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A Cat’s Defense Against Neuroeconomics

A Cat’s Defense Against Neuroeconomics

People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines…. [S]uch people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel.
–Voltaire

In the popular imagination, there are dog people and cat people, although one rarely encounters them in real life. Me, I’m leery of anybody who dislikes dogs, although it’s necessary to make allowances for people with bad childhood experiences. Cat-haters are almost invariably men. Probably cats are properly spooked around them.

But do domestic animals love us back? Most pet owners find it an absurd question. What could be more obvious than a dog’s joy at welcoming us home after an absence? Than a cat’s curling up and purring in our laps?

For the longest time, strict behaviorists clung to pseudo-scientific fundamentalism claiming that talking about animals’ emotions was sentimental nonsense. Psuedo-science, as Carl Safina points out in his wonderful book “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel,” precisely because it required ignoring almost everything we know about their anatomy, evolutionary history and observed behavior.

“So, do other animals have human emotions?” he asks. “Yes, they do. Do humans have animal emotions? Yes; they’re largely the same. Fear, aggression, well-being, anxiety, and pleasure are the emotions of shared brain structures and shared chemistries, originated in shared ancestry.”

Enter now one Prof. Paul Zak, advertised as something called a “neuroeconomist”—a term hinting at mumbo-jumbo to me—who recently undertook an experiment to determine which domestic animal loves us best. Dogs? Or cats?

Judging by his Wikipedia profile, Zak is a handsome rascal who makes a handsome living advising corporate clients that we’d be better off if we went around acting like a bunch of Italians, with lots of hugging and kissing each other’s cheeks. He’s probably right too, although your mileage may differ.

Zak’s book, “The Moral Molecule” expounds upon the wonders of oxytocin, a neurotransmitter that gives people the warm-fuzzies when people they love (or attractive Italians) embrace them. He goes on TV a lot.

Anyway, at the request of BBC-TV, the professor set out to determine which species got the biggest oxytocin boost after ten minutes of being dandled by their owners, dogs or cats. So he assembled ten of each at his laboratory, took saliva samples, instructed their owners to play with them, and then took more saliva samples, which he analyzed for the happy hormone.

According to Elyse Wanshel’s summary in the Huffington Post, “Canines were proven to love us Homo sapiens five times more than their feline counterparts.”

That’s right, cat lovers, dogs rule!

Except, you know what? I don’t have a Phd in neuroeconomics but I do have an unusual orange tabby cat named Albert. His nickname is “The Orange Dog,” on account of how he’s the smallest member of our security team—consisting of two Great Pyrenees, a German shepherd, and Albert.

Albert has many unusual personality traits. Besides preferring canine company, he’s been known sit atop fence posts to let Mount Nebo the horse nuzzle him. The other horses, no. He wanders among cows as if they were as inert as hay bales. He’s totally devoted to me, perching on the arm of my chair watching ballgames, and lying on my chest at bedtime purring.

Then he retires to the bathroom towel closet, fishes open the spring-loaded door and lets it thump shut behind him. Around 5 AM—thump—he’s up and out the door. Many afternoons he accompanies my wife, five dogs and me on an hour-long walk around the pastures to my neighbor’s hay barn, rubbing on the dogs’ legs and panting like a little lion. Sometimes he stays the night out there hunting mice. A country cat, Albert’s wise to coyotes.

I’m absurdly fond of him, and the feeling’s clearly mutual.

However, Albert has two significant phobias: cars and strangers. He vanishes when company comes, keeps the house under surveillance from an undisclosed location and materializes after they’ve gone.

So carry him to a laboratory, let a stranger take a saliva sample, play with him for ten minutes and then let the stranger mess with him again?

Our basset hound Daisy would be fine with that. She loves riding in the car, has never met a stranger and pretty much drools all day anyway.

Elevated oxytocin levels? Albert would be a week forgiving such an indignity. He might bite. So would most cats.
What a farcical experiment. The moral molecule indeed!

So what does Albert feel when he’s lying there on my chest? I think basically what I feel: security, contentment, and deep affection.

