The Effect Of Abuse And Neglect On Psychological And Behavioral Change In Dogs
Introduction
Within recent years' awareness of dog abuse and neglect has come to center stage. From, the government passing legislation that protects animal welfare to more rescue organizations all over the world. I connected greatly with this issue because growing up in an area of poverty, I saw many stray dogs or even dog owners treat their dogs with disregard to their needs. People should be educated on how to properly treat dogs because many are uneducated on their physical and emotional needs. Also, dogs that have been abused or neglected need to have proper rehabilitation before going to a new home. A dog that is hurting emotionally or physically can be dangerous, because it has not been rehabilitated its pain can manifest into aggression or other unhealthy behaviors. Dogs have more complex cognitive abilities/processes than previously believed. This of course brings up the question, to what extent do dogs show psychological and behavioral change due to abuse and neglect? To answer that question I will have to establish what is abuse and neglect and how dogs receive stimuli from their, also how they respond to their environment. Then, I will discuss how these cognitive processes play a role in the dogs physical and mental state. Which will be investigated through scientific studies and articles.
When it comes to the maltreatment of dogs, which is called abuse or neglect. Most people don't know the difference or the proper definitions. What is the difference between animal abuse and neglect? Animal Abuse is the maltreatment done to the dog regardless of the intent. Neglect is the lack or failure of care due to ignorance, or poverty. Neglect is often the failure to provide the basic resources of life such as, food, water, and shelter. It's important to note that Animal abuse is a board term and has many categories within it and neglect is one of those categories. Other categories of abuse are as follows: Animal cruelty, Animal abuse, Animal physical, Non-accidental injury (NAI), Animal sexual abuse, Fabricated or induced illness or Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and Emotional abuse, neglect, and hoarding. Knowing that there's this many ways to categorize and define Animal abuse puts into perspective how often dogs are abused. In fact, the chances that a veterinarian will see a case of neglect is occasional to common.
In fact, neglect is the most common reported form of abuse done to dogs. The common misconception concerning dogs is that because they are an animal they do not need extensive care because “it's just a dog”. Its safe to say that majority of people are ignorant on How to take care of a dog, and most importantly how do dogs communicate? Because, dogs do not communicate verbally with humans, and because there is scientific debate questioning dog's emotional and cognitive ability, we must pay attention to the form by which they do communicate and that is communicated through their behavior. It's important to be able to read your dog's body language because they cannot verbally say what is wrong with them or when they are in need of something. Dogs have a complex form of communication. The way a dog communicates when it's in fear verses in pain is completely different. There are five groups of communication signal that a dog may display. These five groups are not mutually exclusive, a dog can use a mixture of groping depending on the circumstances. Out, of these five we will be discussing four. However, keep in mind that stress can have a major influence on a dog's response given the circumstances. The fearful communication signals maybe, when he or she is licking their lips although he or she is not hungry. He or she may cover their body close to the ground, tuck his or her tail, or lower his or her ears. His or her body can begin shaking, or avoiding eye contact. If the dog continues to feel fearful the situation can quickly become aggressive. Which leads us to our Aggressive communication, agressive signals can show if the dog feels threatened. These signals mean that the dog is prepared to defend itself or territory. The dog may stiffen their body, have wide eyes (whale eye), a tense mouth, wrinkled nose, showing of teeth. Vocal signals include, growling, and braking. Often, these signals are warning, and the dog may never actually bite. However, it is perritive to pay attention to these warning signs, so you can deescalate the situation. Anxious communication, the signs of an axious dogs are, pacing, panting although it is not hot, yawning excessively, far from people, and ears pulled back. Again, stress can cause a normally relaxed dog into a anxious dog. (cummings school of veterinary medicine) ;Finally, the Relaxed communication, a relaxed dog has their mouth open, body relaxed, has a steady wag tail, and their head and ears are in a neutral position. Knowing how to read your dog's body language is essential to their safety and health.
In the same fashion, When it comes to learning the body language of a that relatively easy since it is a visible behavior, but something that is not so visible is how dogs understand what we say to them and how does this affect how they feel. In a study conducted in 2014 showed that dog's have designated voice areas in their brains which are similar to the anterior temporal voice areas in humans. What does this mean? It means that the way humans process sound is similar to how dog's process sound. This study proved that dog's and humans have similar emotional valence processes. “These discoveries suggest that the extraction of emotional informational information from voices is an important stage of the vocal emotional processing hierarchy and is supported by functionally analogous auditory brain regions near the primary auditory cortex in dog's and in humans”. This study confirms dog's assumed empathic abilities. In an earlier study, which got people to pretend that they were crying, and the dog's would comfort them. “Dogs oriented toward their owner or a stranger more often when the person was pretending to cry than when they were talking or humming. . . When the stranger pretended to cry, rather than approaching their usual source of comfort, their owner, dogs sniffed, nuzzled and licked the stranger instead. The dogs' pattern of response was behaviorally consistent with an expression of empathic concern…”. These studies conducted in recent years have made breakthroughs in understanding dog's and their cognitive processes. ;However, how does this relate to the abused and neglected dog's? Well, these studies confirm that dog's understand the tone of what we say both positive and negative. Meaning that dog's just as humans can be verbally abused which is affects their emotions. This is why when a normal dog does something it was not supposed to, its body language completely changes when the owner scolds it. Sadly, the reality is that a lot of dogs are being verbally abused and are constantly under stress and if the stress is prolonged this can cause the dog to show signs of abuse.
