Ethology, for neophytes, is a broad discipline that deals with the behavior of various animal species in their natural or in anthropic environments. Its name originates from the Greek ethos (morals) and logos (speeches). This discipline was founded in 1973 by two Austrian scientists: Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch and Dutch Nikolaas Tinbergen, all three honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Hungarian ethologist Adam Miklosi has made an exceptional contribution to the development of canine ethology with the founding of the Family Dog Project, in 1994 to study the behavioral and cognitive aspects of the dog-human relationship. It is currently the largest canine research group in the world, with more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including several articles in the most prestigious scientific journals such as Science, Current Biology and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Some results are synthesized in videos on their YouTube channel:
- How dogs understand human speech (Andics et al. 2016)
First study of how dogs’ brains process speech shows that our best friends in the animal kingdom care about both what we say and how we say it. Dogs, like humans, can process words and intonation separately, and praise only activates the dog’s reward center when words and intonation match (article published in Science).
“We have hypothesized that dogs have evolved to survive in the human environment, and our research aims to reveal the contribution of humans and dogs to this long-standing partnership. Thus, we are not only interested in the mental abilities of dogs, but in all aspects of human and dog behaviour that have strengthened this bond, and may even expand it further. Surprisingly, in our experience, this research reveals not only important information about dogs, but also about us, the people. Source: The Family Dog Project
With my training as an engineer and now working in research, it is quite natural that I am drawn to ethology, and I am very lucky to have found a behaviorist dog trainer in Montpellier, Maxime Lullier from CynOccitan. Maxime studied ethology in order to provide advice based on scientific rigor to decipher dogs’ behavioral mechanisms and to find possible solutions to correct or amend those that cause problems, such as excessive barking, aggressiveness, jealousy. .
