Dr Zazie Todd: Understanding strange dog behaviour
Animal behaviorist and certified dog trainer, Dr Zazie Todd joins us once again. This week, Zazie and Jim discuss some of the curly questions around canine behaviour, like why do some dogs like to eat poo? Zazie's most recent book is Bark!: The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog.
Zazie Todd with her late dog Bodger
Photo:
Supplied
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
8 hours ago
- RNZ News
Common myths and curly questions about our fur friends answered
Not all tail wags from our dogs are actually friendly. Photo: Unsplash What does it really mean when your dogs wags its tail? Why do they sometimes like to eat poo? And can cats really make good therapy animals like dogs? Well animal behaviourist and certified dog trainer Dr Zazie Todd answered some curly questions around our canine and cat behaviours. Todd told Sunday Morning there were many myths surrounding our furry friends, including what it meant when dogs wagged their tails. She said the way a dog wagged its tail suggested it was feeling positive or negative emotions. "There's some research that shows that depending on the side of the dogs body that they are wagging too, it tells you something about the hemisphere of their brain that's involved. "So if the dog is wagging the tail to the left it would mean that the right hemisphere is involved and that's more associated with negative emotions, where as if their tail is wagging more to the right, that means that the left hemisphere is involved and that's positive emotions." But she said not all tail wags from our fur friends were actually friendly. "If the tail is quite up right and if it's kind of a tight wag and sometimes quite a quick one, that actually is a sign of the dog feeling stressed and aroused and that is also a sign that you should be more careful of that dog." Zazie Todd with her late dog Bodger Photo: Supplied ' Todd said when it comes to the personality of a dog it is largely not determined by its breed. "There's actually a lot of variability in a breed, in terms of how those dogs behave. "There is probably more variability within breeds than, you know, between different breeds, so the breed of a dog doesn't tell you everything about how that dog is going to behave. Genetics and environment both shaped a dogs behaviour, she said. Todd said dogs eating poo is actually a really common behaviour. "From the dogs perspective, poo seems to be quite a delicacy and something they enjoy eating and it might even have some nutrients in it from the food that has been eaten before." She said the best thing owner could do was just not give their dog the opportunity to do so. "Clearing up in our yards... maybe also have a conversation with your vet if your dog likes to eat poop often and think about making sure you have de-wormed them. "As well we can teach them to leave it and that's a really helpful thing to teach dogs anyway," she said. Cats can sometimes be a therapy animal. Photo: Unsplash Another mystery question that needed answering was whether cats could be a therapy animal like dogs? Todd told Sunday Morning they could, but it was uncommon. "Therapy cats can help people feel less stressed... but most cats won't enjoy this," she said. "The cat also has to go somewhere for this to happen, which is something most cats don't like. If you think of what most cats do when you get a cat carrier out - they run and hide." She also said scent was really important to cats, and when placed in an unfamiliar environment that didn't smell like their home "it can be quite stressful for them". "So i think some cats can make great therapy cats but I think they are a minority." Just like a dog wagging its tail, a cat purring didn't always mean they were happy, Todd said. She said sometimes cats could purr when they were sick or scared. "There is something that we call a solicitation purr... which kind of corresponds to the frequency of a babies cry. "So when the cat is waiting to be feed and wants some food that is the purr you will hear," she said. Cats have evolved this particular frequency overtime, Todd said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Dr Zazie Todd: Understanding strange dog behaviour
Animal behaviorist and certified dog trainer, Dr Zazie Todd joins us once again. This week, Zazie and Jim discuss some of the curly questions around canine behaviour, like why do some dogs like to eat poo? Zazie's most recent book is Bark!: The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog. Zazie Todd with her late dog Bodger Photo: Supplied
RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Sucrose doesn't stop long-term impacts on preterm baby development
By Mia Mclean of This story was originally published on The Conversation. Babies born before 32 weeks gestation who have procedures in hospital that cause pain, such as the routine heel prick, suffer long-term consequences. Photo: Neil Salter Infants born very preterm spend weeks or even months in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) while their immature brains are still developing. During this time, they receive up to 16 painful procedures every day . The most common is a routine heel prick used to collect a blood sample. Suctioning of the infant's airways is also common. While many of these procedures provide critical care, we know they are acutely painful . Even tearing tape off the skin can be painful. We also know, from decades of research, that preterm babies' exposure to daily painful invasive procedures is related to altered brain development , stress functioning and poorer cognitive and behavioural outcomes . The commonest strategy to manage acute pain in preterm babies is to give them sucrose, a sugar solution. But my recent research with Canadian colleagues shows this doesn't stop these long-term impacts. In New Zealand, there is no requirement to document all procedures or pain treatments. But as the findings from our Canadian study show, we urgently need research to improve long-term health outcomes for children born prematurely. We collected data on the number of procedures, clinical exposures and sucrose doses from three NICUs across Canada. One of these sites does not use sucrose for acute pain management. This meant we were able to compare outcomes for children who received sucrose during their NICU stay and those who did not, without having to randomly assign infants to different care as you would in a randomised controlled trial - the gold standard approach. Very early born babies can spend weeks and months in a Newborn Intensive Care Unit. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly At 18 months of age, when children born preterm are typically seen for a follow-up, parents report on their child's behaviour. Our findings replicate earlier research: very preterm babies who were exposed to painful procedures early in life showed more anxiety and depressive symptoms by toddlerhood. Our findings are similar regarding a child's cognition and language , backing results from other studies . We found no link between preterm babies' later behaviour and how much sucrose they were given to manage pain. Sucrose is thought to activate centres of the brain that modulate pain and lead to the release of endorphins , but the exact mechanism remains unclear. It has become the worldwide standard of care for acute neonatal pain, but it doesn't seem to be helping in the long term. About one in 13 babies are born preterm each year in Aotearoa New Zealand. Some 1-2% are very preterm, two to four months early. Māori and other ethnic minorities are at higher risk . Studies in New Zealand show children born very preterm have up to a three-fold risk of emotional disorders in preschool and by school age . This remains evident through adulthood. Sucrose may stop preterm babies from showing signs of pain , but physiological and neurological pain responses nevertheless happen. As is the case internationally, sucrose is used widely in New Zealand, but there is considerable variation in protocols of use across hospitals. No national guidelines for best practice exist. Infant pain should be assessed, but international data suggest this isn't always the case. What's more, pain isn't always managed . Routine assessment of pain and parent education videos are useful initiatives to encourage pain management. Minimising the number of procedures is recommended by international bodies . Advances in clinical care, including the use of less invasive ventilation support and the inclusion of parents in the daily care of their infant, have seen the number of procedures decrease . Pain management guidelines also help, but whether these changes improve outcomes in the long-term, we don't know yet. We do know there are other ways of treating neonatal pain and minimising long-term impacts. Placing a newborn on a parent's bare chest, skin-to-skin, effectively reduces short and long-term effects of neonatal pain. For times when whānau are not able to be in the NICU, we have limited evidence that other pain management strategies, such as expressed breast milk , are effective. Our recent research cements this: sucrose isn't helping as we thought. Understanding which pain management strategies should be used for short and long-term benefits of this vulnerable population could make a big difference in the lives of these babies. This requires additional research and a different approach, while considering what is culturally acceptable in Aotearoa New Zealand. If the strategies we are currently using aren't working, we need to think creatively about how to limit the impact of pain on children born prematurely.
