Dog behaviour
Wolf = Small groups of related individuals, hierarchical structure, dominant (high ranking vs low ranking animals)
Dog = Human modification to social behaviours
What is the social behaviour of cats?
Thought to be asocial
Territorial
Breed differences
Types of growling?
What doesn't affect growling and what does?
Play, defense, threatening stranger
Body weight doesn't affect it but the situation does
Positive vs negative punishment?
Positive = sharp word, swat, jerk on leash, shock from electric collar
Negative = stopping play, removing food, ignoring
What object permanence to cats have?
toys and food
- visible displacement
- invisible displacement
Different categories of dog behaviour for jobs (hint has to do with animals)
Hunting = sight hounds (see prey, chase = fast, agile, silent & high prey drive) or scent hounds (great sense of smell)
Guarding = attentiveness, trustworthy, protective - selection & not trainable (have to socialize to get it)
Sled dogs = trained to pull the sled, selected for conformation
herding = conformation, instinctual behaviour, tied to motor patterns
Vocal communication in cats include
Meow, purr, trill, hiss, growl
Habituation is?
Cessation or decrease in response to a stimulus as a result of repeated exposure
learns to ignore certain stimuli - vacuum cleaner, doorbell, kids giggling, airplanes
Positive reinforcement vs negative reinforcement
Positive = food, praise, petting, affectionate eye contact, opportunity to play
Negative = collar/leash corrections, verbal reprimands, harsh eye contact
How do cats develop cat-cat relationships or human-cat relationships?
Through socialization which is the process of appropriate social behaviours developed between cat-cat
What are common behaviours that can vary greatly between breeds?
Activity level, snapping at children, excessive barking, territorial defense, aggression to dogs, aggression to family members, affection demand, trainability, house training ease
What aggression types to cats have?
How do they show it?
Dominance, fear, territorial
Fear = erector pili muscle attached to hair follicle - raises hair to appear larger
Tail shows many feelings
Sensitization is?
Repeated exposure results in an increase in responsiveness
if a puppy or kitten is not calmed or guided to an appropriate response the response likely will heighten
Dogs object permanence?
Understanding that object continue to exist even when the cant be seen
starts to develop ~8 weeks in puppies
Do cats have good memory?
Information retention
Working memory
Have delay in finding an item if doing visible displacement
Common forms of aggression?
Differences in body language between the top 2?
Dominance, fear, territorial, possessive, other
Dominance = fight, can be controlled (more eye contact, lips remain up, vertical lip retraction, forward leaning posture
Fear = Nervousness, flee, freeze, unpredictable (opposite actions of dominance)
How do cats injure people?
Cats will bite also, with a risk of infection at 80%
Deep puncture wounds
Most bites to the hand
Hiss instead of growl
Classical conditioning is?
Timing of stimulus is important
command stimulus should occur right before or overlapping with the desired behaviour
within one second or less
Click is quick so association between behaviour and click
voice command should be same words in same tone
Dogs social cognition is?
Processes that enable individuals to take advantage of being part of a social group
Acquire, process, store, and apply information about social situations
How do cats know their humans
Cats can distinguish voices of their owners vs. strangers
Stats about dog bites are?
children are most common victims of severe bites
1% of hospital visits due to bites = of that 85% from own pet or neighbours, 85% are from dogs, about 50% provoked, 40.5% on the face
What is controlled by different behaviour centers in cats?
Hunting and feeding
Operant conditioning is?
All behaviours acquired through conditioning (positive and negative consequences affect the frequency of the behaviour)
Reinforement increases behaviour, punishment decreases it
Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behaviour. through operant conditioning and individual makes and association between a particular behaviour and a consequence
What do "smart" animals use during animal cognition
Use of tools
empathy
memory
communication
self awareness
Do cats listen to human instruction? how so?
Yes
by following human pointing cues that indicated the location of hidden food reward