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Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys
- cmrdporcupine 1y agoIf there's a frisbee or ball in sight, my female border collie won't even attend to basic bodily needs. And she'll chase the object while she's in pain and exhausted or shivering with cold and not notice. She has lupoid onychodystrophy which causes her nails to come in deformed and split and painful and she'll still obsess on some running play/task while she's got bleeding paws and can barely walk. An an owner we have to intervene to remove the object of obsession and force disengagement. This is a product of centuries of breeding to focus on a task and enjoy the task above all else.
- iancmceachern 1y agoExactly, we made them this way
- captainclam 1y agoThe two dogs I know that share this behavior are border collies.
- dwd 1y agoHave a non-working line border collie, and he has had zero interest in chasing a ball his whole life. All he ever wanted to do was run or chase birds. He failed all his training, didn't even get through puppy preschool as he's not that food motivated either. Every cattle dog I have known has been ball-obsessed.
- librasteve 1y agomy sprollie is the same (half nap collie) … he is 100% ball obsessed
- tsol 1y agoI wonder if autism is a similar kind of selection process. They are people selected by nature to be obsessed about different things, but this could be incredibly fruitful if you end up focused on the right thing. Of course in this situation we have no control over the selection process, it's a product of living in a world that's difficult to
- AbortedLaunch 1y agoYou may find the recently published article “A General Principle of Neuronal Evolution Reveals a Human-Accelerated Neuron Type Potentially Underlying the High Prevalence of Autism in Humans” interesting. https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/42/9/msaf189/8245036 https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/42/9/msaf189/8245036
- namanyayg 1y agoAvoiding spoilers, Peter Watts' works have parts which show what happens when this idea is taken to its logical extreme.
- gigatree 1y agoIt’s kind of funny how the idea of behavior being a result of breeding goes out the window when it comes to pitbulls. Retrievers naturally retrieve, collies naturally herd, but when a murder-canine eats a family it’s all “oh it could have been any breed”.
- testdelacc1 1y agoIt’s just wokery innit. Can’t even train dogs to murder children nowadays because the woke brigade will cancel you.
- micromacrofoot 1y agoit's more nuanced - "pitbull" isn't a single breed, it's a category none of the dogs in the category were bred to kill indiscriminately - they were expected to obey handlers just like any other working breed and there are a number of fighting breeds outside of the category as well
- gigatree 1y agoObey handlers to do what?
- micromacrofoot 1y agoto not bite people! it's the compact between species that is the reason dogs were allowed to become dogs! but yes it's a bit irresponsible to allow the proliferation of some strong breeds, breeding should be a serious crime... these dogs are all over the southern us
- grayhatter 1y agoLol, murder canine huh? ok, I'll take the bait. Because I'm pretty sure you don't mean a malinois. Because it could be any breed. There are more significant differences between individual dogs within a breed than between different breeds. Cattle dogs have a reputation for being asocial and "bittey", especially towards ankles, mine would "never" because they have been taught and socialized correctly. Would it be easier to teach him to bite ankles then the average dog? Yes, because hearding breeds have stronger prey drives than companions breeds. But I could teach a retriever to herd too. People with animals to heard buy hearding breeds because they want to herd, will every individual dog from a hearding breed be a good herding dog? No same with service animals, many wash out. Now here's the rub, and why everyone paying attention says it's not about the breed... Antisocial people buy a breed because they want it's reported antisocial characteristics. These people don't train their dog, and.... it's a dog! It's natural instincts are more violent, and it's stronger and better at inflicting injury, dogs hunt. I suspect you're applying reason incorrectly here because you have some preexisting bias against some dogs in a shape you have an aversion to. Small dogs are much more likely to bite and cause injuries, but you don't care about them as much do you? Lets try vehicles instead. someone gets drunk, and run over a kid on a motorcycle, They probably don't die right? Someone else gets drunk and runs over a kid in a range rover. They probably do die right? Is it the vehicle? Or is the real problem the person operating the vehicle? Range rovers are the problem here right? No? Are some breeds stronger and more able to cause harm? Yes, but you don't blame the wood chipper when someone loses their arm in it. You equally don't blame the law mower even though in only takes a finger instead of an arm. All dogs are pack animals, (just like humans). If a golden retriever owned by a violent person is more dangerous than rottweiler owned by kind loving person, why are you still blaming the breed of the dog instead of the pack it was raised by?
