Looking for safety in all the wrong places: India’s new ban on 23 dog breeds cannot succeed
Thankfully, banning dogs of certain breeds is increasingly rare. But when this choice is made, as with the recent national BSL legislation in India, we are reminded of some of the reasons that it simply cannot help prevent dog bite injuries: Behavioral genetic science shows conclusively that a dog’s breed simply cannot predict anything about […]
Action Patterns Aren’t Personality. Here’s What a Recent Canine Genetics Study Really Means About Your Dog’s Behavior
A new genetics study reveals more about the canine division of labor in ancient times, but not about your dog’s individual personality.
Ground-Breaking Research Shows Breed As a Poor Predictor of Behavior
The Darwin’s Ark study on dog behavior and genetics might reset how we all think about and talk about dog behavior.
Building Social Competence: The real deal in dog safety training
In 2013 the most comprehensive study to date asked whether the dogs (fewer than 1 dog in 2 million) involved in dog bite-related fatalities (DBRF) had anything in common with one another. The collaboration of a veterinary epidemiologist, a public health expert, an animal behaviorist and dog behavior researchers examined the available evidence regarding every […]
A Dog and Her Family Show Us the Importance of Social Competency
“Oh behave,” we often say to our children and dogs alike, when they do stuff that irritates us. But no one, not kids and not puppies either are born knowing how to “behave.” Understanding what’s expected of them, and how to read the signals others give off, and generally how to behave appropriately in social […]
Words Matter 101: Let’s get rid of the A word
I have a personal litmus test for dog knowledge among humans. If someone asks, “is that dog aggressive?” I understand immediately that we are starting from zero. Karen Overall, the noted behaviorist, once said that as far as she could tell, the word “aggression” simply meant anything a person didn’t like. She was speaking to […]
The QAnon of Canine Behavior Science
A story on NPR reports that the most popular facebook post on the brief suspension of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine in April was not CNN or NYT or ABC News or Fox News. They were all in the top five, but number one was a conspiracy theorist called An0maly who describes himself as a “news […]
“What kind of dog is that?” Asking the wrong question and answering it badly
Our review has revealed no findings of breed based behavioral differences that successfully overcome all the difficulties presented by this question.
Welcome Back to SPARCS + 2018 Conference
The SPARCS Initiative is now maintained by National Canine Research Council.
What type of dog is that? Can you tell just by looking?
Take a look at the growing body of evidence on visual breed identification, and commit to shifting the paradigm of how we identify and discuss dogs in our daily lives.