Ruminations of a dog scientist on a 96-well plate

I've been doing a lot of bench work in the laboratory lately. This involves filling the tiny little wells on a plate with my ingredients (sample, reagents, primers) and then inserting the plate into a reader. The machine takes the plate up with whirring sounds that always fascinate me. I know there are little robot arms in there moving the plate into place, and I wish I could watch the process. But as I listen to the robot work, I sometimes think: is this the closest I get to living, moving animals now? How did I get here, so separated from fur and behaviors and emotions?

96 well PCR plate

My long term research goal is to understand the differences in how brains work in dogs who suffer from fear issues compared to resilient dogs who take life's arrows a bit more in stride. I'm doing this by studying gene expression in the brains of foxes who have been bred to be fearless (“tame”) or fearful (and aggressive — those who study them just refer to this line as “aggressive,” though).

My approach is, at the moment at least, deeply reductionist: what are the differences in gene expression in a few brain regions in these two lines of foxes? In other words, does one group make more of a certain kind of gene than the other? My hope is that I’ll be able to make some conclusions about the differences in function in these brain regions between the two lines of foxes, and that what I find will be relevant to fearful dogs. But I find myself burrowing deeper and deeper into learning about very small parts of the brain, and then very specific functions of those parts to the exclusion of other parts. Currently I’m learning about the pituitary gland — no, wait, just a particular cell type in the pituitary gland, the corticotroph — no, wait, just a particular set of processes of the corticotroph, how it releases one particular hormone into the bloodstream.

So in my daily work, I do things like take some tissue and extract all the RNA from it (throwing out DNA, proteins, cell structure, all sorts of interesting information — that's not what I'm working on or able to assess at the moment). I use PCR to extract a tiny piece of RNA from the complete transcriptome (all the RNA from that tissue), throwing out even more information. And then assess the expression level of that RNA, resulting in just one number. One number out of all that information after a day’s work.

Behavior can’t really be fully understood using this reductionist approach. If I do find a few important gene expression differences in a few small brain regions, they won’t explain the whole story of why an animal has a fearful personality. They’ll be a tiny, tiny piece of a complicated network of interactions involving genetics and life experience. But in order to get at that tapestry we have to first be able to visualize the threads that make it up. So here I am, in the trenches, doing that.

A recovering shy dog.

Talking about shelter behavior assessments

Today I presented at APDT's 2015 conference on shelter behavior assessments. It's incredibly important to be able to identify dangerous dogs when they come into shelters so we don't put them on the adoption floor, and to be able to identify dogs who we can perhaps help improve their behavior while in the shelter.

Or is it? I talked for three hours -- well, not quite three hours; my amazing audience helped out with some really fascinating discussion -- about how shelter behavior assessments aren't really all that good at identifying dogs who are just sorta likely to be aggressive. They're great at identifying really aggressive dogs and they're great at identifying really safe dogs -- but then again, we don't really need their help at that as it isn't all that hard to do. What neither these tests nor us humans are great at is identifying the in between, hard to categorize dogs.

I argued that we should continue to perform shelter behavioral assessments on dogs because those interactions with dogs give us more information about the dogs' personalities, and that information is useful. What we really should not do is use these tests as yes-no decision making tools for deciding the dogs' fate. They are not decision making tools; they are information gathering tools. One of the other main themes of the talk was that assessing a dog's personality is something that should be done by someone with plenty of dog experience, not the shelter staff member who read the behavioral assessment guidelines once and figures that's all she needs.

After the talk I said hi to Janis Bradley of the National Canine Research Council and she basically said, Hey, fun talk, but I really think we shouldn't be doing behavior assessments on shelter dogs at all. I've asked lots of competent shelter staff if they know which of the dogs in their shelters are dangerous, and they say sure they do. I've asked if it was a behavioral assessment that helped them figure that out and they say it never has been. It's been the dog's interactions with staff and volunteers.