- superkuh 1y ago>Behavioural addictions, characterised by compulsive engagement in rewarding activities despite adverse consequences in the long term, are more heterogeneous and less well-understood than substance addictions Indeed. Mostly because every study on "behavioral addictions" is published in third tier journals or is a negative result in real journals. It's something that doesn't actually exist in mammals and it's current popularity is mostly from profit seeking scams for rehabilitation "clinics" preying on the 'screens are addictive' meme burning through current parent populations. And despite the headlines suggesting otherwise, and the press likely running with those false headlines, *the actual study itself does not find any addictive behavior*. A null result. >Despite the observed parallels between high-AB dogs and humans affected by behavioural addictions, we refrain from conclusively characterising high-AB dogs as exhibiting addictive behaviour, given the absence of established benchmarks or standardised criteria. It is important to be cautious when pathologising behaviour, especially given that even in humans, addictive behaviours are still difficult to define and measure.
- stirfish 1y ago>It's something that doesn't actually exist in mammals and it's current popularity is mostly from profit seeking scams for rehabilitation "clinics" preying on the 'screens are addictive' meme burning through current parent populations. What about gambling, eating, or shopping?
- superkuh 1y agoGambling is not an addiction. It is "gambling disorder" and it was grandfathered into the DSM. It is explicitly not an addiction medically. Eating and shopping are two great examples not erronously grandfathered in, which committees repeated find are not addiction, but which those scammers love to profit off of.
- hippo22 1y ago"Gambling Disorder" is in the disorder class "Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders" in DSM-5 though.
- delichon 1y agoPerhaps not surprising, working breeds – many of which are known to have been artificially selected for high toy or predatory motivation – were overrepresented in the sample. This is the vibe I get from my golden retriever. Chasing the tennis ball is more than play, it's a justification for life, her contribution to the pack. Actually eating food has a higher priority than chasing the ball, but not much else does. When I got her I thought that the "retriever" part was optional but it turns out to be obligate. As in I'm obligated to throw the damn ball.
- hippo22 1y agoWatching a dog that likes playing fetch is cathartic. I truly wish I had that level of purpose and fulfillment in my life.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Natsu 1y agoNo take, only throw.
- shpx 1y agoDog breeds are not real animals, they're some sort of half-artificial thing created by imperfectly writing some people's desire into another species's genetic code. If you make an artificial thing that really wants to do some specific thing, like a computer endlessly printing "hello world" millions of times a second, it's not surprising to see it do the thing it was created to do. I wouldn't say the computer "wants" to print hello world, so I don't see the dog as doing what it truly wants to do if it's a genetic predisposition human breeders forced into it. I see the expression of a society of dog breeders and people's idea of a game called "fetch" which was relatively easy to transition a species towards step-by-step using artificial selection.
- teekert 1y agoDogs were domesticated by sort of not letting them grow up. We selected for the ones that retained puppy features into adulthood. They don't loose big eyes, hanging ears, retained playful/less aggressive behavior that is better for living with siblings. Perhaps the obsession with fetching came with that?
- cs702 1y agoThis research only confirms what many dog owners already know, but it still deserves an Ig Noble Prize.[a] --- [a] https://improbable.com/ig/about-the-ig-nobel-prizes/ https://improbable.com/ig/about-the-ig-nobel-prizes/
- superkuh 1y agoIt doesn't though. Only the headline implies that. If you read the discussion you find the authors of this study do not claim any addictive behaviors were found.
