VETERINARIAN PERSPECTIVE
Canine Behavior:
It’ s All in the Brain
By Melissa Bain, DVM, DACVB, MS, DACAW Professor, Clinical Animal Behavior University of California School of Veterinary Medicine
My cup is full! It’ s been two years since I attended our annual Veterinary Behavior Symposium in person, so I flew across the country to Louisville for our two-day meeting. Day one was 16 scientific presentations and 14 posters, followed by our Practical Behavior Forum, investigating the interplay between physical disease and behavior with the focus on the inter-relationship between GI disease, pain, and behavior, behavioral health in the Emergency Clinic and ICU, and the emotional health of pets before, during, and after surgery. This led to LOTS of time spent sitting and absorbing the information.
One exciting part was our keynote speaker, Dr. Erin Hecht, who presented on“ Nature and Nurture in the Brains and Behavior of Domestic Dogs.” A full hour of rapt attention by all attendees, even more impressive as this was right before our lunch break. Her focus has been on domestication and differences in brain structure based on breed, training, and even the equivalent of Adverse Childhood Experiences( ACES). So why focus on dogs?
As animal care professionals, we are constantly reading dogs by evaluating body language and listening to vocalizations. Wouldn’ t it be great if we could read their minds? I like to tell clients I’ m the equivalent of a psychiatrist, not a psychic. But what if we COULD read their minds? Recent research in neuroscience is making this a possibility, giving us new insights into why dogs behave the way they do, and how domestication has shaped not just their behavior, but their brains themselves.
At the forefront of this exciting field is Dr. Hecht, a neuroscientist at Harvard University. The groundbreaking work uses magnetic resonance imaging( MRI) to look at the brains of dogs from different breeds. Some of what they have found confirms what many of us already suspect: dogs are not just trained into certain behaviors. Many behaviors are hardwired into the brain through thousands of years of evolution and selective breeding.
Dogs have evolved alongside humans for eons. They have learned to be effective scavengers, which has led dogs to reside closer to people, and self-select for those that are less fearful around people. Historically dogs were not selected for specific jobs; however, over the years we have selected bred dogs for traits deemed beneficial to humans. Still, approximately 80 % of dogs in the world remain“ community dogs.” These dogs are not officially owned but often have a name and receive some care.
Over time, we began selecting dogs for traits suited for specific jobs: herding; retrieving; guarding; or simply keeping people company. These selective breeding practices didn’ t just affect the way dogs look or act but also changed the physical structure of the dog’ s brain.
To explore these changes, Dr. Hecht and her team scanned the brains of over 60 dogs from many different breeds evaluating already-performed MRIs, in which the dogs were determined to have no diagnosable neurological problem. They looked at areas of the brain related to six factors: olfactory; drive and reward; olfaction and gustation; movement, eye movement and spatial navigation; social action and interaction; fear, stress, and anxiety; and olfaction and vision. The results were dramatic. They discovered that the structure of a dog’ s brain varies significantly depending on its breed, particularly in regions associated with behavior. These areas include the limbic system( involved with bonding and emotions), the cerebellum( involved with motor control and coordination), and the prefrontal cortex( involved with decision-making and social behavior). But what was interesting with these results is that the differences remained significant even after controlling for brain size, meaning, it wasn’ t just that larger dogs had larger brains. 1
For example, herding dogs showed increased neural development in brain regions related to movement planning and control. This makes sense, as they are bred to anticipate and control where livestock go, requiring skills that are deeply wired into their nervous systems. On the other hand, breeds such as Golden Retrievers and Labradors had more developed areas in the brain related to social bonding and reward processing. These dogs are more currently bred for their strong human attachment, which may make them easier to train for service roles. And this is in contrast with guarding and working breeds, which showed different patterns yet again, suggesting that their brains are adapted to vigilance and protective behavior, traits selected for in their original working roles.
But doesn’ t this fly in the face of“ it’ s not the breed, it’ s the deed?” Other studies have shown that there are more differences between individuals within a breed compared to between-breed differences. However, how many of us say“ and …?” when an owner grumbles about their Border Collie that herds the family on hikes, or the terrier that is overly focused on rodents? What Dr. Hecht’ s research adds is evidence that these behavioral tendencies aren’ t just learned
38 Better Training Through Education Photo: Adobe Stock