- August 20, 2022
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- 13 minutes read
Modern-day challenges for dogs: Are there parallels with horses? – Horsetalk.co.nz – Horsetalk
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Many horses receive a standard of care that was unheard of only a few decades ago. Veterinary practices have greater access to high-tech diagnostic tools, and science is increasingly driving nutrition. But are horses any happier? And do they enjoy the disciplines that they are asked to perform?
These questions, once the domain of a few curious researchers, are being asked more widely. The FEI recently appointed a 10-member Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission to develop a practical framework to address current and future concerns around the use of horses in sport, including its social license to operate.
A social license is an intangible, implicit agreement between the public and an industry or group. Wide public approval of an activity often means it can proceed with few formal restrictions. However, wide disapproval may give rise to a ban.
A recently published review examined what equestrian sport can learn from other industries in terms of maintaining its social license to operate.
There may also be interesting parallels between horses and dogs, based on the findings of a recently published paper that explored the modern-day lives of canines.
The authors of Pampered pets or poor bastards? The welfare of dogs kept as companion animals, published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, reviewed a large number of research articles on the behavioural problems of family dogs and on the lives of many village dogs around the world.
Veterinary care and malnutrition are no longer the main problems for dogs kept as family pets, as was the case a hundred years ago. Today, the big issues are separation anxiety and behavioral difficulties.
Modern-day dogs may also be struggling with our sky-high expectations of them, according to University of Copenhagen researchers, who compared the welfare of modern family dogs with so-called free-roaming village dogs.
Village dogs can be seen roaming the streets freely in various parts of the world, without belonging to any one family. They may appear a bit shabby and underweight. One could easily be led to believe that “village dogs” would be better off in a safe and stable environment alongside a family in suburbia. But things aren’t quite that simple.
The life of a typical “family dog” comes with a price. Dogs have evolved to run freely among other dogs and humans, according to researchers at the university’s Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences and Department of Food and Resource Economics.
They conclude that, compared to the village dog, the family dog experiences a high degree of welfare when it comes to safety, access to nutritious food and veterinary care. But it’s a different story with regard to their mental health.
“Many people think today’s family dog is spoiled and has it all too good,” says the study’s first author, Assistant Professor Iben Meyer, a veterinarian who specializes in dog behavior. “However, they often suffer from loneliness and the unrealistic social expectations of owners. This can eventuate in anxiety, depression and even aggressive behavior – problems that village dogs typically don’t have.”
The shared history of dogs and humans extends 10,000 years, to the time when dogs first became domesticated as pets. But over the past two centuries, the typical dog’s life has changed dramatically.
Dogs have gradually evolved from living freely on farms, where there were always people around and other dogs nearby, to moving into small urban homes, as pets that were acquired to satisfy their owners, with confinement and loneliness built into the equation. In today’s Denmark, where dogs are not allowed to roam freely in public spaces, the free-roaming village dog no longer exists.
To compare the typical family dog’s welfare with something more “original”, the researchers looked at studies of village dogs in Mexico. Along with many other less economically developed countries, Mexico is home to the majority of dogs in the world today. Many of these dogs live a life closer to their species’ primal nature.
“Until about 50 years ago, there were still dogs in Denmark that lived more or less naturally. Since then, we have yanked them from their natural niche and created the modern family dog, which presents a few challenges for dogs,” explains study co-author Peter Sandøe, a bioethics professor.
For many families, 21st-century work and institutional life mean that people are away from home for a large portion of their day. During that time, dogs are left to their own devices. It is a life that doesn’t harmonize with the social needs of dogs, which need to spend time in the company of humans and other dogs.
“Dogs that are often left alone at home or that haven’t gotten progressively used to being alone can be affected by separation anxiety or other separation-related issues like boredom and frustration,” Meyer says.
“At times, dogs vent their anxiety or frustration by gnawing on furniture, peeing on floors or destroying homes. These are problems that prompt some owners to euthanize or give their dogs away. While most dogs suffer in a less destructive way, they don’t necessarily have fewer problems.”
In sharp contrast to their largely lonely lives, people have extremely high expectations for how dogs should behave when in human company. Preferably, a dog should be able to interact with other dogs, allow itself to be petted by strangers, and in general, be able to satisfy its owners – which is not always realistic.
Unlike the village dog, which often roams freely with other dogs in small packs, and chooses with whom and when it wants to be social, the family dog does not experience the same natural form of socialization.
“Most dog owners have heard that socialization is important – puppies need to learn to be with other dogs, etc,” Sandøe says.
“Therefore, people seek out places with many other dogs, expecting for their dog to be social on command. The problem is that this is not very natural for a dog, which can risk having a bad experience that persists and can contribute to developing problematic behavior.”
Meyer adds: “Socialization is about giving a puppy positive experiences with other dogs and humans. If your puppy’s boundaries are crossed or they don’t have the opportunity to pull away, it won’t have a good experience and could lead to problems with aggressive behaviour.
“In my work, I’ve seen examples of owners who walk their dogs at night to avoid unpleasant encounters with other dogs or people. This type of problem can easily be caused by negative social experiences from earlier in a dog’s life.”
To make life easier for a companion dog, researchers suggest that it is very much about accepting that they cannot always live up to everything we expect of them. Dogs are social and not designed to be home alone, all day long. This needs to be considered before getting a dog.
“You need to consider whether your life can satisfy a dog’s social needs,” Sandøe says. “Most dogs can learn to be alone for part of the day, but I think we can go further to meet the social needs of dogs compared to what we do today. For example, there is a rule in Sweden that dogs can only be left alone at home for six hours at a time.”
Finally, people need to learn to take dogs’ differences into account.
“Research demonstrates that dogs have very different personalities, even within the same breed. It is important to not paint all dogs with the same brush, and instead, learn to understand the dog that we live with,” Meyer says.
“This is particularly true in social contexts, where we need to try to avoid forcing a dog into something that it doesn’t want to do. A dog owner’s most important job is to help their dog to live a good life within the limitations that come from growing up as a family pet in Denmark.”
In conclusion, the authors said the typical modern suburban or urban companion dog experiences good welfare in several respects when compared to the typical village dog. This is especially the case in terms of security, proper veterinary care, and satisfaction of nutritional needs – although companion dogs have problems with a high prevalence of obesity. The median life expectancy of companion dogs across breeds is greater than ten years, while it is roughly a third of that for the typical village dog.
“However, in other ways the modern companion dog often experiences poor welfare, suffering from breeding-related diseases, loneliness, and unrealistic social demands that can contribute to anxiety, depression, or aggression.”
Perhaps counter intuitively, companion dogs do not have a welfare advantage over village dogs in all respects, they wrote. “As such, we have demonstrated how a comparison between the two can highlight potential initiatives to improve the welfare of companion dogs.”
Iben Meyer, Björn Forkman, Merete Fredholm, Carmen Glanville, Bernt Guldbrandtsen, Eliza Ruiz Izaguirre, Clare Palmer, Peter Sandøe, Pampered pets or poor bastards? The welfare of dogs kept as companion animals. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 251, 2022, 105640, ISSN 0168-1591, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2022.105640
The paper, published under a Creative Commons License, can be read here.
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