•Working and sporting dogs are valuable and essential contributors to industries worldwide.•Inefficiencies throughout the working dog production process result in high failure rates.•Animal ...production must be transparent, traceable and ethically acceptable to be sustainable.•Canine performance science is a model offering the working dog industry a sustainable future.
Working and sporting dogs provide an essential contribution to many industries worldwide. The common development, maintenance and disposal of working and sporting dogs can be considered in the same way as other animal production systems. The process of ‘production’ involves genetic selection, puppy rearing, recruitment and assessment, training, housing and handling, handler education, health and working life end-point management. At present, inefficiencies throughout the production process result in a high failure rate of dogs attaining operational status. This level of wastage would be condemned in other animal production industries for economic reasons and has significant implications for dog welfare, as well as public perceptions of dog-based industries. Standards of acceptable animal use are changing and some historically common uses of animals are no longer publicly acceptable, especially where harm is caused for purposes deemed trivial, or where alternatives exist. Public scrutiny of animal use appears likely to increase and extend to all roles of animals, including working and sporting dogs. Production system processes therefore need to be transparent, traceable and ethically acceptable for animal use to be sustainable into the future. Evidence-based approaches already inform best practice in fields as diverse as agriculture and human athletic performance. This article introduces the nascent discipline of canine performance science, which aims to facilitate optimal product quality and production efficiency, while also assuring evidence-based increments in dog welfare through a process of research and development. Our thesis is that the model of canine performance science offers an objective, transparent and traceable opportunity for industry development in line with community expectations and underpins a sustainable future for working dogs.
This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Canine Behavior.
Urban environments generate constant loud noise, which creates a formidable challenge for many animals relying on acoustic communication. Some birds make vocal adjustments that reduce auditory ...masking by altering, for example, the frequency (kHz) or timing of vocalizations. Another adjustment, well documented for birds under laboratory and natural field conditions, is a noise level-dependent change in sound signal amplitude (the 'Lombard effect'). To date, however, field research on amplitude adjustments in urban environments has focused exclusively on bird song.
We investigated amplitude regulation of alarm calls using, as our model, a successful urban 'adapter' species, the Noisy miner, Manorina melanocephala. We compared several different alarm calls under contrasting noise conditions.
Individuals at noisier locations (arterial roads) alarm called significantly more loudly than those at quieter locations (residential streets). Other mechanisms known to improve sound signal transmission in 'noise', namely use of higher perches and in-flight calling, did not differ between site types. Intriguingly, the observed preferential use of different alarm calls by Noisy miners inhabiting arterial roads and residential streets was unlikely to have constituted a vocal modification made in response to sound-masking in the urban environment because the calls involved fell within the main frequency range of background anthropogenic noise.
The results of our study suggest that a species, which has the ability to adjust the amplitude of its signals, might have a 'natural' advantage in noisy urban environments.
Urban environments are characteristically noisy and this can pose a challenge for animals that communicate acoustically. Although evidence suggests that some birds can make acoustic adjustments that ...preclude masking of their signals in high-disturbance environments such as cities, studies to date have tended to focus on acoustic signals important in mate attraction (e.g., songs). Far less attention has been given to the impact of urban noise on other kinds of calls. To redress this, we compared a range of different vocalizations (encompassing alarm calls, begging calls and parent response calls) among urban and rural individuals of a successful Australian 'urban adapter', the Noisy miner,
. We found that urban miners had significantly higher minimum sound frequencies for calls with low base-frequencies (<2 kHz); however, calls with base-frequencies 'naturally' above the main frequency range of urban noise (>2 kHz) had the same minimum frequency in urban and rural birds. Dominant frequency and call duration did not differ between urban and rural individuals. Although urban Noisy miners exhibited differences from rural individuals in the minimum frequency of calls, this shift was not large enough to avoid masking from low-frequency, anthropogenic noise. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that the calls of Noisy miners may be naturally well suited to being heard in noisy urban environments by having (a) dominant frequencies higher than low-level, anthropogenic noise and (b) several important call-types with frequencies above the main frequency range associated with urban noise.
