Melissa Starling

PhD in dog behaviour, Animal behaviourist, blogger, and hund lover.

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

My poster from #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

@RobertFischer @howlingdingo Silver foxes were domesticated as an experiment. The question relates to the origin of domestic dogs and why/how they were domesticated.

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Foxes would make better domestication candidates than wolves - less threat to humans. Why is it only dogs that have been domesticated? #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

@PiottiP

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Interesting inquiry into displacement behaviours. We currently use one term to group all known displacement behaviours, but some may serve a different function to others. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Dogs are not always reliable about following points from accurate pointers rather than inaccurate. Pointing may be an imperative for dogs. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Increase in excited behaviours and decrease in stress-related behaviours the more reward-based dogs’ training is. No difference in optimism, though. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

It wasn’t a super strong correlation. Let’s do a model?

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Correlation between dog and owner hair cortisol - shows cortisol long-term. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Playful dogs and their owners have lower hair cortisol. Do positive relationships unlock most health benefits of dog ownership? #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Very cool automated scent detection setup for training dogs to detect invasive fish in New Zealand. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Dogs in New Zealand trained to detect invasive fish in waterways, showed high accuracy at very low concentrations of fish as well as correctly discriminating between target and non-target fish species. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Might dog domestication be a case of epigenetics? Friendly wolves allow pro-social interspecific behaviour, less stress, leads to higher oxytocin, enhancing social cooperation. May explain how the fox experiment progressed so fast. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Dogs trained to lie down rather than do demoed action, then asked to do it when they were lying down automatically. Demo becomes incidental. Dogs could do demoed action about 60% of time, but decline with 1-hr rest over 1-min. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

What, where, when not enough for episodic memory. Add incidental information from the event. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

DAID - when two objects present and switched, dogs match action with wrong object sometimes. Spatial information overrides object. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Do As I Do - is it imitation? Maybe if the action is copied - touch with nose or paw depending on whether human touches with nose or hand. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Lab beagles freeze or explore like normal dogs in novel situation. Freezers might be passive copers, but are the exploratory dogs active copers, or not experiencing a stressor in the first place? #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

@SilvanUrfer Had heard of that one, but I guess the relationship didn’t endure.

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

How to train dogs to detect an invasive species that isn’t present yet? Dead bugs or bug extract in solvent? Either will work, but extract may be more effective. #CSF2018

[Melissa Starling @dogoptimism]

Female dogs showed decrease in looking at owner after oxytocin and males showed increase. Also opposite effect has been reported! Need to get dosing right. #CSF2018