Additionally, just like the uncertainty of dog's understanding what we say to them, Dog's have another cognitive process that dog's have that has been debated is memory specifically episodic like memory. Until, recent research it was widely believed that dog's lacked memory capabilities. However, A study directed by Dr. fugazza proved dogs have episodic-like memory. Episodic memory is, the capability to recall personally engaging events correlated with a specific time and place. The study tested if dog's can depend on episodic memory when remembering others actions from the past. To execute this, the dog's were trained to copy human actions when told. Next, they were trained to do a straightforward exercise, which was to lay down;This was without regard to the previously performed action. This was done so, “ This way we substituted their expectation to be required to imitate with the expectation to be required to lie down”. Then the researchers tested if the dog's remembered the exhibited actions by suddenly giving them the command to copy, instead of lying down. The dog's were tested in intervals of 1 minute to 1 hour retention. The dog's could remember the exhibited actions after both intervals; nonetheless, the dog's performance declined with more time in contrast to when imitation was expected. These results display that dog's remember past events as convoluted as human actions even though they do not anticipate the memory test, showing evidence of episodic-like memory. According to the study, “ dog's offer an ideal model to study episodic memory in non-humans species and this methodological approach allows investigating memory of complex, context-rich events”. This experiment provided evidence that dog's can recall events as complicated as human actions after incidental eencoding, incidental encoding is “a memory that is acquired without conscious effort or intention to remember”. This evidence is the first proof that dogs have episodic-like memory of others actions. Not only does this evidence prove that dogs are complex organisms, but it is also very important when we talk about abuse. If dog's can remember events especially aactions, howcan we not offer rehabilitation to dog's that come from neglectful and abusive backgrounds. If this episodic-like memory is accompanied by trauma it can leads to long term fears and phobia, which affects a dog's behavior and mental health. This can be seen in Dr. Mcmillan’s study on past abused dog's. It is important to realize the mental capabilities that dog's possess.
Similarly, Neglect plays a vital role in the psychological and behavioral state of a dog. In a study that Dr. MMcMillan conducted with puppy mill dogs or commercially produced dog's, he and other veterinarians observed the psychological and behavioral effects of the maltreatment in this environment on the dog's. “Dogs in these facilities are routinely housed for their entire reproductive lives in cages or runs, and provided with minimal to no positive human interaction or other forms of environmental enrichment”. The neglected breeding dog's showed behavioral and psychological irregularities when compared to other pet dog's that have stable environments. The irregularities that the dog's showed were due to several factors but all shared one common factor which was chronic stress. The chronic stress caused most dogs to have a psychological prerequisite of fear. This stress induced fear and anxiety last for years even after being adopted into homes.
Fear and anxiety in dogs are both causes of a variety of behavioral disorders that affect the lives of dogs themselves. The biobehavioral stress reaction of fear and anxiety in the domestic dog causes problems that have profound effects on dogs’ and their cooperation with their human companions. These same dog's showed a psychological configuration of increased toward people and exhibited increased activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis(HPA) that is responsible for the “fight or flight” response with a tendency to display flight. Dog's that are raised in kennels which is the case for most of the dog's in the commercial dog business usually display kennel-dog- syndrome. Kennel-dog-syndrome is severe fear and timidness when constantly exposed to foreign social situations or environments. Evidence has shown that this dog because of it environment can have long termed behavioral disorders such as: circling and pacing, learning deficits, and often cannot handle normal life. This study contributes the first reliable and coherent quantitative evidence that dog's that lived in puppy mills for purposes of breeding show damaged and defective mental health as a result of their environment which was neglectful and abusive. The effect of stress on their physical well-being is less well studied. In all species, a physiological stress response happens after encountering a fear or anxiety -provoking stimulus. This stress response is believed to have both short and long-term effects on health and lifespan on a dog. Because, dogs do not communicate verbally with humans, and because there is scientific debate questioning dog's emotional and cognitive ability, we must pay attention to the form by which they do communicate and that is communicated through their behavior. It is necessary that dog owners and organizations that take in a dog's that come from abusive environments rehabilitate these dog's, in order for them to live a life without pain and fear.
