Penn opens facility to train, study detection dogs
A detection dog-training center opens Tuesday, on the anniversary of Sept. 11, at the University of Pennsylvania so scientists can train dogs for search-and-rescue missions — and study what helps them succeed.
Cynthia Otto, who served on a team that used working dogs to search for survivors in the rubble at ground zero, created the Penn Vet Working Dog Center. She’s a veterinarian who specializes in emergency, critical care and disaster medicine, and she has consulted with the military about the health of search-and-rescue dogs, including Cairo, the dog who worked on the Osama bin Laden mission. She tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that detection dogs are invaluable.
“There are so many jobs now that dogs are being used for,” Otto says. “Originally it was kind of looked at as that patrol dog or the bomb-detection dog, but now they’re being used to find the IEDs [improved explosive devices]. Some of them are actually being used for therapy in the field, which is really incredible. But they’re starting to look at all of the different potential components that these dogs can contribute to…and the detection area is so important because these dogs are better than any machine that we have — and they can save lives.”
Annemarie DeAngelo, the center’s training director, founded the New Jersey State Police Canine Unit and has worked with canines for more than 13 years. With her dog partners, she has searched for missing children, criminals and drugs — one drug seizure involved 1,200 kilos of cocaine.
With her canine companions, DeAngelo says she feels “very confident that I know my partner is doing his job, and that no harm is going to come to me, and we’re going to find what we’re looking for.”
Interview Highlights
A scientific approach to maintaining hydration for working dogs
Cynthia Otto: “One of the big concerns that we have not only with the military dogs but also the search-and-rescue dogs from Sept. 11 and Katrina is maintaining their hydration, and so that’s a project we’re very actively working on at this time because these dogs are so focused on what they’re doing. They’re really intent, and so they’re just gonna keep on doing it and they forget that they need to have a drink. And what happens is then they’re more likely to get overheated, they’re more likely to really get exhausted if they don’t take a break. …
“And so we’re looking at different approaches to keeping them hydrated so that they can stay safe, they can work well, and that’s a question that people have lots of ideas about, and no one’s taken that scientific approach. And that’s what we’re doing.”
On how dogs are trained to find the living
Otto: “With finding live people, it’s very important that they’re trained to very quickly identify a concealed person, and that allows them to work in an area where there are a lot of other people that are visible but aren’t concealed. And those dogs typically have what we call a very active alert — they bark. It may be used in the human remains also to have an active alert, but most of them are a more passive alert, which means that they would either sit or paw to alert that there is something there. The urgency with the live find is really what’s so important, because we have such limited time to be successful.”
On how training dogs to apprehend criminals is different from search and rescue
Annemarie DeAngelo: “When you’re sniffing, the dogs are using their olfactories to locate a substance, whether it’s explosives or narcotics. When you’re making a criminal apprehension, that is when the dog is assisting the officer and he bites and holds the person until the officer gets there, or if someone is assaulting the officer, dogs are automatically trained to protect that officer. …
“[The training] starts out as game of tug of war and it evolves. It’s a long process, but it evolves to a sleeve, and you just keep training every day until the dog will go out and make a clean apprehension.”
On whether dogs have a sense of service
Otto: “I would love to think that, but I think they think it’s a game. …
“They don’t care who they find. If they find somebody, they get their Frisbee; it’s a game and that’s what life is all about. I believe dogs have such an amazing connection with us, and I think that sometimes what it’s all about for them is what they’re feeling from their handler — that pride that we can give them — that feeling, just that connection, because that is important to them. But it’s about the game. I don’t think that they really do know that they’re being so amazing and so patriotic and so helpful. They’re doing what they do naturally.”
Does your pet favor the right or left paw? Tests can tell
Veterinarian Stefanie Schwartz of the Veterinary Neurology Center in Tustin, Calif., developed a method of testing pets to determine whether they are right- or left-paw dominant. It is a series of dexterity tests that can determine which paw is dominant. A previous study suggested that 50% of cats are right-paw dominant, 40% left-pawed, and 10% ambidextrous, while another study showed dogs were equally right- and left-pawed. The Daily Mail (London) (8/28)
Is your pet right or left-handed? The DIY test that uses cheese, sofas and the backdoor to find out… but you have to do it 100 times
Quite possibly not. But if you have, this could be just the thing you’ve been waiting for.
Dr. Stefanie Schwartz of the Veterinary Neurology Center in Tustin, Calififornia, claims to have developed a test to figure out whether a dog or cat is right or left-handed.
Paw preference won’t make a dog or cat walk, talk or wink like a human. You won’t even get a high-five or a fist pump out of it. But vets and owners reckons the curiosity factor will have pet owners clamoring to find out if theirs is a leftie or a rightie.
