Longitudinal Cognitive and Emotional Development in Working Dogs

工作犬的纵向认知和情感发展

• 批准号: 10352205
• 负责人: Margaret Elizabeth Gruen
• 金额: $ 35.74万
• 依托单位: DUKE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-02-01 至 2024-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10352205
• 关键词: Address; Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Age; Animals; Area; Behavior; Behavioral; Brain; Canis familiaris; Certification; Child; Clinical Research; Cognition; Cognitive; Companions; Coupled; Development; Disabled Persons; Emotional; Exposure to; Goals; Growth; Heart Rate; Home; Human; Hydrocortisone; Individual Differences; Institution; Link; Measures; Methods; Nonprofit Organizations; Pattern; Performance; Persons; Physiological; Play; Predictive Value; Problem Solving; Psyche structure; Research; Resources; Role; Sampling; Services; Site; Socialization; Techniques; Temperament; Testing; Training; Variant; Veterinary Medicine; Waiting Lists; Work; behavior measurement; cognitive ability; cognitive development; cognitive system; cognitive testing; cohort; college; cost; critical period; disability; experience; flexibility; improved; interdisciplinary approach; longitudinal design; motivated behavior; novel; peer; physically handicapped; psychologic; screening; skills; social; success; tool; trait

Abstract Increasingly, clinical studies show that service and companion dogs can have a significant positive impact on children, adolescents, and adults with physical and mental disabilities. Unfortunately, there is a finite supply of service dogs and the growth potential of this supply is limited. The main limitation is the 50-70% attrition rate of dogs bred, raised and trained to be companion or service animals. The high attrition rate makes these animals costly and leads to long waiting lists of those in need. There is a clear need for systematic research that helps identify why some dogs are successful while some are not, that then leads to a larger supply of certified dogs to meet the demand. A revolution in our understanding of dog cognition has occurred in the past decade, with previous work by our group linking individual differences in cognition and emotional reactivity to working dog performance in adults. We propose to combine the resources of the Duke Canine Cognition Center, the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine and Canine Companion for Independence (CCI) to characterize the development of the cognitive and emotional traits that our previous work have shown predict success in service dogs. First, we will detail how these cognitive traits, and their physiologic correlates, develop in CCI dogs using a longitudinal design during the critical period of brain development from 8-20 weeks of age. Second, we will test for the influence of different but common service dog rearing strategies on these skills by testing CCI puppies being reared in human homes or together with same age peers on a college campus. In studying the cognitive abilities and emotional reactivity of service dogs we will develop a better understanding of what psychological mechanism(s) successful service dogs rely on or are constrained by when helping humans. We can then use this information to better predict which puppies will be successful service dogs – improving the success of training while increasing the potential number of service dogs available.

抽象的 越来越多的临床研究表明，服务犬和伴侣犬可以具有 对儿童、青少年和成人的身心产生显着的积极影响 不幸的是，服务犬的供应和增长潜力有限。 这种供应是有限的，主要限制是所饲养的狗的损耗率为 50-70%， 饲养和训练作为伴侣或服务动物的高流失率使得。 这些动物的成本很高，并且导致有需要的人的等待名单很长。 需要系统的研究来帮助确定为什么有些狗能成功，而 有些没有，这会导致更多的经过认证的狗的供应来满足需求。 在过去的十年里，我们对狗认知的理解发生了革命 我们小组之前的工作将认知和情感的个体差异联系起来 我们建议将资源结合起来。 杜克犬认知中心、北卡罗来纳州立兽医学院和 犬类独立伴侣 (CCI) 来描述狗的发展 我们之前的工作表明，认知和情感特征可以预测成功 首先，我们将详细介绍这些服务犬的认知特征及其生理机能。 关联，在CCI狗中使用纵向设计在关键时期进行开发 其次，我们将测试8-20周龄大脑发育的影响。 通过测试 CCI 来了解这些技能的不同但常见的服务犬饲养策略 在人类家庭中或在大学与同龄同伴一起饲养的小狗 在研究服务犬的认知能力和情绪反应时，我们 将更好地理解成功的心理机制 服务犬在帮助人类时依赖或受到限制，然后我们可以使用它。 更好地预测哪些小狗将成为成功的服务犬的信息——改进 培训的成功同时增加了可用服务犬的潜在数量。