadectomized ones. One possible explanation for the difference may be that for the current paper, the dogs were tested indoors, but for the 2009 paper, the study took place outside. (Fewer distractions inside may also explain an average sniff length of nearly 13 seconds in this paper compared with just over 5 seconds in the older study.) Another difference between the results of the two studies is that the recent research found no difference in sniffing time related to what kind of dog was doing the sniffing (male or female, intact or gonadectomized) but Lisberg and Snowdon found that neutered males and intact females both spent more time sniffing urine from intact males than from neutered males.
More research is definitely needed if we want to understand the complicated behavior of urine sniffing, which may involve many interactions between environment and individual traits of the dogs—both those who are the sources of urine and those who sniff if. Research is time intensive and can be costly, which is why I’m so impressed by this particular study. It was conducted in a single home in which the 12 dogs recruited to be sniffers all live, there was no funding source for the study and all of the urine in the study came from out of state to insure that the urine came from unfamiliar dogs. Kudos to the authors for taking the initiative to conduct a cool and clever experiment!
It sounds trivial to say it, but dogs and cats are very different animals. The experience of living with individuals of these two species is not the same in many ways. I know I am generalizing here and ignoring the many exceptions, but the typical cat is more independent that the typical dog, and usually more aloof. (Again, I know there are dogs who lean towards the standoff-ish, and cats who are clingy and constantly affectionate, but that’s not the most common way for members of those species to be. Think of it this way—it remains true that men are generally taller than women even though there are certainly individual women who are taller than individual men.)
My point here, and I’m sure you’re glad I’m getting to it, is that if someone has experience with cats, they may acquire perspectives and skills that are different from those acquired by people who spend all of their time with dogs. (It should go without saying that I have no problem with anyone spending all of their time with dogs!) Those skills and perspectives can be very useful with certain dogs, though I’m not necessarily referring to dogs who are more cat-lie in any way.
The dogs who benefit most from the knowledge of cat-savvy people are those who are shy, fearful or nervous. People who know cats well are completely on board with the fact that you can’t push or force a cat to be social with you. (It’s unwise to push or force a dog, either, by the way, but many dogs are easier to convince to engage with us than cats are.)
With cats, it is always wise to take it slow, let them come to you and ignore them until they show an interest in you. That is also true of fearful dogs, but many people who come into contact with a dog who is afraid try to cajole the dog into approaching, or try to lure the dog with toys or treats. People with cat experience are far less likely to try to take shortcuts like this, to the benefit of the dog in question. Cat-savvy people are used to the idea that you have to accept the animal on his own terms and to be patient. To be fair, many dog lovers also know this really well, but I find that it is almost universal among people who have spent a significant amount of time with their feline friends.
I was recently reminded of the wonderful way that many cat lovers have with shy, nervous or fearful dogs when my friend Betsy came over while I was watching a dog of that description. I told her that the dog was very sweet, though easily scared by new people, and that the best thing to do was to toss her some treats and then ignore her. Betsy did exactly that, and within minutes, I took this picture of a very happy dog (the lean one on the left with a tail wagging fast enough to look blurry) enjoying her new human friend. Throughout their initial interaction, Betsy always let the dog control the pace of their progress. She never pushed too hard to pet the dog or encouraged the dog to approach. She just waited and let the dog do what felt comfortable.
Do you have cat experience that has helped you in your interactions with dogs?
The scientific interest in studying canine cognition has led to the development of a slew of test protocols—some uniquely designed for dogs and others modified from the field of comparative psychology. Many of them employ visual tasks to test dogs’ capabilities. In order to succeed with touch screens, at discriminating fine details in tests of their abilities to follow gazes or gestures, to understand object permanence, to identify faces or facial expressions, their visual perception is part of the equation. However, most of the studies are designed based on human, rather than canine, visual perception.
Canine vision differs from humans in a number of ways. Their ability to perceive a range of color hues is not as good as people’s ability, nor is their ability to distinguish levels of brightness or their visual acuity. Dogs are sensitive to higher flicker rates than people are, which can affect any studies that use moving items on computers or on televisions. There is evidence that dog vision is even more sensitive to movement than human vision.
Since visual perception abilities are not consistently accounted for in many studies with dogs, it is hard to know whether the test protocols are accurately assessing canine cognition. The results may be affected by visual capabilities instead. Researchers recently tested the hypothesis that visual perceptual differences between dogs and people could affect the performance in visually-based tasks using a free online tool (http://dog-vision.com) that converts images to settings that match what humans or dogs can see best. They report their results in the study “Do you see what I see? The difference between dog and human visual perception may affect the outcome of experiments”.