- cs702 1y agoI disagree. The OP states in the first sentence of its "Conclusion" section: > To conclude, there appear to be parallels between excessive toy motivation in dogs and behavioural addictions in humans. Understandably, however, the must authors qualify and frame their conclusion, so later on they add: > Despite the observed parallels between high-AB dogs and humans affected by behavioural addictions, we refrain from conclusively characterising high-AB dogs as exhibiting addictive behaviour, given the absence of established benchmarks or standardised criteria.
- herghost 1y agoWe've recently come to this conclusion with our Cockapoo. His mother was a working Cocker Spaniel. When the weather is poor we have often tried to get shorter walks in dry spells but augment it with as much ball time as possible to make sure he's getting enough exercise (since he generally dislikes bad weather). It's become apparent that there's no possibility of satiety through chasing the ball though. He will simply go forever, however tired he looks. I joked that as a Labrador will seemingly eat itself sick, a Spaniel will run itself lame.
- JimBlackwood 1y agoFor a breed that is partly bred to flush out game, throwing a ball is incredibly adrenaline inducing and will not tire them out - they’ll just keep going till they fall down. Working cockers are one of the breeds susceptible to exercise induced collapse, albeit rare it shows how insanely motivated they are. To get them tired, you need to chill them out and have them use their brain and/or nose. Maybe try some sniffing games, sit down during the walk and have them just take in the environment, do some obedience that makes them think, or throw their food in the grass and have them figure it out.
- callamdelaney 1y agoWe have a springer, cocker and a sprocker. We knew that addiction to these things were a problem and so we didn’t allow it to develop. I do think that people who are constantly throwing balls, especially with a wanger, are idiots.
- squidsoup 1y agoWhere are you that you refer to a ball thrower as a “wanger”? I suspect anyone from the common wealth or the UK would find this quite amusing.
- _joel 1y agoI must be a bad person as my dog loves his balls being thrown in a wanger
- mrlatinos 1y agoYou know your dogs' breeds were susceptible to enjoying fetch so you never played fetch with them. Ah yes those poor idiots who actually work their dogs for their bred purpose.
- callamdelaney 1y agoThey get to retrieve things but not constantly like I often see people doing. Eg throw ball with wanger [0], dog gets ball, person throws ball again ad infinitum. The constant thing is the key, we don’t let an unhealthy obsession develop is the point I'm making which looking back on my comment is pretty obvious. Spaniels are all rounders in terms of their working - they’re as happy to flush, work ground or retrieve. 2/3 (and have done some light work) of ours are reasonably well trained but as mentioned they’re normally happier having a good sniff than picking up a tennis ball. Probably living in the countryside that’s more interesting than chasing a plastic ball about all day. On the topic of ad-infinitum ball throwing there are literally people automating this task [1] which I think is pretty terrible. [0] https://amzn.eu/d/bOzRoXt https://amzn.eu/d/bOzRoXt [1] https://amzn.eu/d/b2dq3tC https://amzn.eu/d/b2dq3tC
- WD-42 1y ago
- user____name 1y agoOne of my best friends has a toller (canadian duck retriever) that's a total ball junkie, it's all he seems to live for. I too often played fetch with him as a pup and now he goes completely loco any time I show up at their house. So I accidentally conditioned him to see me as mr playtime, oops. Nowadays I try to just play frisbee and tugging games whenever I'm over for some time. When a ball is in sight, the world just disappears.
- jncfhnb 1y agoIf you ever get a chance to see sled dogs in Alaska or wherever, holy shit do those dogs ever want to pull a sled. I’ve never seen an animal so fixated.
- brap 1y agoWhat if you never trained them to pull, and they never observed that behavior? Would they still want to do it?
- rini17 1y agoIt's pretty hard to avoid any situations where pulling is possible. Such as on leash. You usually have to intensely train working dogs not to pull on leash. They would still fixate on other behaviors they are trained on. And if not trained and neglected, often have destructive behaviors.