Photo: A cat is seen in a window of a mud house. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Don’t Trust Anyone Who Doesn’t Like Dogs

Don’t Trust Anyone Who Doesn’t Like Dogs

As I write, the love of my life is off to the state penitentiary. I expect her back at the farm in late afternoon. She’s a volunteer with “Paws in Prison,” an organization that matches homeless dogs with inmate trainers.

After 12 weeks of living and working with prisoners, dogs “graduate” and are put up for adoption. Diane’s task is to match needy animals with families. An experienced canine diplomat, she’s perfect for the job.

It’s trickier than you’d think. A 110-pound mastiff who’s never seen a child may not know how to act. A dog that’s grown accustomed to prison life — a perfect canine environment, with unlimited attention and an “owner” who never goes away — may react badly to being left alone. Inexperienced owners sometimes underestimate their needs.

Graduation day can be emotional. Men who have done terrible things in their lives come to feel a strong connection with their dogs. Only the promise of a new student for another three months makes it alright letting them go.

The thing about dogs is they don’t know about your rap sheet and they don’t care. Some inmates have told Diane how much the animals have helped alleviate their feelings of isolation. A couple have volunteered that having them around has altered the prison environment for the better. Hard shells soften while petting a dog.

Indeed, I wonder if it’s possible to fully trust anybody who dislikes dogs, although there are many people who probably shouldn’t own one. I’m thinking now of the authors of a recent Slate piece called a “Big data dog graph” ranking breeds by “costs and benefits” of owning one. They’ve produced a handsome graphic purporting to distinguish “inexplicably overrated” breeds from “overlooked treasures.”

It reads like something Mitt Romney would love. The criteria were “intelligence,” “longevity,” “appetite,” “grooming costs,” and a couple of others. The idea being that if you’re a clear-thinking, trendy pet owner, your dog of choice will be a border collie, while if you like them short-lived and stupid, you’ll show up the dog park with some unfortunate brute like a mastiff or a boxer.

Except what if you don’t have a herd of sheep to keep your border collie busy and the children in your neighborhood resent being herded? What if kids’ parents object to their being nipped on the rump to speed them along? In my experience, border collies simply shouldn’t live in town. Slate’s graph excludes everything about this wonderful breed that makes them unique.

That’s true throughout. My point is that breeds of dog are among mankind’s oldest and most successful examples of biological engineering. Most were created for specific purposes: beagles to track rabbits and deer, bloodhounds to catch convicts, setters and spaniels to point upland game birds, golden retrievers to fetch ducks, rottweilers and Great Pyrenees to guard livestock, malamutes to pull sleds, etc.

While many are no longer used for these purposes, most retain breed characteristics it’s important to understand. I know an artist who once adopted a Dalmatian because she liked its spotted coat. Alas, as coach dogs, Dalmatians tend to be tireless, aggressive and not very interested in cuddling. Almost any mixed-breed stray at the county shelter would have served her better.

Out here in the boondocks, our needs are so varied we currently keep six dogs of four breeds: three for security, two for comic relief, and one to keep the couch on the floor.

The two Great Pyrenees sometimes intimidate visitors who don’t notice that the German shepherd’s doing all the growling. People, they’re OK with, although nobody comes on the place without a close escort. Strange dogs, however, need to stay away. Indeed no animal with sharp teeth or talons is permitted, apart from their personal cats, whom they protect.

Great Pyrenees exercise their own judgment, often ignore contrary commands, and appear totally fearless. That can become a problem. Like border collies, they’re unsuited for city life. Ours have never shown aggression toward humans, but I suspect if somebody tried to hurt us, they’d wish they hadn’t.

“Pupska,” the German shepherd who got her dopey name because somebody dumped her as a puppy and we weren’t going to keep her, is the only dog we own that obeys commands. She’s also the only one who’s ever nipped a priest’s ankle. She kept warning Father Davis not to approach until one of us came outside to OK him, but would he listen?

According to the Big Data Dog Graph, my basset hounds are stupid and eat too much, hence not desirable. It’s true they’re not great problem solvers. Mainly, they enjoy napping with cats. They’re also total sniffaholics. Walking them on a leash would be slow-motion torture.

