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PART ONE - INTRODUCTION
Important! The
photos were taken and videos filmed during behavioural
evaluations and offleash interactions. In the offleash
groups no dogs exhibited uninhibited bites. All
interactions were carefully monitored, preventing and
avoiding situations involving real risk or danger.
COPYRIGHT 2012 © SKILLADIN
Snc di Capra Alexa e Robotti Daniele All
rights reserved
The duplication, copying, and sale of this software and
of any part of its content: texts, video clips,
photographs, or files of the work contained on the DVD
"Ethogram of Agonistic Behaviours " is forbidden without
the express written consent of the authors.
Rental or distribution by any means is forbidden
Author contact information
Why this ethogram
The need to develop an ethogram that would be as
complete as possible became evident during the early
years of my work with ENPA, the Italian National Agency
for Animal Welfare & Protection, on a project for
the rehabilitation of ex-fighting dogs. When I began to
plan this scientific research, in collaboration with the
Biology Department of the University of Turin and the
Veterinary College of the State University of Milan, one
of my first problems was how to objectively interpret
and measure the behavioural responses of the dogs
observed during testing. Thus began my search for
ethograms to use as reference tools.
At the time, the most complete ethogram in existence
was undoubtedly Barbara Schoening's, and I used it
(adding my own descriptions of new behaviours and some
from other authors' ethograms) to analyse the data used
in an experimental dissertation published by Lisa
Corradi, Beatrice Pinet, Silvia Gotta & Laura
Marazzini.
On October 31, 2008 I underwent surgery on my left
shoulder, and found myself facing a long winter trapped
in the house. Undaunted, I set up several external hard
drives and my Mac on my bed-side table, and started to
search through my archives for photos and videos to use
in illustrating an ethogram, with the objective of
developing and sharing an important tool for others to
use in understanding the social behaviour of dogs. When
my shoulder had more or less healed, the ethogram once
again went onto the back burner, and remained
unfinished. I had hoped to complete it while
convalescing after a second shoulder operation (this
time on my right shoulder), but this time things went
better than expected. And so it was that by the winter
of 2010, the first part of the ethogram was ready...
Why an ethogram is a useful tool
Definition: An ethogram
is a complete, detailed description of all the
individual behavioural modules that make up the complete
repertoire of a species, exhibited under specific
environmental conditions.
For many years now, I've lived on the edge of a wood. A
few years ago, a friend of mine who works as a park
ranger took me on a guided hike, pointing out the
different species of plants and trees in the woods. His
explanations gave me food for thought: “This is an oak
tree-- but that's a roverella, and down there is the
only beech tree in the park...”. Roverella? Botany has
never been one of my strongest subjects, I'll admit it,
but they certainly all looked like oak trees to me. And
yet they weren't.
Identifying something and calling it by its name
implies recognising it. It implies knowing that things
exist, being able to see them, and to distinguish them,
in the midst of others. Using their scientific names
makes it possible to discuss them and compare notes with
others, and to find out if they've seen what we have. In
my case, working on an ethogram of the dog, I was also
dealing with research: applying methods for objective
analysis to obtain results that could add to our
knowledge of dogs. An ethogram is, indeed, a tool for
sharing, and comparing, knowledge.
To make this possible, for each behaviour, I've
indicated the author(s) from whom I take the definition.
A list of bibliographical references is provided at the
end of the ethogram.
Who I am
My name is Alexa Capra, and for nearly twenty years now
I have been working with dogs and their people. My
journey began in 1993 as an agility handler with a
Lakeland Terrier named Rudy, and since then I've never
looked back. Today I live with six dogs, and dedicate my
time to scientific research, the evaluation of
aggressive dogs, behavioural rehabilitation, and the
physical, motor, mental, emotional and social
development of puppies and adult dogs (both family
companion animals and dogs in shelters), as well as
competitive Obedience trials, and courses for
professional trainers. I find the time to train and
compete with my own dogs in Obedience and IPO, and,
naturally, for walks in the woods and chats with my dogs
(recently I discovered that I'm not the only one who
does this: apparently, 83% of dog owners are convinced
that their dogs understand what they're saying¹)..
My experience and research
My first experiences with aggressive behaviour in dogs
go back to my first years of involvement in dog sports
and family dog training. When I began my training, the
figure of the veterinary behaviourist didn't exist: the
owners of dogs with behaviour issues turned to dog
training schools. I can still remember a family with a
Belgian Malinois who was a biter. When I handed a muzzle
to the owner, who was barely able to hold the dog as it
continued to lunge at me, he looked at me and
disheartenedly said, "I couldn't possibly get that on
him !".