I replied that we really need to collect as much information as possible about shelter dogs, not to identify the easy to identify extreme cases, but to identify the harder to identify in between cases -- the dog who isn't aggressive to all dogs, just certain dogs, for example.

She said sure, but she still thinks a better way of collecting that information is through careful, possibly structured documentation of the interactions of the various shelter staff and volunteers with the dog during its time in the shelter. That's what we should be focusing on.

Now, I am absolutely down with recording as much data as possible about a shelter dog's behavior. But advocating against formal behavioral assessments, even in shelters that have the resources to do them? My heart isn't quite there yet, but it's an interesting idea. If you have opinions, feel free to weigh in in the comments or on Twitter!

New research on dog bite fatalities

We’ve known for a while what kinds of dogs are at risk of biting humans: not any particular breed, but dogs who are not well socialized and not well cared for. Dogs living in houses with people are much less likely to bite than dogs living outside in yards or on chains.[1, 2] So why is this new paper about dog bite fatalities important?

Patronek G.J., Sacks J.J., Delise K.M., Cleary D.V. & Marder A.R. (2013). Co-occurrence of potentially preventable factors in 256 dog bite–related fatalities in the United States (2000–2009), Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 243 (12) 1726-1736. DOI: 10.2460/javma.243.12.1726

Unlike previous researchers, who mostly approached the question of who gets bitten and what kinds of dogs bite by combing through old records, these authors monitored current events and followed up on every dog bite related fatality that was reported, for ten years (2000-2011). They interviewed law enforcement officers who were involved with these cases. They interviewed medical examiners and coroners. They followed current news articles about cases. This is all information that becomes very difficult to find when you’re trying to learn about a dog bite fatality years after the fact. As the authors write:

In our opinion, the present study represents the most comprehensive analysis of factors...associated with dog bites to date. Personal interviews with credible investigators were successfully conducted in 221 of 256 (86.3%) cases... Law enforcement personnel provide first-hand information not reported in the media and often identified errors of fact in the media reports.

Some information was still very difficult to obtain, and the most interesting part of the paper for me may have been the description of the lengths the investigators went to in their attempts to ascertain the reliability of reports of what breed some of these dogs were. They note that “the source of breed descriptors in media reports is usually unknown” and therefore not trustworthy. Interestingly, this paper never put that comment into context, but it is hard to read it without thinking about how challenging it can be to visually identify the heritage of a mixed-breed dogs, and all the implications that this has for news stories which seem to reflexively identify aggressive mixed-breed dogs as “pit bulls.”

In the context of the debate about whether pits get disproportionately named in media reports about dog aggression, this paper provides some interesting fodder. The authors calculated how often media reports contradicted each other: 21.6% of the time in reports about incidents involving single dogs, 36.4% in incidents involving multiple dogs. How often media reports differed from the animal control officer’s report: 34.9% in incidents involving single dogs, 43.3% in incidents involving multiple dogs. In the rare cases when a pedigree or DNA testing was available, that data disagreed with media reports in 7/19 cases for single dog incidents and 7/28 cases for multiple dog incidents.

What this paper found overall was mostly a vindication of what we already believed: there is no single factor that leads a dog to bite a human. But one very important factor is whether the dog is a “family” dog or a “resident” dog. The paper provides some lovely verbiage on the difference:

A resident dog was a dog, whether confined within the dwelling or otherwise, whose owners isolated them from regular, positive human interactions. A family dog was a dog whose owners kept them in or near the home and also integrated them into the family unit, so that the dogs learned appropriate behavior through interaction with humans on a regular basis in positive and humane ways.

Later in the paper, they add:

Dogs that are deprived of human interaction or direction are denied access to accurate information about appropriate behaviors with humans. Consequently, dogs in stressful, potentially dangerous situations or when maltreated may behave in ways primarily to protect themselves.

In other words, dogs who are not given a chance to learn how to interact appropriately with humans may not act appropriately with humans.