But they love everybody, they’re happy all the time, and they make me laugh six times a day. That’s got to be worth something.

Photo: “bingham30069” via Flickr

Airlines Offer Only Partial Picture Of Animal Safety On Flights

Airlines Offer Only Partial Picture Of Animal Safety On Flights

By Kyung M. Song, The Seattle Times

WASHINGTON — Harley was the bulldog’s name. He was pronounced dead at baggage claim at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last year despite a passenger’s attempt at cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Two months later, a mixed-breed Rottweiler arrived lifeless at Sea-Tac in his chewed-out kennel, dead of what later was diagnosed as aspiration pneumonia. And at Logan International Airport in Boston, a male cat named Daunte twice escaped from his kennel before he could be loaded into the cargo hold; he was found the next day after a ramp vehicle had struck him dead.

The three were among at least 62 animals that died, were injured or lost since 2010 while being flown aboard Alaska Airlines, a tally that makes the Seattle-based company one of the nation’s leading carriers in recent years for reported pet casualties.

Only Delta, the nation’s busiest airline, with six times Alaska’s passenger traffic, reported more incidents, 74, to the U.S. Department of Transportation during the same period. But for 2013 and for the first seven months of this year, Alaska topped the casualty rankings.

The reasons for Alaska’s number of victims are unclear. The company suspects it may handle more than its share of animals. Alaska is practically the house airline in its namesake state, where residents have few alternatives for shipping their pets long distances.

Alaska, the nation’s ninth-largest carrier by passenger traffic, has one of the industry’s most pet-friendly policies. It offers “Fur-st Class Care” for most small domesticated pets, including potbellied pigs, birds, hamsters, turtles and nonvenomous snakes, either in the passenger cabin or in the plane’s climate-controlled cargo hold. Several domestic carriers, including JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines and US Airways, do not accept even dogs or cats as cargo.

Alaska also is one of few airlines to accept snub-nosed dogs, breeds that are more susceptible to heatstroke and respiratory issues.

Bobbie Egan, spokeswoman for Alaska, said the company ferries about 80,000 pets annually, virtually all of them without a hitch. She said Alaska employees are specially trained and follow strict federal guidelines to ensure safety.

“Transporting pets, whether in the cabin or as checked baggage in our cargo hold, to us is just like transporting a family member,” she said.

In all, Alaska and other U.S. carriers count several dozen animal injuries, losses or deaths annually — a minuscule fraction of the estimated several hundred thousand animals transported by air.

In the vast majority of incidents, pets suffer unexplained deaths or hurt themselves while attempting to escape their kennels. Airlines are rarely found to be at fault.

The Transportation Department figures, however, capture only a partial safety picture. That’s because the federal agency currently requires tracking only for household pets. That exempts scores of other animals, including those bound for pet stores or research labs.

Starting Jan. 1, the department will require airlines to fill in some — but not all — of the missing data. That’s when airlines for the first time will have to report the total number of animals they handle, finally making it possible to calculate complaint rates.

More significant, the agency expanded incident-reporting requirements to include not only all warm-and coldblooded household pets, but dogs and cats shipped by breeders and suppliers to retailers and researchers.

The rule changes come four years after the Animal Legal Defense Fund petitioned the agency to close loopholes it said camouflaged the true extent of risks to animals. Three U.S. senators, including Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), also urged the department to expand incident reports to animals that aren’t pets.

The National Association of Biomedical Research opposed the proposed rules as an “unnecessary” burden and cost to carriers, breeders and research facilities. Airlines for America, whose members include Alaska and most other major airlines as well as UPS and FedEx, lodged similar objections.

The Transportation Department finally decided to exempt commercial shipments of animals other than dogs and cats from reporting requirements. That was a setback for animal-welfare organizations that had argued to include, for example, monkeys and other primates bound for laboratories.

Animal-welfare experts generally consider flying inherently stressful, and they recommend against cargo flights.

Carter Dillard, director of litigation for the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), said numerous variables make it difficult to draw conclusions about any one airline’s safety record. The animals’ health, total length of trip, extreme temperatures and other factors can play a role.