In addition, a study that is very well known and controversial because of it debated ethics, shows how a dog's environment affects their behavior is the Learning helplessness experiment. This experiment conducted by psychologist Martian E. P. Seligman is concentrated upon behavioral and psychological effects of unruly traumatic events. The experiment was conducted on a dog's and how they would react to uncontrollable shocks in a shuttle box. A group of dog's received avoidance training which is, a form of conditioning where the subject is trained to respond to a predictable displeasing event by avoiding the unpleasant stimulus. Before the stimulus was administered a cue will be given. The group of dogs that received this avoidance training would learned quickly to jump the barrier of the shuttle box to escape the painful shock. However, the group of dogs that did not receive the avoidance training showed strikingly different behaviors, than to the dog's that did receive it. The dog's would give up trying to escape and sit whining enduring the pain, until the shock ended. This is where the term learned helplessness is used, according to the study learned helplessness is “ … to describe the interference with adaptive responding produced by inescapable shock and also as a shorthand to describe the process which we believe underlies the behavior”. The study concluded that encounters with “uncontrollable trauma” has three effects: the first is, animals become dormant when faced with trauma. Meaning that they are reluctant to trigger responses that relive the trauma and may not react at all. Secondly, animals are oblivious to learning response-relief contingency, which means, if the animal causes a response that produces relief he/she probably will have problems recognizing this. Thirdly, animals display more stress when confronted with trauma they cannot control than with an equally controllable trauma.
The third effect of trauma contributes to emotional stress. Trauma in general produces stress and these his is how learned helplessness affects dog's that have been abused. Dogs that are being abused specifically physically abused. An abusive environment is unpredictable which can cause learned helplessness. In Dr. Seligman’s view, “ In a factor analytic study of the symptoms of depression, a factor including feeling of hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness has been characterized as the essence of depression”. This is significant because dog's that are in abusive environments show signs of learned helplessness and show signs of depression. Hence why this study was so controversial, this study goes against the APA ethics guidelines when it comes to experimenting on non-humans. The guidelines state “. . . procedures are appropriate and humane”, many think that the manner of how these shocks were produced and the pain and stress the dog went through was unethical and cruel. This is valid because the dog's were unable to verbally decline participaction. Consequently, Seligman was conducting a study that subjected those dog's to torture and ignored their discomfort for the sake of his experiment. Dogs are living beings too and its essential that we take into account their dependence on us for their safety and well being.
Adog and neglected it of proper training and especially rehabilitation if it is a rescued dog. The results of this neglectful behavior is the dog being either fearful or aggressive, which leads the owner to believe that it's a “bad dog” and a dog that had potential to be happy and healthy doesn't even get a shot, and most like lt winds up getting returned to the shelter/ pound. “Malnutrition of very young dogs can lead to stunted development, both mentally and physically. ” previously malnourished dogs that are rescued or adopted without proper training can become food aggressive. This is why it's important to be able to read their body language, if not the circumstances can become dangerous. Every time this dog receives food it will guard it. This becomes dangerous when llet'ssay a child, or a person who does not know that this dog can mistake them for a threat when it has food. If they get too cclose, thedog bites them and automatically the owner either beats the dog and returns the dog to the pound with more abusive damage or the owner eeuthanizedit. The reality that dogs are forced out of their homes because the owners were uneducated on how to properly train/rehabilitate their newly adopted dog is too common. Subsequently, adopting a dog or rescuing a dog is being promoted as an alternative to buying them from breeders or puppy mills. It is often promoted as “adopt don't shop”. While, that is a great movement and this is helping a lot dogs in need, rescue dogs have a lot of pervious emotional and physical abuse and neglect. “Neglect may be one of the leading causes of many of the dog behavioral problems we currently see in dogs. ” Too many times has an uneducated individual adopted.
In short, with recent breakthrough studies that reveals how dogs understand us by how we talk to them and remember what we do. This proves that dogs understand their environment to extent that they can be affected physiologically and behaviorally. However more research has to be done to examine the complexity of their emotions, this is hard to do because dog's cannot tell us what they are ffeeling bbut asmentioned before there are other ways to interpret their emotions. Other studies previously mentioned discuss these topics, but why does this matter? Well if dogs are this mentally competent and ccomplexthen abuse and neglect is way more significant, and damaging. Their versatile body language clearly lets us know what state they’re in emotionally and physically. People often view there a dog as babies, so It is important to educate all people who adopt a dog who has an unfortunate background on how to read their body language and enact rehabilitation methods. It's our responsibility as carers of the millions of dog's that are reported as abused and neglected, to provide extensive rehabilitation and care so that these dogs can live normal happy lives.
