Ideas - Neo-natal / Post-Natal Stimulation of Working Dogs
Various organisations use working dogs, most notably the Police, Guide Dogs for the Blind (AKA 'Seeing Eye Dogs'), Dogs for the Disabled, and many customs departments and security firms.
Guide dogs, at least in the UK, tend to be dogs bred for the job and I believe many Police Alsatians are also bred for the task, with unsuitable dogs being given to other homes after testing. I suggest taking an idea from humans and trying it dogs bred for working roles:
Within child development work there are people who support pre-natal stimulation of babies, that is the stimulation of babies while they are still in their mothers' womb by playing music or even flashing lights through the stomach wall. It is believed children stimulated in this way mentally develop more quickly and that it can increase their intelligence, although it is often used in 'hot house' or near-hot house conditions, where the child's mental development receives a great deal of attention. There are claims that the early stimulation of children causes more neurological links within the brain, I don't know of any research confirming this, but there may be MRI studies that show whether this is true or not.
I suggest stimulating working dogs while they are still in an early stage of development, with the idea that it may help their mental development and make them more suitable for a fulfilling working life.
Puppies are born with eyes and ears closed, so pre-natal stimulation may be worthless. However, post-natal stimulation when the puppies are in their early development stages may give benefits.
The stimulation may be varied, and depend on the work of the animal:
- Aural stimulation using classical music (as used in human studies), and
/ or the sound of voices of future human workers with the dogs, or very similar
voices - i.e. for Police dogs the repetition of certain common command phrases,
in the same delivery manner as will be used by future owners of the dog.
If possible it could be the voice of the officer / owner of the dog, but
this will likely be difficult on a practical level as officers change jobs,
and various dogs from one litter go on for different owners.
- Olfactory stimulation with smells related to their future working environment,
e.g. with clothes worn by their future owner. This could be extended to a
more general scent, so dogs could be conditioned to a particular perfume,
which the future owner will need to wear for a period of time when they start
to work with the dog, giving the dog a feeling of instant familiarity with
the owner. Note: certain scents are potentially unsuitable for drug sniffer
dogs.
- Visual stimulation with lights, in the general area of the litter (i.e. in the basket) as with humans.
Given that sight is the pre-dominant human sense, but smell is dominant for dogs, I would suggest the olfactory stimulation might be the most useful area to study. Getting dogs used to many innovative and unusual smells early may make them better able to handle the outside world with a stable temperament, even if it does nothing to enhance their mental faculties.
Is this worth doing?
Considering the large amount of time and effort that goes in to producing
and training suitable working dogs, I think it is worth trying some early stimulation
experiments to see if it helps the dogs develop in a way that makes them suitable
for a future working environment. Gaining a few extra suitable dogs could make
a great deal of difference to the breeding and training programs dogs that
currently create many working dogs. Through brief study I cannot see any way
in which
the research would damage the development
of
the
dogs,
even
if
it
is decided they are unsuitable for work.
Paul Silver, 3 September 2003