The test subjects in the study were humans, and they were asked to decide which side was indicated by a person in a series of photos. The photos showed a woman indicating a direction (right or left) by either pointing that way with her arm extended, by turning her head or by moving the gaze of her eyes in that direction without moving her head. People were tested with photos in their original form (set for human vision) and in a form altered for canine vision.
Participants in the study could correctly choose the direction of all three sorts of cues in the unaltered (human vision setting) photos. In the photos that were altered to the dog-vision setting, they could identify the cues in the pointing with extended arm and with the head turn quite well. However, their performance dropped considerably when asked the direction indicated by the gaze of the woman’s eyes in the dog-vision setting.
The results of this study suggest that differing visual capabilities may affect performance in visual tasks. The researchers acknowledge that this study only shows that human performance is influenced when visual tasks are designed for the other species, but it is likely that dogs are similarly affected. Though many experiments that do not account for vision differences between dogs and humans have still revealed intriguing canine capabilities, future research could benefit from doing so. It is likely that researchers could increase the number of unambiguous results and also eliminate the hassle of a large drop-out rate of subjects who do not meet preliminary criteria for inclusion in the study. Potentially challenging visual presentations are a problem in canine studies, and avoiding them will help scientists conduct better research.
Every dog has its day, and 7 of the nation’s bravest dogs are hoping that day will come for them on September 16 at the American Humane Hero Dog Awards®, presented by the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation. These dogs are all competing for the honor of being named 2017’s American Hero Dog, the highest honor a dog can receive.
Dog lovers across the country visited http://ift.tt/QHTBD5 and voted once per day for their favorite dogs in each of seven categories. The 21 semifinalists (the top three in each category) were chosen through the first round of voting, which ended May 3. A second round, featuring a combination of public and celebrity voting, narrowed the field even further to the seven category finalists. The final round of public voting is now taking place until August 30, 2017 at http://ift.tt/QHTBD5.
The winning dog in each category will be flown to Los Angeles and celebrated at a red carpet, star-studded awards gala on September 16, when this year’s American Hero Dog will be revealed. The sixth annual Hero Dog Awards will be hosted by James Denton and Beth Stern and will air nationwide as a two-hour special on Hallmark Channel this fall.
The seven categories for 2017 are:
1. Law Enforcement/Arson Dogs, sponsored by the K-9 Courage Program™ from Zoetis
2. Military Dogs, sponsored by the K-9 Courage Program from Zoetis and the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation
3. Therapy Dogs, sponsored by Chicken Soup for the Soul Pet Food, the official pet food of the 2017 Hero Dog Awards
4. Service Dogs, sponsored by Modern Dog magazine
5. Emerging Hero Dogs, a category that pays tribute to ordinary dogs who do extraordinary things, sponsored by Merial, maker of NexGard® (afoxolaner) Chewables
6. Search and Rescue Dogs
7. Guide/Hearing Dogs.
Winners in each category will earn $2,500 for their designated charity partner and the overall winner’s charity partner will win an additional $5,000 prize. Each charity partner is dedicated to celebrating the role of working dogs in our lives, and like American Humane, celebrates the importance of the human-animal bond.
This is Chip. Chip is a good dog. Photo by Bas Bloemsaat.
Pet food aisles are full of packages that claim to hold “natural” and “holistic” foods, with pictures of fresh vegetables and roast chicken on the front. But there’s not much difference between these foods and the cheapest by-product-filled kibble. Here’s what you can expect to find in your pet’s food.
What Does “Chicken” Mean, Exactly?
Dogs and cats both love to eat meat, and their wild relatives happily snarf down smaller creatures, often organs and all. So pet foods should, and do, usually contain plenty of animal tissue. But if you’re envisioning filet mignon—or even those chunks of lean chicken and salmon that grace package labels—you’re not thinking like your pet.
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“If you buy commercial pet foods at all, you are buying ingredients that humans do not want to eat,” Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim write in Feed Your Pet Right, a great read if you want to know what’s really in your pet’s food. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with what we feed our pets—after 300 pages of analysis they conclude that all the commercial foods are basically fine—but most of the meaty ingredients are things you would never see in a grocery store.
Take beef, for example. The Association of American Feed Control Officials defines it as “the clean flesh derived from slaughtered mammals and is limited to that part of the striate muscle which is skeletal or that part which is found in the tongue, in the diaphragm, in the heart or in the esophagus; with or without the accompanying and overlying fat and portions of the skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the flesh.” Poultry has a similar definition, but it may include ground-up bone.
There’s no need to slaughter food animals just to make pet food, since the meat industry has plenty of scraps that you and I aren’t interested in buying. So if your dog food boasts “chicken” as the number one ingredient, you’re probably getting a slurry of meat, skin, and gristle that was mechanically separated from leftover chicken necks and backs. It’s nutritious and delicious, if you’re a dog. If you’re curious, but not too squeamish, this video shows how that process works:
Here are a few other meat-related terms you’re likely to see on pet food labels:
By-products include clean parts of slaughtered animals that are edible to animals but don’t count as meat. These might be beef lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, blood, bone, and fat. For poultry, by-products can include heads and feet.