The rest of the paper is packed with nice statistics which I am not going to try to reproduce here. Suffice to say I expect to see excerpts from it on slides in presentations about canine aggression for years to come. I do want to explicitly point out that this paper only covered dog bite fatalities, not dog bites alone; fatalities due to dog bites are extremely rare (this paper found 256 in the United States over a 10 year period), whereas dog bites alone are quite common. I think it’s easy when reading this paper to want to extrapolate all this lovely data about the causes of fatal dog bites out to the causes of non-fatal dog bites. That’s understandable but a little dangerous: it usually requires repeated bites to kill a human, so I imagine such an attack to be different from the more common single bite. But I still believe all this data is very relevant to how we keep our dogs and how to prevent bites. The message the authors give is: be responsible with dogs and they will treat you well. Don’t, and you might be on dangerous ground.

References
 
[1] Patronek, Gary J., et al. "A community approach to dog bite prevention." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 218.11 (2001): 1732-1749. http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/pdf/10.2460/javma.2001.218.1732

[2] CDC. Home and recreational safety. Dog bites. http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/dog-bites/index.html

Working with Sadie

Sadie was a rambunctious young shelter dog whom I had been assigned to exercise and train. We were working in an auditorium, the best space the shelter had for exercising dogs indoors. Like most of the dogs I worked with in there, Sadie had some trouble with the smooth floors; every time she ran to catch a ball she would slide and slam into the wall. Because she was basically an oversized puppy, this didn’t faze her. We were having a great time, working on her retrieving skills, practicing “drop it” (at that point, just a swap of the ball for some treats).

Then Sadie saw some dogs playing outside through the big glass doors on one side of the auditorium. Sadie was already diagnosed as dog aggressive, which was part of why she was inside playing alone with me. The mood of the session changed immediately. Sadie ran at the glass doors, barking and racing back and forth. I tried to interpose my body between her and the doors, to back her up and get her attention back on me, but it was like I wasn’t there. I wanted to put her leash on to back her away, but I was worried that grabbing her collar would cause her to turn and bite me.

I made Sadie’s leash into a loop and lassoed her with it, then backed her away from the glass doors. She still wasn’t focusing on me, but neither was she turning to bite me as we backed to the far end of the room, where I sat down on a low stage and kept her on leash. She had her back to me, focusing on the doors. She couldn’t see the dogs any more, but she could hear their deep hound barks, and she really wanted to get at them.

Sadie had worked with a clicker already, so I pulled out my clicker and started to click her for any movement away from the door. Step back towards me: click, handful of treats. Quick look over her shoulder when I made kissing noises at her: click, handful of treats. I kept up a very high rate of reinforcement to keep her interest, so she was essentially being fed a steady stream of pieces of hot dog. Gradually her body language changed, so that she was not arrow-straight pointing at the door. She became looser, more relaxed. She turned towards me, looked at me (treat, treat, treat). And then finally she was lying down next to me, leaning into me, enjoying having her sides rubbed. When the dogs barked, she looked over towards the doors briefly, then back at me. She was with me again.

Muzzling the real solution to the problem

Some new legislation has been proposed in Worcester, the city next door to my town. This legislation proposes specific restrictions on pit bulls and their owners. Most importantly, pit bulls would have to be muzzled when out in public, though other restrictions are proposed as well, such as requiring pit bull owners to put signs in their front yards advertising that a pit bull lives there. The local paper has some details.

The MSPCA has a brief article about the legislation, with some quotes from one of the sponsors of the bill:

District 5 Councilor William J. Eddy pointed out that over the past three years, only 2 percent of the dogs licensed by the city are pit bulls, while 25 percent of all dog bites over the same period were caused by that breed... “Some will say this is not a (dog) breed problem, but an (dog) owner problem,” Mr. Eddy said. “These are aggressive dogs that can cause great damage. There isn't another breed in Worcester that has that kind of statistics.”

I am one of the people who will say that this is not a dog breed problem, but a dog owner problem. So how do I answer Mr. Eddy?