Habitat fragmentation and degradation seriously threaten native animal communities. We studied the response of a small marsupial, the agile antechinus Antechinus agilis, to several environmental ...variables in anthropogenically fragmented Eucalyptus forest in south-east Australia. Agile antechinus were captured more in microhabitats dominated by woody debris than in other microhabitats. Relative abundances of both sexes were positively correlated with fragment core area. Male and female mass-size residuals were smaller in larger fragments. A health status indicator, haemoglobin-haematocrit residuals (HHR), did not vary as a function of any environmental variable in females, but male HHR indicated better health where sites' microhabitats were dominated by shrubs, woody debris and trees other than Eucalyptus. Females were trapped less often in edge than interior fragment habitat and their physiological stress level, indicated by the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio in peripheral blood, was higher where fragments had a greater proportion of edge habitat. The latter trend was potentially due to lymphopoenia resulting from stress hormone-mediated leukocyte trafficking. Using multiple indicators of population condition and health status facilitates a comprehensive examination of the effects of anthropogenic disturbances, such as habitat fragmentation and degradation, on native vertebrates. Male agile antechinus' health responded negatively to habitat degradation, whilst females responded negatively to the proportion of edge habitat. The health and condition indicators used could be employed to identify conservation strategies that would make habitat fragments less stressful for this or similar native, small mammals.
Several native bird species have recently successfully colonized many Australian cities. The presence of some of them may be largely beneficial, but their urban ecology is poorly understood. We ...conducted short-term studies of the foraging ecology of Rainbow and Musk Lorikeets and Red-rumped Parrots in Melbourne parklands to help fill this knowledge gap. The nectar (and/or pollen) of six eucalypt species, mostly not native to the Melbourne area, strongly dominated the lorikeets' diet year-round. The key eucalypt species variously flowered for 80-100% of winter and 72-84% of summer. In winter, 80% of the Red-rumped Parrot's diet comprised the abundant seeds of four exotic grasses and herbs. There was little evidence of significant inter-specific competition, particularly through aggressive interference, for any of the lorikeets' or parrots' urban food resources. Thus a critical factor facilitating urban colonization by these birds seems to be that, collectively, ornamental eucalypts planted last century, turf grasses commonly occurring on sports grounds and in parks and common weeds provide abundant food resources in Melbourne's parklands that are broadly similar to those of their non-urban habitats. Moreover, exploitation of these resources by other urban birds seems to be fairly limited.
The examination of links between a high degree of encephalisation (i.e. large brain mass relative to body size) and the capacity of wildlife to inhabit anthropogenic habitats has formed the basis of ...several recent studies, although typically they have not uncovered any relationship. It, however, remains unclear whether encephalisation is directly related to a species’ capacity to develop tolerance to human proximity (i.e. a reduction in response to approaching humans). It is also unknown whether such a relationship is related to the size of specific areas of the brain. Using published data on flight-initiation distance (FID), the distance at which animals flee from an approaching human, we estimate the degree of tolerance of human proximity for 42 bird species by comparing FIDs in urban and rural areas, with relatively high and low exposure to humans, respectively. We used a phylogenetic, comparative approach to analyse the relationship of degree of tolerance, and of FID in urban and rural populations more directly, to relative sizes of whole brains (42 species) and brain components (25 species) for the species, and examine the effect of the year that the bird species was first recorded in an urban area (year of urbanisation). We demonstrate an interaction between bird habitat and year of urbanisation on FIDs. Urban populations of species that have a longer history of inhabiting urban areas have lower FIDs (i.e. birds that were urbanised earlier are more tolerant), which may suggest local selection for birds with reduced responsiveness to humans in urban areas. The pattern is not seen in rural populations of the same species, providing additional evidence that it is greater exposure to humans that has resulted in this tolerance. While we found that forebrain mass and optic lobe mass are influential, positive predictors of FID there was no indication that degree of tolerance itself was related to any brain size metric and hence no support for the idea that urban populations of species with larger brains are better able to habituate to human presence. This suggests that processes other than encephalisation explain the high degree of tolerance evident in urban-dwelling birds.