- jncfhnb 1y agoJust a guess but I would imagine the behavior is deeply instinctive by this point.
- testing22321 1y agoWe got a purebred Aussie sheepdog (kelpie) that failed its tests at a year old. They were going to shoot her, so she became our family pet. She was obsessed with rounding things up - cats, ducks, kids, you name it. Part of her dna for sure.
- Arech 1y agoMy dog (Briard) isn't just addicted to play fetch with balls.. Since he knows that when another dog enters the dog park, the ball will be removed/hidden from him (to prevent the dogs clashing trying to get the ball), he becomes hostile to the dog entering the park, actively trying to prevent them from doing so! This happens only if we started to play with balls. If not, he'll be totally friendly... What an ass!
- ajkjk 1y agoI read somewhere that domesticated dogs are to some degree bred to stay in their "childlike" state, so in a way they act like wolf puppies that never get older. Probably different breeds have different degrees of this. But anyway, I wonder if there is supposed to be some counterbalancing "maturity" or "responsibility" impulse that would cause them to decide not to do the thing, but since that has been bred out / disabled, they just run on impulse forever. Incidentally I feel this way also: like I never fully grew up, and I easily regress to being trapped in a childlike state where I'll e.g. play video games all day. To snap out of it I have to "remember" to be an adult, like it's easily forgotten especially if my daily life doesn't ask me to have any serious responsibilities. maybe dogs don't have any responsibilities so they have no reason to stop playing.
- croisillon 1y agoyou might be thinking of neoteny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#In_domestic_animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#In_domestic_animals
- ajkjk 1y agoaha, didn't know the name for it, thanks
- Sharlin 1y agoIndeed most domestic animals exhibit some degree of neoteny, or juvenile characteristics as adults, including humans ourselves. We’ve sort of domesticated ourselves.
- spike021 1y agomy shiba inu rarely plays with any of his toys these days. he's 4.5 years old. of course that breed is typically known as being more primitive, so i wonder if that can be attributed to it.
- wewewedxfgdf 1y agoThis is a really fun 16 minute listen to how this precise dog behaviour is exploited to eradicate rats on Lord Howe Island. They search specifically for dogs obsessed with ball chasing and turn them into rat hunting dogs. There's funny bit where they talk about finding a dog that had learned how to use the tennis ball firing machine and spent all day chasing a tennis ball and putting it back in the machine which fires the tennis ball in a never ending loop. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/scienceshow/dogs-help-eradicate-rats-on-lord-howe-island/105386806 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/scienceshow/dogs-help...
- heikkilevanto 1y agoSlightly off topic, but I once had a Siamese cat. I could not teach her to fetch a ball, but she could very well teach me to throw again. And it had to be a yellow foam ball - none of the other colors were of any interest.
- arethuza 1y agoWe used to have Burmese cats and they loved to play fetch.
- tguvot 1y agoI have 2 standard poodles that come from working (hunting) lineage. After few throws of tennis ball they realize that game is rigged, and just go away, making me to go and retrieve the ball
- emerongi 1y agoMy grandparents had a hunting dog. She did not care about "play-time" at all. On the other hand, she got excited when she heard "forest" or "rabbit". Had to be careful with those words. I think when she wasn't in the forest, she was just waiting to go there again. Instead of ball, it was forest.
- tguvot 1y agowell, mine are not hunting dogs. But when we go for a daily walks, they immediately start tracking "whatever" walked there before (living at the city border, surrounded by fields, we have a lot of animals strolling through streets)
- kayo_20211030 1y agoffs. What does this study tell anyone about anything? > Behavioural addictions, characterised by compulsive engagement in rewarding activities despite adverse consequences in the long term, are more heterogeneous and less well-understood than substance addictions, and there is a relative lack of translational research. Does that make sense to anyone? "more heterogeneous" (trans: different) "less well-understood: (trans: I have no idea, but I need to finish this paper) "adverse consequences" (trans: Who knows? But, I surveyed pet-owners for their opinion, and cited some other source) "relative lack of translational research" (trans: sounds good, whatever it means)
- card_zero 1y ago"Relating to the transfer of scientific knowledge into practical applications", apparently. Dogs can mess themselves up for these rewards in various ways, and nobody much has worked out any useful facts about it yet. ... including us.