More bites are caused by pit bulls than by any other breed. Therefore pit bulls are dangerous.

First of all, is it “more bites” or “more reported bites”? Is it possible that people are more likely to report a pit bull bite because of the way the breed is perceived? Is it possible that mixed-breed dogs that bite are assumed to be pit bulls, because it is very hard to tell what is and isn’t a pit bull and because people assume that pits are liable to bite? The National Research Council released a report in 2007 arguing that there is a media bias against pit bulls, and that pit bull bites are more likely to be widely reported than bites involving dogs of other breeds.

But let’s say pits do bite more than other dogs. Is that a problem with the breed, or with perceptions of the breed, and therefore with the kind of people likely to own pits? Pits are the most popular breed used in the underground and illegal sport of dog fighting, for which they are bred and trained. The National Research Council reports that dogs which are not kept as pets, and dogs which are not humanely controlled by their owners, are the dogs which are most likely to bite. Are people more likely to treat pit bulls this way than Labrador retrievers? I think so.

Eddy is further quoted:

“We have a problem in this city and we have an opportunity to address this problem. Frankly, I think it’s long overdue.”

Yes, it is long overdue, and yes, let’s address this problem! (Lucky for Worcester, they have a veterinary school with a behavior department right next door.) So why is BSL (breed specific legislation) a bad answer?

Because it won’t work. This is the really important point! I don’t argue against BSL because I think it’s acceptable for dogs to bite children. I absolutely do not think that is acceptable. But BSL is not the answer. What will BSL actually do?

• Irresponsible owners who disobey the new muzzle law and are fined may surrender their dogs to a shelter instead of paying the fine. This is what happened in nearby Boston when a muzzle law was enacted there. (Original article in the Boston Herald is behind a pay wall; I linked to a version archived on an anti-BSL site, but don’t be confused by the URL. The article is from a real newspaper.)
• If the law successfully prevents dog fighters from using pit bulls, there is nothing to stop them from choosing another breed. The law isn’t targeted at dog fighters, however. Having to muzzle their dogs in public shouldn’t be much of a problem for people who don’t generally take their dogs out in public.
• In fact, there is really no such thing as a pit bull. The term refers to a loose group of dog breeds. Telling what is a “pit bull” and what isn’t has made BSL enforcement somewhat arbitrary in other cities. Take the test, see if you can do it. So this law is likely to be applied to dogs for whom it is not really intended.
  

But why not just try it? After all:

“We’re not talking about banning this dog; rather what we’re saying is that when you’re out on the public streets, pit bulls should be muzzled,” [Eddy] added.

So what’s the harm?

• Passing this law will be a Band-aid measure which will make the public think that the problem has been solved. There are some useful ways to address the problem of dog bites, but if this good energy for change is directed into a poorly designed law, there will be no impetus to find real solutions.
• A muzzle requirement will make it harder for responsible owners to socialize their dogs. How would you react to a muzzled dog which you met on the street? Would you want to pet it, or would you be afraid of it? If you were a dog and every human you met on the street was afraid of you, would you be enthusiastic about meeting new humans? Not to mention the human socialization problem! If your new neighbor had a sign in her front yard proclaiming that a pit bull lived there, would you be as likely to go over to welcome her to the neighborhood with some food? (My neighbors actually did that when I moved in. It was great.)
  

Dog Zombie, you are so right. I have seen the light. But does that mean we should sit back and do nothing?

I almost always have opinions on what should be done to fix the world!

• The AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) put together a task force on dog bite prevention which, in 2001, published a lovely article titled “A community approach to dog bite prevention.” This article has some specific suggestions for how communities should handle the problem, including both suggestions for prevention (controlling loose dogs, educating of animal control officers), and suggestions for how to handle bite incidents (having a protocol which includes reporting of the bite and follow-up investigation).
  