Increased urbanization represents a formidable challenge for wildlife. Nevertheless, a few species appear to thrive in the evolutionarily novel environment created by cities, demonstrating the ...remarkable adaptability of some animals. We argue that individuals that can adjust their behaviours to the new selection pressures presented by cities should have greater success in urban habitats. Accordingly, urban wildlife often exhibit behaviours that differ from those of their rural counterparts, from changes to food and den preferences to adjustments in the structure of their signals. Research suggests that behavioural flexibility (or phenotypic plasticity) may be an important characteristic for succeeding in urban environments. Moreover, some individuals or species might possess behavioural traits (a particular temperament) that are inherently well suited to occupying urban habitats, such as a high level of disturbance tolerance. This suggests that members of species that are less ‘plastic’ or naturally timid in temperament are likely to be disadvantaged in high‐disturbance environments and consequently may be precluded from colonizing cities and towns.
The Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and Youth Self-Report (YSR) are widely used measures of internalising and externalising problems in children and adolescents, but cross-cultural differences in ...these problems have not been examined in Australian children of Chinese and Anglo-Celtic ancestry. Fifty-nine Chinese (27 boys and 32 girls) and 65 Anglo-Celtic Australian (35 boys and 30 girls) children aged 10-13 years completed the YSR, and one of their parents completed the CBCL. Cross-informant agreement between these two measures was also examined. No differences were found between the Chinese and Anglo-Celtic groups on parents' and children's ratings on any syndrome or overall scales. The overall level of agreement between YSR and CBCL scores was poor in the Anglo-Celtic group (intraclass correlation coefficient for total problems = 0.33), but there was no agreement between these scores in the Chinese group. Results highlight the need to obtain multiple sources of information in assessments of mental health problems in children from different cultural backgrounds.
A positive association has been found between owner-rated dog cognition and owner-perceived closeness to their dog, using the Perceptions of Dog Intelligence and Cognitive Skills (PoDIaCS) survey and ...the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS). Oxytocin has been positively associated with bonding in mammals and with non-verbal intelligence in humans and could therefore explain this relationship between owner-rated questionnaires. The aims of this study were to ascertain: i) whether a pet dog’s performance on an object choice task (OCT), which objectively measures dogs’ ability to use human non-verbal, social gestures to find a food reward, could be predicted by their owners’ scores on three different surveys: (a) the MDORS, (b) the Pet Attachment Questionnaire (PAQ), which measures levels of anxious and avoidant attachment styles, and (c) a modified version of the PoDIaCS, and ii) if intranasal administration of oxytocin to dogs, known to enhance dogs’ performance on such tasks, would disable the ability of an owner to predict their dogs’ performance. It was hypothesized that higher ratings of owner-reported closeness to their dog, and higher ratings of owner-perceived intelligence of their dog, would positively predict dog OCT performance after saline, but not after oxytocin. Seventy-five pet dogs and their owners were recruited to participate in two OCTs, 5-15 days apart, once after the dog received intranasal oxytocin and once after receiving saline. Owners completed the PoDIaCS and another survey relating to pet ownership before OCT 1, and the MDORS and PAQ before OCT 2. After saline administration, scores on the anxious subscale of the PAQ were a negative predictor of dog OCT performance using pointing cues, while subscale 6 of the PoDIaCS, ‘contagion of human emotions’, positively predicted performance using gazing cues. None of the questionnaire subscales were predictive of performance on the OCT after oxytocin administration. Results suggest that a dog’s ‘natural’ ability to follow human pointing cues and anxious attachment in owners are inversely related, whilst a dog’s ‘natural’ ability to follow human gazing cues is positively related to owner-rated empathic ability of the dog.
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