- electroglyph 1y agoi haven't seen any mention of lasers here, so i'll add my laser anecdote. I have a very active German shepherd rescue. I made the mistake of introducing him to the laser pointer which I used to exercise my previous dog, a doberman. Now he lives and breathes for laser. He nags me all day long. He sometimes sees laser dots where there aren't any. His appetite for laser can never be satiated, heh
- dwd 1y agoSqueaky toys are our GSD's main play toys, even just seems to like carrying them around. Games of chase, tug-of-war or just as a way to annoyingly get your attention with squeaking. The other weird obsession seems to be hunting related. I once attached a toiletry holder in the shower that uses a pump to create the suction. It made a popping sound when I removed it and the GSD came running over to find what made the noise. Even a year later she still gets in the shower to see if there's anything there, especially if I'm crawling around cleaning. Maybe thinking I'm looking for it as well.
- guffins 1y agoSometimes known as “laser pointer syndrome.” It can drive dogs particularly crazy, and may also affect cats in the long term.
- Xss3 1y agoStudies show laser play actually makes dogs n cats stressed. They need to win to feel fulfilled. They cannot actually catch the laser, so they dont get fulfillment. It can cause a form of PTSD.
- Xss3 1y agoJust as an addendum, i looked into this after a few hours of laser play left my pup wandering around searching for it like she was paranoid, her mouth was agape, it was obvious she was worried, not looking to play. When i found evidence supporting this view, that flew in the face of all i thought i knew about lasers n dogs, i realized how foolish i had been to think pup enjoyed it rather than it being unfulfilled prey drive and protection of the home drive.
- xg15 1y ago> with dogs as the only non-human species so far that appears to develop addictive-like behaviours spontaneously without artificial induction How did they reach the conclusion that dogs are the only species affected by this if they only investigated dogs? This feels like confusing "absence of evidence" with "evidence of absence" - especially as they write it right after stating that there is a lack of research in the field.
- fluoridation 1y agoDid you miss the "so far"?
- labrador 1y agoAs a recovering addict/alcoholic, I completely "get" these dogs and think maybe if this idea spreads it could help non-addicts understand our obsessive/compulsive behavior without as much judgement.
- throw-10-13 1y agoNot sure if comparing human addicts to a dog is the win you think it is.
- labrador 1y agoIt's funny to me that you would say that because it tells me you've never been a desperate addict. You've never felt lower than a dog.
- cristaloleg 1y agoI like your username (especially in this thread) (PS: I have black & yellow labs)
- caturopath 1y agoI'm struggling to understand what the result really is: it seems that some dogs at some point would rather play with a toy than eat or come play with their owner. That seems pretty normal. Is this really "addictive-like"? Why isn't it "really enjoy"?
- yieldcrv 1y ago> play has remained somewhat of a mystery, being associated with no immediate adaptive function because it releases dopamine and is not related to whether the animal or someone will crack or be cracked with viable offspring evolution via natural selection doesn’t require every trait to have a meaning or purpose, why do intellectuals get it backwards with retroactive explanation if the trait persists or is present after sexual maturity, then it doesn’t get weeded out by sex and has no purpose or adaptive explanation whatsoever in this case, play releases dopamine. dopamine production is a guiding force for being with dopamine. mammals get addicted. rats and humans react the same to the same reward experiments. dogs exhibit the same traits while being exempt from the experiments
- ChaoPrayaWave 1y agoSometimes when I watch my border collie chase a ball, it really makes me reflect on humans too. We’re constantly scrolling through our phones, watching short videos, playing mobile games. In a way, it feels like we’re just throwing a ball for ourselves to chase again and again.