• Sue Sternberg (who is well known in the shelter community) is promoting a “Lug Nuts” program, in which teens who might otherwise participate in dog fighting are encouraged to instead enter their dogs in pulling competitions. What a creative idea for redirection! Extra points to Sternberg for working within the parameters of the problem instead of supporting rules passed down from on high.
• I think people need consequences. People need to be fined if their dogs are aggressive in public. Dog aggression needs to be taken seriously before bites happen, and no matter what breed is involved (“punish the deed, not the breed”). And laws against dog fighting need to be actively enforced.
  

My final message to Mr. Eddy: You have hold of an important issue. Please take steps to address it wisely. The solution you have proposed will be successful only in winning you votes, not in reducing dog bites. There are better ways. Find one.

Responsibility for dogs who bite

My school has a large, fenced field. Traditionally, people have been free to let their dogs run off leash in this field. I’ve taken advantage of this resource myself. However, my school is considering the possibility of closing the field, because some dogs have menaced or attacked people while in the field. My school is fearful of liability — if a dog severely bites someone while loose in the field, the school could be sued. In this economy, simply being sued is something for a cash-strapped school to be very cautious of, even if they are found not to be liable in the end.

In my opinion, the responsibility for a dog which might bite falls squarely on the shoulders of that dog’s owner. And there are currently some potential consequences. The owner of a dog which bites may be sued; the dog may be destroyed if it is judged to be a public menace. I imagine that these consquences do deter some people from letting their unsafe dogs run free in public, but apparently not enough people.

In a perfect world, owners of reliable, safe dogs would have full access to resources such as large fields, and would not lose access to these resources because of the behaviors of owners who do not manage their dogs responsibly. I don’t know the specifics about what happened in this particular field, but it is my strong suspicion that the owners of the dogs in question suspected that the dogs were not completely reliable, and took them to the field anyway, hoping for the best.

This is a bigger issue than just setting a policy for my school’s field. I believe that keeping large spaces open to the public is important. It’s good for humans to have green spaces to walk in. It’s good for dogs to have large spaces to run in. It’s good for humans and their dogs to spend quality time together, for walks to not be a chore. Neither we nor they get enough exercise as it is. It’s also good public relations for institutions which own these spaces to let the public use them.

How can we make the owners of unsafe dogs take responsibility for their pets? It’s a problem society is really struggling with right now. Some people feel that the right answer is to ban particular breeds. I don’t believe breed specific legislation is effective, because I believe it’s not the breed that’s the problem, it’s the owner. How do you ban irresponsibility? How do the owners of a privately owned space control who uses the space, short of disallowing all access?

One solution that comes to mind is that owners of private spaces (or towns with public spaces) require some proof that a dog is reliable before it is allowed off leash in the space in question. For example, a dog might have to pass the Canine Good Citizen test, administered by the American Kennel Club, to prove that it has basic obedience skills. The CGC isn’t an off-leash test, but it’s a start, and more appropriate tests could easily be designed. However, obviously the overhead of such a system would be prohibitive. The owner of the space would have to maintain some sort of registration system, perhaps even give out tags with proof that access is allowed. They would also have to police the space to make sure unregistered dogs weren’t being allowed into it.

The other extreme is to push for punishment, after the fact, of owners whose dogs dangerously misbehave. The space owner could sue such owners themselves. (Is there any precedent for this, I wonder? What grounds would they have?) They could declare that the owners of dogs which menace or bite while in the space will be fined. (How would collection of such fines be enforced?) Perhaps simply posting that the owners of the space are not responsible for any altercations, and then hoping not to get sued if something happens, is the only practical course of action besides closing the space.

I like the idea of having consequences for irresponsible owners. Hopefully such consequences would encourage owners to think before they act, so that no one else gets hurt. Public spaces where dogs are let off leash might be very good places to post advertisements for off leash training classes! But I just can’t figure out the mechanism for what these consequences would be, or how they would be applied. I’m very sad to see open spaces gradually closing, as people are unable to behave responsibly in them.

What about you, Blogosphere? Any ideas?