Meals, like “chicken meal” or “fish meal”, are rendered. This means the producers take edible parts—either meat or by-products—and cook and dry them into a powder.
What Else Is In There Besides Meat?
Plenty of pet food brands boast meat (or something like it, like “chicken”) as their number one ingredient. That’s fine, but no matter how the ingredients are ordered, there are almost always grains, vegetables, and other components like vitamins and minerals.
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You can tell from the phrasing on the package just how much meat is in the product. The AAFCO sets minimum percentages for any meat the label plays up:
100 percent chicken means literally that: a food that is made entirely of chicken. (These are rare—but remember, again, that this can include mechanically deboned chicken slurry.)
Chicken dog food must be at least 95 percent chicken, or 70 percent if it’s a wet food (since the water makes up part of the food’s weight).
Chicken recipe implies that chicken is part of the food, but that there are other ingredients. To use wording like this, the food has to be at least 25 percent chicken (or 10 percent if it’s a wet food).
Made with real chicken means it must contain at least 3 percent chicken.
Chicken flavor doesn’t require a minimum amount of chicken, as long it’s somewhere in the ingredient list. The same goes for “meaty”—you can use that word on any pet food that contains meat. Sometimes these flavoring ingredients are sprayed on the outside of the kibble.
If wet food seems like a simple way around this issue, because it looks like chunks of meat, think again. Nestle and Nesheim write:
Canned pet foods usually begin with relatively low-grade meat trimmings that are reconstituted into pieces that look like chunks of meat. This requires suspending meat particles in gels, heating them so they coagulate into chunks, or using extruded vegetable protein to simulate meat. Some ‘premium’ or ‘superpremium’ pet foods contain actual chunks of meat, but many do not.
As a rule of thumb, salt is somewhere around one percent of a pet food. So anything that appears after salt in the list is only present in trace amounts. That’s sometimes the case for fruits and vegetables pictured on labels.
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In their book, Nestle and Nesheim were able to rule out some of the things that aren’t in pet food. For example, none of the by-products include hair, horns, teeth, or hooves. And despite rumors, you won’t find wood shavings, motor oil, or old boots in pet food, either. (There is an ingredient definition on the books for “hydrolyzed leather meal,” which can be made by cooking and processing leather scraps, but nobody uses it; Nestle and Nesheim write that they “doubt state feed control officials would allow it.”
On the other hand, they tried to track down what happens to dogs and cats that are euthanized at shelters, and found that they sometimes end up at the same rendering plants that supply ingredients for pet foods. Traces of euthanasia drugs have been found in pet food samples, but at very low levels. This doesn’t seem likely to be a widespread practice, but worryingly, neither Nestle and Nesheim nor Snopes have been able to confirm or deny whether it happens occasionally.
Are the Non-Meat Ingredients a Problem?
Nutritionally, pets need the vitamins and other nutrients that come from unappetizing places like prey animals’ organs and stomach contents. Cats and dogs have also adapted to scrounging food from our plates and our garbage dumps, so it makes sense that their diets wouldn’t be the same as their wild relatives. But should they really be eating grains and veggies every day?
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Even though grains are unfashionable for humans and pets these days, there’s nothing wrong with them. Dogs and cats can digest grains, and they’re a fine ingredient in food as long as the nutrients are balanced. In other words, it’s fair to use an “if it fits your macros” approach, and grains often fit just fine.
There are two small caveats. One is that barley and soy tend to make dogs fart a lot. Another is that the more fiber a food contains—whether from grains, veggies, or the small amounts of fillers like carrageenan and guar gum—the more poop the dog is likely to produce. More expensive “premium” foods tend to result in less poop.
So, let’s say you find a grain-free food you like. That’s fine, but you’re paying extra for a food that’s nutritionally similar to the cheaper grain-containing foods. Grain-free foods may not have wheat or corn, but instead typically have pea flour, potatoes, and other starchy ingredients. As long as the food is nutritionally complete—and it will say so on the package—you should probably save your money.
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What about the other reassuring-sounding words on the label? Most don’t mean what you think they mean. There is no official definition of “natural” or “holistic,” and even though “organic” has a specific meaning in human food, pet food laws have loopholes that let them call foods organic that don’t meet all the organic standards. “Human-grade” is another meaningless buzzword. Some pet foods and treats use it, but the AAFCO considers it misleading. Pet foods just aren’t the same thing that you would feed yourself, and that’s okay—your dog doesn’t mind.