ALDF’s original petition for expanded mandatory reporting was triggered by the August 2010 death of seven puppies shipped by a breeder in Tulsa, Okla., during a heat wave. But because the dogs were classified as a commercial shipment, American Airlines did not have to record the fatalities.

Dillard contends that the Transporation Department adopted a selective definition for animals to appease carriers, research institutes and universities.

“The whole point is to get a complete picture of the risks to animals,” he said.

Flying has been shown to be particularly hazardous to short-nosed or snub-nosed dogs. The breeds, which include French and English bulldogs, pugs, Boston terriers and Shih Tzus, by Alaska’s calculations accounted for nearly 40 percent of its 16 pet deaths during the past two years.

United Airlines accepts short-nosed breeds as checked baggage, but Delta and American Airlines do not. Egan said Alaska is reviewing its policy on such breeds.

Mary Beth Melchior, founder of Where is Jack?, a pet travel safety-advocacy group in Miami Beach, Fla., said Alaska and its competitors can do more to avert potential harm. One way would be to refuse pets as cargo if they seem unfit to fly.

Another way, she said, would be to better train baggage and cargo workers, who in some cases are employed by outside contractors.
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Your pets in flight

Your dog, cat, rabbit or other household pet can fly with you — but not on all airlines, not to all destinations and not at all times. So check your carrier’s policy on whether it accepts pets in the passenger cabin only or in the baggage compartment, whether pets can fly international routes, or in hot or cold months.

Animal-welfare experts generally advise against transporting pets by plane. If you must, here’s how you can ease the stress of flying:

––Check whether you need a health certificate and a rabies-vaccination certificate from a vet. Document requirements vary by states and other destinations.

––Animals flying in the passenger cabin must be small enough to stow their kennels under the seat.

––Avoid connecting flights and don’t travel during times of extreme temperatures.

––Sedation is not recommended, as it can cause problems for animals in high altitudes.

––Make sure the kennel is large enough for the animal to stand up straight and turn around.

––Kennels should be well-built and escape-proof.

Photo: Shyb via Flickr

‘I’m Dying,’ Jogger Gasped After Dogs Attacked

‘I’m Dying,’ Jogger Gasped After Dogs Attacked

By L.L. Brasier, Detroit Free Press

The jogger who was mauled to death in July by two large dogs on a rural road in Michigan was bitten at least eight times and knew, as he lay bleeding in a ditch, that he was dying, even as frantic neighbors tried to save him.

Craig Sytsma, 46, had run a little over a mile down Thomas Road in Metamora Township the evening of July 23, jogging northbound at an easy pace, wearing his sunglasses and a black Harley-Davidson T-shirt, when the pair of hundred-pound Cane Corsos attacked him. The dogs pulled him down into a grassy ditch along the gravel road and bit him numerous times in both arms, his chest and back, his left buttock and thigh, as he struggled for his life.

Sytsma was “screaming and begging for help,” according to the first neighbor who tried to administer first aid, even using her belt on his left arm as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. As he began to fade, Sytsma said, “I’m bleeding out, I’m dying,” and then the neighbor could feel no pulse.

And even as she tried to revive him with CPR, the dogs came charging back out of the woods and she had to back away until the dogs retreated.

Sytsma’s last moments, and the fear that had been building in the community for several months as the dogs ran loose, are documented in lengthy police reports and witness statements obtained by the Detroit Free Press under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act.

Two neighbors were bitten in the months leading up to the killing and some began to arm themselves with guns.

The records also present a disturbing picture of dog owners seemingly aware of their animals’ aggression and violence — they were warned by the family vet that the dogs were dangerous and had been sued over one of the dog bites — but took few steps to keep the dogs corralled. The dogs repeatedly dug out of their chain-link kennel and may have done so the day Sytsma died, according to the records.

The dogs’ owners, Valbona Lucaj, 44, and Sebastiano Quagliata, 45, are charged with second-degree murder and remain in the Lapeer County Jail, unable to post $500,000 bonds. They will be in Lapeer District Court on Friday for an ongoing hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to send them to trial.

