Laurie's Blogs.

 

15
Sep 2014

Article Review - Laterality of agility dogs

ARTICLE REVIEW 

- Taken from the most recent edition of FourLeg News (Vol 3, Issue 5)

Siniscalchi M, Bertino D, Quaranta A.  Laterality and performance of agility-trained dogs, Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition.   (2013): DOI: 10.1080/1357650X.2013.794815

 

Agility is one of the most popular canine sports, dogs having to negotiate a variety of obstacles, jumping at speed and changing direction rapidly, all without making errors.  Both athletic and spatial skills are essential requirements of participants in the sport. 

Lateralisation of the dog brain has been reported with functional asymmetries found in paw usage and in sensory perception of acoustic , visual , and olfactory stimuli.  In this study the authors examined the influence of lateralisation in agility dogs , looking at paw preference, owner/handler location, and temperament in relation to performance on the agility course. 

 

Method:

Participants were 19 healthy adult agility dogs (9 males and 10 females) ranging in age from 1.4 to 9.5 years.  Dogs were a combination of purebred and crossbreeds and of all body sizes.  Two males and four females were neutered.   To avoid any possible handling effect, pairings were chosen based on owners who worked with their dog from both sides during daily activities and agility training.

Paw preference was assessed by presenting each dog with a Kong toy filled with a mixture of meat and dry dog food.  The dog’s use of the left or right forepaw to hold the Kong while eating its contents was video recorded. Each dog was tested for 2 minutes at monthly intervals over a period of 10 months.

Testing involved dogs negotiating a jump obstacle and then an A-frame.  The weave pole obstacle was tested separately. Dogs were required to negotiate the 12 weave poles always entering with the pole to the left, and not skipping any poles.  Dogs had been trained prior to testing for between 14 to 87 months. Each dog was tested on a series of three obstacles (jump and A-frame) or runs through the weave poles that were run consecutively at 3-minute intervals, twice a week over 2 weeks, until a set of 12 trials for each dog was collected. The total time required to complete the obstacle course was recorded.Performance was recorded using digital video cameras positioned on the right and on the left side of the dog’s starting position.

Owners also completed a questionnaire about their dogs’ temperament and social interactions.

 

Results/Discussion:

There were 7 male dogs (37%) and 8 female dogs (42%) who showed a significant preference for using a particular paw during the study.  There was a significant difference between males and females in paw usage males showing a left-paw preference, females preferring the right. 

Dogs made more errors and took longer to complete exercises when the owner was in the dogs left visual field compared to the right.  The lateral field of each eye projects to the contralateral side of the brain, one explanation for the asymmetry found in the study being that there is a different activation of the two brain hemispheres during visual analysis.  Specifically the authors hypothesize visual analysis of the owner by the left eye (activity in the right hemisphere) is likely to increase the dogs’ state of arousal and be distracting, as analysis of spatial information (agility obstacles) and visual analysis of an emotional stimulus (owner) are both under the control of the right hemisphere.

A correlation was found between paw preference and the trainability of the dog.  The weaker the paw preference and lateralization, the more likely a dog was to be distractible during training and the more reactive it would be to other external stimuli (e.g. thunderstorms).

The authors concluded that behavioral lateralization correlates with performance in agility dogs and supports previous studies showing that lateralization in dogs can directly affect visually guided motor responses. 

 

Relevance to Rehab

Wow!  There are some rather interesting correlations and findings that come out of this study!  Firstly, I’m surprised that less than ½ of the dogs in the study showed a lateralization, and further shocked that having a lateralized preference equated with better performance & reduced overall reactivity.  I would have guessed the opposite, to be quite honest!  (Psst… maybe this is one thing that agility-dog owners should look for in their prospective agility puppies.)  I would also wonder if when training a new dog (i.e. in agility) or working with a dog (i.e. in a rehab context) whether that handler or therapist could get better results by positioning him- / herself on the dog’s right side.  OR, if you have a very nervous owner who is affecting the dog’s behaviour in-clinic, perhaps keeping the owner on the dog’s right side could minimize the amount of owner-induced anxiety the dog demonstrated!  Just a thought!    - Laurie



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