Results are in: Veterinarian Christina Thompson performs a right-handed-left-handed test with a Chihuahua dog
Researchers are studying things like right brain-left brain connections, genetics and sexual orientation that may one day change the way dogs and cats are bred, raised, trained and used, said Schwartz.
Some horses have to be ambidextrous, said Dr. Sharon Crowell-Davis, a behavior and anatomy professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia.
‘They have to be able to circle right and left. If not, they can trip,’ Crowell-Davis said. ‘You have to work to get them to take the lead they prefer less.’
She has never seen an advertisement promoting right or left-pawed dogs or cats. ‘The only time you see it used in advertising is with horses. If a horse if being offered for sale, because of issues on the lead, it may say ‘Works well on both leads’ to emphasize the horse has had training.’
For dogs and cats their well-being doesn’t depend on preference.
A 1991 study at Ataturk University in Turkey showed 50 per cent of cats were right-pawed, 40 per cent were left-pawed and 10 per cent were ambidextrous. That study might be out-of-date, Schwartz said, but it does provide percentages.
A 2006 study from the University of Manchester in England showed dogs were split half-and-half.
About 90 per cent of humans are right-handed and 10 per cent are left-handed.
Laterality — the textbook term meaning one side of the brain is dominant over the other — may someday help breeders predict which puppies will make the best military, service and therapy dogs, Schwartz said, and that could be lifesaving.
But for now, if you care enought, Schwartz has a series of tests that she says will determine the paw preference of your pet, when performed 100 times.
She suggests filling a toy with something delicious and putting it in the center of the dog’s visual field. Which paw does it use to touch the toy first? Which paw does the dog use to hold the toy?
Or you could put something sticky on a dog or cat’s nose and take note of which paw it uses to remove it? Place a treat or a piece of cheese under a sofa, just beyond a dog or cat’s reach, she says. Which paw does it use to try and get it out?
Other indicators include which paw a dog offers to shake when asked or knock the backdoor with when it wants to be let in. Similarly for cats you can track which paw it uses to bat a dangled toy or to reach a treat lurking under a bowl.
Schwartz said there are a few things that might alter test results, including that if a dog has arthritis or an injury in a shoulder or leg, it could use the other to compensate.
When a cat really wants something, she said, tests show it uses its dominant paw, but when it’s just fooling around it may use either or both.
And it is also possible that handedness in dogs, and maybe cats, will change over time as the animal’s motivation changes.
Robin A.F. Olson, founder and president of rescue organisation Kitten Associates Inc, said her cats are always reaching for toys or treats with one paw or another.
‘I try not to be judgmental of my cats’ abilities or lack thereof. We will never worry about the anti-paw.’
It appears that Nora, an internationally acclaimed 8-year-old piano-playing tabby from Philadelphia, owned by piano teacher Betsy Alexander and her artist-photographer husband, Burnell Yow, is right-pawed.
Yow studied her videos and ‘determined that she appears to lead with her right paw, then follow with her left,’ Alexander said.
But she has her ambidextrous, headstrong moments.
‘She uses both paws to reach for specific notes, even black notes … and she uses her head to roll a series of multiple notes.’
Burning question or a waste of time? How to find out if your pet is a leftie or rightie
If you teach a dog to shake, which paw does it offer you first and most often?
Fill a toy with something delicious and put it in the center of the dog’s visual field. Which paw does it use to touch the toy first? Which paw does the dog use to hold the toy?
Put something sticky on a dog or cat’s nose. Which paw does the animal use to remove it?
Place a treat or a piece of cheese under a sofa, just beyond a dog or cat’s reach. Which paw does it use to try and get it out?
Dangle a toy over a cat’s head. Which paw does it lift to bat it?
Put a treat under a bowl. Which paw does the cat or dog use to move it?
When a dog wants in the backdoor, which paw does it ‘knock’ with?
Pain leads to aggression in some dogs, study says
Sudden changes in a dog’s temperament, for example episodes of aggression, could be related to some internal pain they are feeling, which sets them on edge if they are touched, new research indicates.
“If the pet is handled when in pain, it will quickly act aggressively to avoid more discomfort without the owner being able to prevent it,” study researcher Tomàs Camps, of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in Spain, said in a statement. “Dogs that had never been aggressive before the onset of pain began to behave in this way in situations where an attempt is made to control them.”
Irritability from pain can make otherwise affectionate dogs violent and already aggressive dogs even more aggressive. As such, the researchers say, their findings support the importance of the diagnosis and treatment of pain in dogs.