Metamora Township is southeast Michigan’s premier horse country, a community of about 4,000 just north of Oakland County, known for its rolling hills and large equestrian estates. It’s a place where well-to-do people still engage in fox hunting, and where carriage driving is considered a competitive sport.

People with city jobs and less money have hobby farms, where they raise ponies and alpacas and handfuls of chickens on a few acres.

It was in just that kind of neighborhood that Craig Sytsma chose to jog that evening after work.

Sytsma, a divorced father of three, had beaten colon cancer the year before and had taken up running as a way to keep the cancer at bay. A sports fan and athlete, he worked as a metallurgical engineer at Eltro Services, a small engineering firm with offices just off M-24 at the corner of Thomas Road.

Thomas Road was a jogger’s dream. A soft surface. Little traffic. No chance of crime. And it was shady that evening in July, with trees providing a rich, dark canopy along the road. The temperature was hovering around 80.

Sytsma set out that evening wearing shorts, a shirt, and Brooks running shoes. He’d left his ID back at the office, as well as his cell phone, something that would later play out as police struggled to identify the man in the ditch.

About 5:30 p.m., Edward Elmer was mowing his grass on a riding mower in the 5500 block of Thomas and waved at Sytsma as he jogged past. But when Elmer swung back to finish up his lawn, he saw a terrifying thing.

“Sytsma was in the ditch being attacked by two large dogs. Elmer stated he approached Sytsma but realized he couldn’t do much due to the size of the dogs,” the report said.

Elmer ran into his house and got his 44-caliber Magnum and fired four shots at the dogs, shooting one in the leg.

Elmer’s girlfriend, Helen Barwig, a first responder with medical training, ran out to help, armed with paper towels. But she could do nothing to save the man in the grassy ditch. She told police Sytsma “was losing a lot of blood and begged her not to let him die.”

Less than an hour later, Sytsma was pronounced dead at Lapeer Regional Hospital.

According to police reports, an autopsy later would reveal much of his injuries were in his arms, with no injuries to his head or neck, possibly because he used his arms to shield those areas.

He had bites to his chest and back as well. He had abrasions to his knees, where he likely fell onto the gravel during the attack. And he had bites to his back left upper thigh and buttocks.

Dog owner Quagliata arrived home that night to find police in his drive. His wife, Lucaj, and their three children were in Boston for a family reunion.

Quagliata eventually would tell police that he had locked the dogs in a kennel that morning before he left for his job as a house painter but that the dogs frequently tunneled out.

Police, in investigating the property, found that a kennel made up of cyclone fence, had been patched with logs to cover up holes in the fence. But one hole was open, without “anything to deny the animals from leaving the area,”‘ according to the report.

And police would learn that the dogs had bitten a woman in 2012 and a 73-year-old man in November 2013. That same man, James Salego, was sitting outside on his deck with his wife the evening Sytsma was attacked, and heard the screaming and the gunshots.

He told his wife, “those dogs are involved in something.” The pair drove down Thomas Road and spotted Sytsma in the road, as neighbors tried to revive him. Salego’s wife “became very upset and they drove straight home.”

In the days following the killing, neighbors told the police that the dogs had become a growing menace in the nearly three years since the family had moved to the neighborhood. Geoffrey Petz said his grandmother lived next door to Quagliata and Lucaj and was frequently menaced by the dogs running loose.

Last summer, he was confronted by snarling, threatening dogs who backed him into his grandmother’s pole barn.

“It was alarming enough to make me carry a weapon while riding the mower out of fear that the dog would be loose while I was mowing,” he said in a written statement to police.

In the days leading up to his arrest, Quagliata remained concerned about his dogs and contacted Lapeer Animal Control to make sure that Toni, one of the dogs involved in the fatal attack, was getting adequate care for his gunshot wound.

Officials told his attorney that the dog was scheduled for euthanasia and that any medical treatment would have to be paid for by Quagliata.

The dogs since have been put down. Seven puppies seized from the home have been sent to a rescue league in Texas.

Quagliata and Lucaj face up to life in prison if convicted.

AFP Photo/Scott Olson

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