The Unique Role of Dogs in Society James A. Serpell, PhD Center - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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The Unique Role of Dogs in Society

James A. Serpell, PhD

Center for the Interaction

• f Animals and Society

School of Veterinary Medicine University of Pennsylvania

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Plan of Talk

• Why the dog’s role in society is

unique.

• The impact of dogs on human

emotional and physical health.

• Recent genetic and

neurophysiological studies that shed light on the nature of this special relationship.

• The impact of the dog-human

relationship on the perceived moral status dogs.

• The effect of this on public attitudes

to the use of dogs for research.

• Conclusions

The Cow-Human Relationship

Benefits Costs

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Social Support

The Dog-Human Relationship

Benefits Costs

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The Dog Was Domesticated from the Grey Wolf Sometime Prior to 15,000 years BP

Ovodov et al., 2011. 33,000 year-old “incipient” dog from the Altai Mountains

• f Siberia. PLoS One, 6(7): e22821.

Dogs therefore preceded all other domestic species by at least 5K years

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Dogs Have Continued to Play a Prominent Role on Human Lives Ever Since

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10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year Millions

USA Dog Population: 1967-2015 (millions)

• Currently there are approximately 80

million dogs in the USA, mostly pets.

• And around 900 million globally of which

about 70% are free-roaming.

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US Dog Popularity Fluctuates According to Body Size

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People Are Spending More on Their Dogs

Rowan, A. & Kartal, T. (2018) Animals, 8, 68

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And Developing Closer Attachments to Their Dogs

Rowan, A. & Kartal, T. (2018) Animals, 8, 68

Pet Ownership Associated with Improved Survival Following Heart Attack

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Effect of Pets on Physiological Arousal

• Pet owning subjects

were equipped with remote BP monitors and beepers that sounded at random intervals during the day.

• When the beeper

sounded, subjects wrote down whether the pet was present with them

• r not present.

(Friedmann et al., 2013. Anthrozoös, 26: 535-550)

Pet Acquisition Associated with Positive Changes in Health

Source: Serpell, J.A. 1991. J. Roy. Soc. Med., 84: 717-720.

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HAI Research Has Found Evidence That:

1. Pet ownership is associated with improved survivorship with cardiovascular disease. 2. Presence of pets is associated with de-arousal— short-term reductions in heart-rate/blood pressure; subjective feelings of calmness, relaxation. 3. Pet acquisition is associated with a decline in minor health problems and improved mental well-being. 4. Pet acquisition associated with sustained reductions in reactions to experimental stressors. 5. Pet ownership is associated with fewer risk factors for cardiovascular disease. 6. Pet ownership linked to less deterioration in health in response to chronic stress. 7. Pet ownership is associated with increased social interaction with others.

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Meta-analysis of Results of 49 AAT Studies

(Nimer, J. & Lundahl, B. 2007)

• Effect sizes varied depending on what was measured. Biggest effects

found for Autism Spectrum behaviors (Cohen’s d = 0.72); moderate effects found for medical symptoms such a HR, BP and motor skills (d = 0.51), and smallest effects seen for emotional indicators, such as anxiety and depression (d = 0.39).

• Use of dogs was consistently associated with larger effect sizes than

for other types of therapy animals (e.g. horses, aquariums, dolphins, etc.).

• In the 4 studies that compared AAT with other, more conventional

treatments, effect sizes for AAT were either similar or superior to those associated with other treatments.

What is the mechanism? And why are dogs better?

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• Fig. 1 Comparisons of behavior and urinary oxytocin change among long gaze

dogs (LG, n = 21, black bars and circles), short gaze dogs (SG, n = 9, white bars and circles), and pet wolves (wolf, n = 11, gray bars and square).

Nagasawa et al. Science, 2015;348:333-336

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Figure 2. Proximity seeking scores mean differences between the different −212AG genotypes in German Shepherds (a) and Border Collies (b). Sample sizes for each genotype group are provided in parenthesis.

Kis A, Bence M, Lakatos G, Pergel E, Turcsán B, et al. (2014) Oxytocin Receptor Gene Polymorphisms Are Associated with Human Directed Social Behavior in Dogs (Canis familiaris). PLOS ONE 9(1): e83993. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083993 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083993

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Pet Keeping Is a Major Driver of Attitude Change

 The individuals with whom we develop social relationships and attachments—particularly in childhood—define both who we are (who we identify with) and who we care about.

Myers, O.E. 1998. Children and Animals. Boulder, Co: Westview

“[C]aring for and about dogs and cats is a primary portal to compassion and concern about a wide array of animal protection issues.”

Randall Lockwood, 2005, p.8.

5 10 15 20 25 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8+

• No. of Family Pets Owned in Childhood (0-16 years)

% Subjects Who Supported Animal Protection Organizations (N = 378)

Childhood Pet Keeping Predicts Support for Animal Protection Later in Life

(R = 0.84, P < 0.005)

From: Paul, E.S. & Serpell, J.A. 1993. Animal Welfare, 2(4).

10 20 30 40 50 1 2 3+

• No. of “Important” Pets Reported during Childhood

% Subjects Who Avoid Eating at Least One Animal Food Product (N = 378)

Strong Childhood Pet Attachments Predict Animal Food Avoidance

From: Paul, E.S. & Serpell, J.A. 1993. Animal Welfare, 2(4).

Samuel Johnson, 1758

“Among the inferior professors

• f medical knowledge is a race of

wretches whose lives are only varied by varieties of cruelty; whose favorite amusement is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive…..It is time that a universal resentment should arise against those horrid

• perations, which tend to

harden the heart and make physicians more dreadful than the gout or the stone.”

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Emil-Edouard Mouchy, 1832

Public Vivisections of Dogs without Anesthesia Were Relatively Commonplace in the 18th & 19th Centuries

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In the 19th Century, middle class pet

• wners such as Frances Power Cobbe

were in the forefront of the anti- vivisection movement, so much so that

• ne hostile commentator attributed her

reformist zeal to sentimental affection for her own pet dog: “She is not defending a right inherent in sentient things as such; she is doing special pleading for some of them for which she has a special liking.”

Pet Owners Led the Anti-vivisection Movement

Frances Power Cobbe 1822-1904

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"We must painfully acknowledge that, precisely because of its great intellectual development, the best of man's domesticated animals—the dog—most often becomes the victim

• f physiological experiments………. The

dog is irreplaceable; moreover it is extremely touching. It is almost a participant in the experiments conducted upon it, greatly facilitating the success of the research by its understanding and compliance." Ivan Pavlov, 1893

28 http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/pepper/2009/06/wheres_pepper.html

Julia & Peter Lakavage

In 1965, the theft of a pet Dalmatian named ‘Pepper’ from the PA home of Julia and Peter Lakavage culminated in a fundamental shift in the practice and ethics of biomedical research in the USA.

All It Takes Is One Dog

Life Magazine article (Feb. 1966) exposed the activities of “class B” animal dealers

…and contributed directly to the passage of the Animal Welfare Act, 1966

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Conclusions

• More so than other domestic animals, dogs have been selected

for “hypersociability”, manifested as enhanced motivation to engage socially with humans combined with extreme willingness to comply with human direction.

• Through its effects on OT secretion, dog-human social

interaction tends to generate intense cross-species social bonds while also down-regulating the stress response.

• These effects help to account for the popularity of dogs both as

pets and as research animals, as well as the apparent therapeutic benefits of dog-human interactions.

• At the same time, long-term familial relationships with dogs

promote an increase in their perceived moral standing.

• Consequently, the dog-owning public is increasingly opposed to

activities, such as biomedical research, that are perceived to cause harm to dogs.