Blogspot - Companion Animal Psychology

A study of dogs across the adult lifespan has important lessons for owners of dogs of any age. They range from tooth-brushing, training, and helping dogs cope with traumatic events. Photo: Bad Monkey Photography As dogs get older, they undergo changes similar to those that happen to humans as they age. This means dogs may be a good model for human aging, but also that those of us with older dogs could use more information about how to help them age well. The Senior Family Dog Project is looking at cognitive aging in dogs by combining behavioural, genetic and neuroscientific approaches. A new paper from the team, first-authored by Dr. Lisa Wallis and published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, looks at the demographics of dogs across the lifespan. Perhaps the most poignant finding is that dogs in the oldest age group (over 12) know fewer commands, take part in either one or no dog training activities, and spend less than 30 minutes a day engaged in play or other activities with the ...

Older dogs with a history of lifelong training perform better on measures of attention. Photo: Mary Lynn Strand / Shutterstock We know that as people get older, they may experience cognitive decline including in attention. We are used to hearing that doing lots of different activities that engage the brain may help to ward off some of these changes. It turns out that may also be the case for dogs . As dogs get older, they experience a decline in attention just as older people do. But lifelong training can help to prevent this decline, according to research published last year by scientists at the Messerli Research Institute at the Vetmeduni Vienna. This is good news, because attention is important for human-canine communication and for other processes. The study took pet dogs aged between 6 and just over 14 years. They were divided into 3 age groups: late adulthood (between 6 and 8 years), seniors (8 up until 10 years), and geriatric (10 years or over). There were 75 Border coll...