03/10/2025
Think piece after reading this study...
This study is more about the human perception of the dog behaving constraint by human constructed concepts, than that of the dogs individual experiences- unfortunately. In any study with human reporting on observed behaviour, one should also observe the behaviour of the human handler / owner as well. They point that out in the discussions under "limitations and future discussions..." in relation to the problem of "priming" subjects.
Further, it relies on human made concepts of what is "aggressive" and what is "fearful" behaviour to explain the "why" without even attempting to explain the "how"; with the typical linear, hypothetical narrative.
Where is the line where "agression" and "fear" become different categories from "threat responses"?
It does not mean that we ignore animal "feelinings" but become comfortable with the fact that we have no direct access to an animals', or another humans perceived experiences. To guess another individuals felt experiences is not as simple as looking at movements such facial expression and other body movements- commonly called "body language". These movements are clues, for sure. But there are no one-to-one facial or movements expressions; or one-to-one physical changes specific to any category of mood or emotion. They are not random, but an individual can have a variety of different expressions relational to instances of feelings or emotions. A movement like "freezing" can be vital to escape threat or vital to hunt prey. A dog can pant to regulate temperature, to express pain or discomfort or to express arousal and a spectrum of felt experiences.
And the unwillingness to accept that can be poisonous to "objective observations" and maybe to a human-animal relationship in form of overprotective behaviour by the human in one part, and unawareness of other possible physical issues on the other part. (E.g; musculoskeletal disfunction)
The "how" lies within the physical details, the anatomy and the relational interactions between chemicals and chemical electrical exchanges in every instance of a body interacting with the niche.
How social animals regulate their own and others nervous systems, thus behaviour. If an owner is more inclined to be over protective, the very nature of the dog might not be provided for. That, of the cycling between free exploration and exploitation - the pause to restart the explorative motion.
These cycles have been observed since the early times of ethology. They have many names: preparatory, appeditive, explorative - consummatory, terminal, exploitive behaviour cycles.
Observation tells us that humans are very quick in trying to "help" the animal get to where they think the animals goals should lie. It is a hard task for a human to stay back and just stand still, observing what often feels like an explorative struggle. In that very turn of interfering in that cycle "to be kind" and deeply caring, we limit the very processes that animal is prepared for and trying to engage. Animals are prepared not by humans domesticating animals such as a dog, but by the animals evolutionary history and adapting their inheritance in their specific niche.
The authors are certainly not wrong in the conclusion that what happens during important developmental stages shapes certain behaviour patterns; even after development periods end, behaviour is still shaped by relational interactions with the environment to a slower extent.
We certainly can't go back and change the animals experiences during developmental stages, but we can provide environments where prepared behaviours can have positive impacts to overcome an animals fast, predictive modeled action plans combating anticipated threat to any common movements to protect the body from harm, which humans categorize as different essences of "aggression" or "fear".
Among the animals on this planet, dogs are uniquely adapted for life with humans, a status that exposes them to risks of human-mediated traumatic experiences. At the same time, some lineages of dogs have undergone artificial selection for behavioral phenotypes that might increase risk or resilience....
