Aetiology, characterisation, and prediction of separation induced behaviour in the domestic dog

Abstract

The excessive reaction of dogs to social isolation, usually compromising persistent vocalisation, destruction, or inappropriate elimination, is a common complaint of many pet owners. It has been suggested that a reaction to separation is part of the normal attachment process in social animals, facilitated by the existence of developmental sensitive periods, and is instigated by the absence of a figure to whom the dog has become attached.

Dogs exhibiting "problem" separation behaviour are often observed to be over-attached to one or more persons by those working in the field of behaviour counselling. Nevertheless, there are also a significant number of dogs with similar symptoms which do not appear to be pathologically attached. The first part of this thesis describes an investigation of 192 dogs referred to behaviour counsellors for inappropriate behaviour during separation, in an attempt to elucidate the motivation for this behaviour, particularly in those animals not considered to be hyper-attached to their owners. There appeared to be at least two fundamental motivational states underlying the separation "problems", one over-attachment and one a generalised state of fearfulness or "anxiety"; these occasionally occurred in the same dog and are therefore not mutually exclusive.

The second part of this thesis describes the design and implementation of a test of behaviour in kennelled rescue dogs, which are particularly prone to exhibiting separation behaviour. This test revealed that dogs displaying a reaction to a five minute absence of a person with whom they have spent minimal previous contact were also likely to react to social separation in the home environment, although not necessarily in the same manner. The test predicted separation behaviour in 60% of the dogs displaying a reaction to social isolation during testing.

The final section of this thesis describes a longitudinal investigation of the development of separation behaviour in seven litters of Labrador retrievers and five litters of Border collies, from initial baseline temperament tests at seven weeks of age and post-homing observations at three, six, nine, twelve, and eighteen months.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record

ASCII CitationAtomBibTeXData Cite XMLDublin CoreDublin CoreEP3 XMLEndNoteHTML CitationHTML CitationHTML ListJSONMETSMODSMPEG-21 DIDLOpenURL ContextObjectOpenURL ContextObject in SpanRDF+N-TriplesRDF+N3RDF+XMLRIOXX2 XMLReferReference ManagerSimple Metadata