The Unique Role of Dogs in Society James A. Serpell, PhD Center for the Interaction of Animals and Society School of Veterinary Medicine University of Pennsylvania 1
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 2
The Cow-Human Relationship Benefits Costs
The Dog-Human Relationship Social Support Benefits Costs 4
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 of Siberia. PLoS One , 6(7): e22821. Dogs therefore preceded all other domestic species by at least 5K years 5
Dogs Have Continued to Play a Prominent Role on Human Lives Ever Since 6
USA Dog Population: 1967-2015 (millions) 80 70 60 50 Millions 40 • Currently there are approximately 80 million dogs in the USA, mostly pets. 30 • And around 900 million globally of which about 70% are free-roaming. 20 10 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 Year 7
US Dog Popularity Fluctuates According to Body Size 8
People Are Spending More on Their Dogs Rowan, A. & Kartal, T. (2018) Animals, 8, 68 9
And Developing Closer Attachments to Their Dogs Rowan, A. & Kartal, T. (2018) Animals, 8, 68 10
Pet Ownership Associated with Improved Survival Following Heart Attack
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 or not present. (Friedmann et al., 2013. Anthrozoös, 26: 535-550) 12
Pet Acquisition Associated with Positive Changes in Health Source: Serpell, J.A. 1991. J. Roy. Soc. Med., 84: 717-720.
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. 14
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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 18
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 19
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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. 21
Childhood Pet Keeping Predicts Support for Animal Protection Later in Life % Subjects Who Supported Animal 30 Protection Organizations (N = 378) 25 ( R = 0.84, P < 0.005) 20 15 10 5 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8+ No. of Family Pets Owned in Childhood (0-16 years) From: Paul, E.S. & Serpell, J.A. 1993. Animal Welfare , 2(4).
Strong Childhood Pet Attachments Predict Animal Food Avoidance % Subjects Who Avoid Eating at Least One Animal Food Product (N = 378) 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3+ No. of “Important” Pets Reported during Childhood From: Paul, E.S. & Serpell, J.A. 1993. Animal Welfare , 2(4).
Samuel Johnson, 1758 “Among the inferior professors of 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 operations, which tend to harden the heart and make physicians more dreadful than the gout or the stone.”
Public Vivisections of Dogs without Anesthesia Were Relatively Commonplace in the 18 th & 19 th Centuries Emil-Edouard Mouchy, 1832 25
Pet Owners Led the Anti-vivisection Movement In the 19th Century, middle class pet owners such as Frances Power Cobbe were in the forefront of the anti- vivisection movement, so much so that one 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.” Frances Power Cobbe 1822-1904 26
"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 of 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 27
All It Takes Is One Dog 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. Julia & Peter Lakavage http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/pepper/2009/06/wheres_pepper.html 28
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. 31
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