Creature feature

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/DUSTY HIGGINS

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/DUSTY HIGGINS

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

It seems we offered some questionable advice in the Jan. 22 edition of this column. After reading the Creature Feature about how to deal with a dog’s fear of his owner’s continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, dog trainer Donna Waugh of the American Scent Dog Association in Little Rock called to report the error. In that column it was suggested that desensitization - using treats placed on the mask as a reward - should be used to change the dog’s negative associations with the mask.

The dog owner said her Yorkshire terrier enjoyed snuggling with her and her husband on their bed, but only until the husband put on the face mask for the CPAP machine he uses while sleeping. The owner wanted to know how to ease the dog’s fear of the mask. The suggested solution involved placing a treat on the mask to teach the dog to have a pleasant feeling about the mask.

Waugh says teaching the dog to associate the facial mask or any piece of medical equipment with food could create problems the owners hadn’t anticipated. The dog,for example, might become too comfortable with the mask and begin to see it as a plaything or paw at it looking for the yummy treat he has learned to expect when seeing the mask.

“The dog could injure the person in the mask or pull out a hose or damage the machine in some way. You never want the dog to touch that machine. You don’t want the dog to associate it with a really cool treat that he only gets when the mask comes out,” she says. Waugh, who’s working with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in a study focused on training dogs to detect ovarian cancer, says the desensitization process outlined in the Jan. 22 column is correct, but inappropriate when it comes to a CPAP machine or any type of medical equipment.

In this case desensitization, which typically involves counter-conditioning to reduce or eliminate a dog’s fear of an object, is not a good idea, Waugh says. Commonly used by animal behaviorists and professional trainers, desensitization helps a dog become less sensitive to something that he perceives as frightening, rather than teaching him a different behavior. For instance, a dog that flees at the sight of someone wearing a hat might be conditioned to associate the hat with something pleasant, such as his favorite treat or chew toy, by exposure to the hat by itself before working up to getting the dog comfortable with a person wearing a hat.

Desensitization can be complex and what works for one problem may not be appropriate for another. In some situations, physically pairing a treat with an object isn’t always advisable; it might even be detrimental and create unanticipated problems.

“A dog needs to have a healthy fear of certain things,” Waugh says. “Expensive medical equipment - potentially life-saving equipment - is one of those things.”

Ever think that your picture might be worth 1,000 woofs? Possibly, if your dog recognizes it. He may very well do just that, according to results of a University of Helsinki (Finland) study that indicate dogs are able to recognize faces in digital images, according to sciencedaily.com.

Researchers trained dogs to lie still while being shown images of dog and human faces on a computer screen, then measured the dogs’ eye movements as they watched. The scientists showed the dogs images of familiar dogs and people, following that with a series of photos of dogs and people the dogs had never met.

The dogs tended to spend more time looking at familiar faces, plus were more interested in images of other dogs than humans. So maybe your picture’s worth only 500 woofs. No matter. The University of Helsinki scientists believe their study proves dogs could have facial recognition skills similar to ours.

Do you have a question about pets? We’ll get you an answer from an authority. Send your question to Rhonda Owen, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203 or e-mail [email protected]

Family, Pages 34 on 02/05/2014