Houston... we have a problem...
An important element in my professional growth was my
experience in the world of utility dog / defense work. I
trained and handled my Malinois Matisse in Mondioring 2
competitions and my Malinois Jan in IPO3, and 12 years
later, today I've begun again with my German Shepherd
Ginger. These trials do not stimulate or induce social
aggressiveness in dogs, but rather channel and handle
aggressiveness through the dog's relationship with its
handler, with the trial helper and the protective sleeve
and through the development of the emotional and mental
capacity of the dog. In order to be successful in this
type of training, it's necessary to learn to relate with
dogs who have extremely strong characters and that are
highly reactive, and to learn how to handle them in the
presence of highly intense stimuli. If one doesn't want
to use coercion, the only alternative way is to develop
the dog's emotional self-control and effective
communication even in situations in which one normally
loses contact with one's dog.
In 2003 I began to work with the Italian National
Agency for Animal Welfare & Protection on a project
involving the rehabilitation of ex-fighting dogs, and in
2004 I took on the responsibility of managing the
project. My first task was to survey and then study the
scientific literature; to my chagrin, I found that there
was literally nothing to be found regarding pit bulls,
very little indeed on behavioural evaluations, but a
wealth of information on aggression. My next step was to
set up and put into practice an evaluation programme.
This undertaking, and commitment, lasted several years,
with evaluations being performed on 120 dogs, thanks to
Carlo Magnoli (who played a key role in the
rehabilitation process and subsequent adoption of the
dogs), Alessandra Bourquin, Lisa Corradi, Beatrice Pinet
& Silvia Gotta (who collaborated in behavioural
testing), Laura Marazzini and Marina “Veg” Garfagnoli
(who performed statistical analyses on the data
collected). Cristina Cocco and Giusy D'Angelo
participated in some tests as "helpers".
The many hours of video filmed during the tests and
rehabilitation had to be analysed and used for the
evaluation of the dogs, and it was during this phase of
the work that I began to reason through the need to pay
ever-more attention to the details of the behaviour
exhibited in different contexts. To date, I have
invested nearly ten years of my life in this project,
which has given me the opportunity to help these abused
dogs and give them a second chance at life, as well as
contributing to my scientific knowledge and professional
know-how. The early results of this research project
were presented at the first Canine Science Forum in
Budapest, in 2008, and the data will be published in the
near future.
Setting up the tests to use in these evaluations led to
me an ever-firmer conviction that I needed to observe
and understand aggressive behaviour in a more natural
context. In 2007, I began to film interactions between
the dogs participating in socialisation classes at my
training facility, building up an archive of hundreds of
hours of footage. In 2010, I analysed 160 videos of
aggressive interactions, and thanks to the collaboration
of the Biology department of the University of Parma
(and in particular to Professor Paola Valsecchi and Dr.
Shanis Barnard), I was able to present the first results
obtained in this research at the Canine Science Forum in
Vienna. Although I realise I still have more road to
travel in discovering, understanding and explaining what
I observe, undertaking such an in-depth analysis
contributed enormously to sharpening my skills in
analysing and evaluating aggressive behaviour. Various
components of this ethogram are indeed the direct result
of this research.
A third project that is still underway (as is my work
with ex-fighting dogs !) regards the evaluation of dogs
who have bitten or shown aggressive behaviour toward
people. This study, too, is being carried out with the
collaboration of the Parma Biology department. After my
research on the pit-bulls in the ex-fighting dog
rehabilitation program, shelter dogs, and dog-dog
interactions, in this new project, my attention has
turned to aggressive behaviours towards humans as
displayed by family companion dogs.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Giorgio Malacarne, Cristina Lorenzi,
Paola Valsecchi, Shanis Barnard, Sarah Marshall-Pescini
(proud to be a splitter :-))), Lisa Corradi, Beatrice
Pinet, Silvia Gotta, Laura Marazzini, Alice Farinetti,
Marina Garfagnoli, Carlo Magnoli, Barbara Navone, as
well as to all of the owners i've worked with and their
dogs.
¹ Jonathan Safran Foer "Eating Animals" Little, Brown
and Company, 2009
PART ONE
Introduction
PART TWO
Aggressiveness
PARTE
THREE Ethogram of Agonistic Behaviours
contents
- authors - bibliography
- books & DVD
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