Future Female Ph.D.s

Back in December I applied for a mini STEM Grant from the National Girls Collaborative Project for HAWS Education Department. STEM stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and the goal of NGCP is to link organizations that offer STEM programs so that they can share resources and help develop gender equality in STEM -- in other words get girls interested in science and math!

Our grant was for a program to be run during spring break and was based on one of the Kids N Critter Day Camps we offer during the summer called Gone to the Dogs. The program was tweaked a bit so that it would conform better to the STEM requirements. Our collaborative partner was the Boys and Girls Clubs running out of Hadfield Elementary in Waukesha, WI. We were told that the grant had been awarded at the end of February, and the camp ran this past week.

Eleven girls between the ages of 9 and 11 spent Monday through Thursday at HAWS. They spent 3 mornings in HAWS vet clinic watching surgery, learning about veterinary medicine, listening to heartbeats through a stethoscope, and observing our vets and vet techs with the animals. Dr. Meyer told them that if they were interested in becoming veterinarians they needed to pay attention in science and math and should volunteer in shelters once they're old enough so that they get animal handling experience.

The girls learned about the importance of socialization in puppies and then got to play with the litter of dachshund puppies we happened to have this week. They learned about positive reinforcement, and were able to practice training some of the dogs.

I also had them put together an experiment based on the pointing studies that many researchers who are interested in canine cognition have already published. (Click here to watch a video on work being done in Germany.) The girls designed the study with a little coaching by me, and decided to compare whether dogs that had an owner or dogs that lived in a shelter would be better at following a point. They then actually implemented the study.

I'll be the first to admit that the implementation of this study won't adhere to the strict criteria that science requires. The girls were really rooting for the dogs and hated to see them fail and sometimes gave them a lot of leeway on whether they were successful or not. It was also difficult for them to keep quiet during the testing and that caused the dogs to become distracted. But the whole point of their time at HAWS wasn't to become perfect scientists. The point was to show them that science can be fun, and I know we succeeded in that.

Below is a video of the experiment with the girls talking about what they did.

What Smells!

This year's annual spring seminar hosted by HAWS was a huge success, and Sunday's topic was one of the most interesting presentations we've ever had. While it's well known that dogs have a phenominal sense of smell, it's not something that most people do as a fun activity with their dogs.

Up until now there really hasn't been much for the dog owner who wants to train their dog to use their nose, but doesn't really want to get into obedience, search and rescue or tracking. That's all starting to change. Dog trainers are starting to understand that because dogs have such a natural tendency to use their nose to explore their world, we can use this as a way to help dogs tire out mentally and as a bonding activity between owner and dog. A sport called K9 Nose Work recently developed and has started to become popular.

Steve and Jennifer White were HAWS featured speakers last weekend. Steve has a background in training dogs for law enforcement K-9 units, and Jennifer has decades of experience training a variety of species and working in behavior modification of canine behavior problems.

Our introduction to scent taught us that scent isn't stationary -- it moves according to the environment it's in and can be affected by surface type, temperature and wind. A good dog handler understands this, and should learn how to evaluate the environment in order for the dog to be the most successful.

A good handler also learns to trust the dog -- because after all humans have only 5 mllion scent receptors in our noses, while dogs have between 125 and 300 million -- depending on the breed.

The highlight of Sunday was the demo. I was very proud of my dog Mystic who found the scent tucked away in a film canister and placed on an upside down chair after minimal training.








Dixie wasn't quite as successful -- her extensive training as a hunting dog most likely made her dismiss the scent of almond extract as being irrelevant. Her nose has been trained to find birds, not nuts. But she sure had fun playing with Steve!

Star of the day was Bryn -- a schipperke with a nose that kicked in. Here's video of her enthusiastic report that she had successfully located the almond extract.


Thanks to Steve and Jennifer White for the video, and stills taken from the video. And for showing those of us in attendance on Sunday a whole new world as smelled through our dog's noses.

Critter Club

For years HAWS has had to disappoint animal-loving kids by turning them down as volunteers. Our policy is that teens between the ages of 13 and 15 need to volunteer with a parent, and can only volunteer without parental supervision once they reach 16. This means that teenagers who don't have a willing parent, or kids under the age of 13 don't have an opportunity to contribute their time to the animals at HAWS.

This policy is difficult for many kids and their parents to understand. It's not that we don't like children -- we do, really! It's just that interacting with animals at a shelter is very different than interacting with the family pet. Here at HAWS we get a range of personalities in our adoptable animals -- everything from easy going and extroverted, to shy and intolerant of certain interactions by strangers. It takes a certain degree of maturity, responsibility and common sense to ensure safety around some of our animals. And while there are some adults that don't have these qualities -- they are much more likely to be lacking in children.

We've started a new program called Critter Club on a trial basis. For the next two months 15 kids between the ages of 11 and 13 will be allowed to volunteer under the direct supervision of HAWS staff. It won't all be about cuddling with fuzzy creatures, however. The kids will be cleaning cages, washing dishes, restocking poop bags in our out-door waste stations, and cleaning windows. Once their work is done they'll be allowed to take out cats and some of the other animals and do some socialization.

The other component to Critter Club is educational. Last night they went through the same training that our regular volunteer cat cuddlers go through. Next week we'll be doing trials on some scent games with adoptable dogs that we plan on using at HAWS Annual Walkathon in May. And in May they'll have an opportunity to watch our veterinary staff at work doing surgery in our SNIP Clinic. If this program is successful we'll be offering it to a limited number of kids each semester during the school year. Watch out for updates, and I'll let you know!

Kids Say the Funniest Things

I gave a tour of HAWS the other day to a group of 8 year old Girl Scouts. One of the girls told me that she had a girl guinea pig and wanted to get a boy guinea pig so that "they can get married and have babies". I asked her what would happen to all the babies, and she responded that she would keep them. I then mentioned that she would need 2 cages -- one for all the girls and one for all the boys so that there wouldn't be even more babies. Her response to this was "I didn't know relatives could get married!"

Got Your Goat?

One of the best things about working at an animal shelter is that you never quite know what will be in the building when you get to work in the morning.

Last night HAWS Operations Manager, Mark Hess, got a call about a stray goat in Genesee, WI. She's got a collar, seems to be used to walking on a leash, and isn't phazed by dogs.

So if you've lost this maaaa-velous creature give us a call!

Mother Nature Knows Best

Kids love to tell stories about experiences they've had with animals, and I hear a ton of those during programs I do as a humane educator.

One common story is of finding a nest of baby bunnies. Often times the kids will tell me that the mother rabbit isn't caring for her offspring.

Spring is getting closer, and with spring comes an increase in the number of calls HAWS gets from people who have interactions with wild animals -- frequently these calls involve orphaned or abandoned baby animals. We also get an upswing in the number of wild animals brought in by caring individuals who only want to do the right thing.

What many people don't realize is that not all animals care for their babies 24/7. Rabbits will make a nest for their babies and leave them alone for most of the day -- returning only to feed at dawn and at dusk. This makes good evolutionary sense -- an adult rabbit hanging around a nest all day would tip off predators as to where an easy lunch could be found; baby rabbits are safer by themselves when not feeding.

Our advice to anyone coming upon a nest of baby rabbits is to leave them alone - mom most likely is going to come back. And while a wildlife rehabilitator can attempt to bottle feed rabbits -- the truth is that they don't have a good survival rate being raised by humans. Mother Nature really does know best.

Domestication

In 1959 the fur industry in Russia tried to find a solution to the problem of difficult to handle wild foxes being raised for their fur. Soviet geneticist Dmitri Belyaev was enlisted to help with the problem and started a very well known experiment to domesticate the fox. Belyaev felt that the key to domestication was selection for tameness.

Fifty years later Belyaev's experiment is still on-going. Foxes today are 35 generations removed from the original foxes in the study -- with only the tamest foxes being bred. One of the most interesting effects of selecting ONLY for temperament has been the changes in the domesticated foxes physical appearance. Coats developed a piebald appearance, tails shortened and in some cases curled, and ears flopped instead of sticking straight up.

This is significant since it indicates that the diversity in appearance of our domestic dog could have originally developed as a result of selection for behavior. While in modern times dog fanciers select for appearance, long ago dogs were bred for function, and the ear carriage, coat color and length would have been a much smaller, if not irrelevant consideration.

True domestication is the result of animals being bred over many generations in such a way that they have been genetically altered to not only appear different than their wild counterparts -- but to be much more tractable than them. This differs from tameness -- which merely means that an animal has been raised in such a way that makes it easier to handle than it's wild relatives, however it has not necessarily been genetically changed and still retains it's wild behaviors, instincts and appearances.

Roy Horn of the duo Siegfried and Roy was seriously injured when he was bitten in the neck by a 7 year old tiger he'd raised from a cub that was part of his Las Vegas act. While the tiger had a relationship with Horn, it was still a wild animal.

Recently Belyaev's foxes have offered for sale in the United States through a distributor in Las Vegas, NV called Sibfox. For only $5,950 a person can have their own domesticated fox transported from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Russia.

While these foxes truly are domesticated animals, I have a problem with this for many reasons. First of all -- not much is known about keeping a fox as a pet. We don't know what their natural behavior is, nor do we know if a rabies vaccination developed for dogs is effective for foxes. The website states that there are very few fox owners out there, and so not many people have yet experienced them as pets.

This brings me to the next problem. On Sibfoxes FAQ page it states: "...none of our clients expressed interest in sharing their contact information with the public for any purpose. However, we can e-mail questions that you may have to them and determine whether they want to respond by email or telephone." So a potential purchaser does not have an opportunity to directly contact a current fox owner to ask questions.

The FAQ section also indicates that a prospective buyer has no opportunity to meet the fox they are purchasing prior to purchase, much less meet it's parents. Animal welfare professionals recommend that when purchasing an animal from a breeder the parents be met since the parents behavior is indicitive of what the temperament of it's offspring will have.

While I'm fascinated by the research results of Belyaev's foxes, I am very unhappy about having even domesticated foxes become pets. While the FAQ section indicated that all foxes will be neutered before being shipped to the United States (most likely as a way for them to remain the only source of the domestic fox pet trade), I see no reason for a new canid to become pets -- after we are very familiar with the behavior and care of dogs. And there are so many of them out there in need of a home.