Welcome to everybody who's here this evening, and to anyone who's listening on the recording, of course, as well. So, tonight, we're going to be talking about emotional intelligence in puppies. And I want to put emotional intelligence into the context of healthcare, because as the veterinary profession, that's what our remit is to look after the health.

Of our patients. And so, when we think about health, we can think about it as a triad of three equally important components. Now, certainly, in the veterinary world, we do tend to focus a lot on the first of those components, physical health.

And, of course, a lot of our education is geared towards understanding the physical health of the veterinary species. But the other two components, as I say, are of equal importance. So the first is our cognitive health.

Cognition is the way we process the information around us. It's about learning from experiences. And then we also have emotional health, the emotional motivational systems which drive us to behave in certain ways.

And when I say us, I'm talking about animals, and that includes non-human animals and human animals. So if we look at the dog, we use these pictures to illustrate those different aspects of healthcare. So you're all very familiar with this top picture here, which I hope you can see my cursor.

So the top picture in the right-hand corner, where we've got a dog, clearly in a veterinary context, very familiar sort of image for all of us. And then, if we look at this as an illustration of physical health, we can also look at the expression on this dog's face. We can look at the body language in terms of the ears, the tension here across the forehead, the eyes, the way they're looking at the person, the expression of emotion.

This animal will be having an Emotional experience, whilst in the veterinary practise as well. And, of course, is also processing that information through cognition and learning. And as we know, some of our patients will develop sometimes, unhelpful associations with being in a veterinary context.

If they have a painful experience, for example, during their exposure to the veterinary context, then cognition will be responsible for forming those associations. And then in the illustration underneath the little Jack, we've got a picture of a dog engaging in fly ball, and I use that as a cognitive health, illustration because obviously this is a behaviour that has a strong learned component. This dog's been trained to do this.

But of course, there's also an emotional basis to this response, because the fact that the dog has desire seeking a motivation to run after a ball in the first place is what is being harnessed in the training for this individual to engage in fly ball. So, as they come, as he's learning to do fly ball, he's also having an emotional experience. And then we can't forget that this dog, as he hits that plate on a regular basis, so he's repeatedly going, against that force plate.

You can see that it's possible that there's also some physical health implication of that, because of the way that the body is twisting against that plate in that repetitive motion. And then we've got an illustration in the 3rd photograph of emotional health. And we can see from, again, the body language, the ear position, the whale eye, that this animal is experiencing protective emotion, but also, it's going to be learning something about the encounter with the person who's taking the photograph.

And it's not uncommon, of course, for an emotional health issue. To also have physical health implications. So, things like, for example, GI disease or things like, idiopathic cystitis, as I'm sure you're very familiar with in cats.

So, three equally important components, which are all interrelated with each other, and healthcare of the individual involves all three. And what's important then, is to think about how we deal with healthcare. It's a multidisciplinary responsibility, but it is also part of veterinary medicine.

So, what is veterinary behavioural medicine? It's basically the discipline of the veterinary field, which recognises the triad of health in non-human animals, and promotes equal consideration of physical, emotional, and cognitive health. And very importantly, it's about ensuring welfare by optimising all parts of that triad.

So the emotion, the healthcare triad helps us to understand where emotional health fits in. And tonight, we're gonna be talking about this concept of emotional intelligence. We're gonna be focusing on the emotional health of puppies, and we're gonna be talking about how we can optimise emotional health in our puppies.

So, Puppy, clients, patients, but also, if we're having puppies in our own lives as well. And, obviously, unfortunately, there's been a, a massive surge in the number of puppies over COVID. Some of whom are not having the best start in life in terms of their emotional health, because of the sort of experience.

Or lack of experiences for them. And I think, if we think about developing emotional intelligence in puppies, we might then also think about what the aftermath might be for some of these individuals, post COVID, and how we might actually have quite a lot of work to do in helping individuals who haven't had the best start. So let's look then at emotional intelligence and what it is.

It's defined as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. Now, that is a human definition of emotional intelligence, but for our patients, the most important elements are this ability to express. And control their emotions.

I think there is a, a component for our non-human companions in handling inter interpersonal relationships, whether that's within their own species, or whether it's with us and the human caregivers they live with. But we also need to think about this idea that they can express their emotions and that they have control over them. In addition, teaching emotional intelligence is also about knowing the contextual relevance of those emotions.

So, learning how to express emotions in particular contexts, and establishing suitable emotional associations, particularly the sorts of contexts that are a feature of domestic life, of human, existence, that may not be readily part of a dog's experience. So, when we're thinking about our development of emotional intelligence, we're thinking about dogs needing to live in a complex domestic world, where there are other dogs, where there are people, and where there are also experiences like car travel, for example, which are very human ways of behaving, but dogs need to be able to adapt to those environments and those contexts. And as well as having this ability to control and express emotion, it's also involving the rewarding of appropriate decision making, because once you have that emotional response, then there needs to be a selection of a suitable and appropriate behavioural response.

And again, that is also going to be contextual. So, in order to understand emotional intelligence and how we're going to optimise it in our puppies, we need to have a bit of an understanding of some other concepts of emotional health. The first thing is the idea of emotional stability, an individual's ability to remain stable emotionally or balanced emotionally, and emotional stability is dependent on an individual having sufficient emotional capacity.

So emotional capacity, basically is talking about the level of emotional arousal that you can tolerate without having significant or long-lasting negative outcome from your emotional experience. So, have you got enough capacity for the amount of emotion. That's being generated by your lifestyle, by your existence, by the encounters that you're having.

And for the domestic dogs, that's going to be social encounters with other dogs, with other species, with people, and also their experience of the non-social environment as well. In addition, we have this concept of emotional resilience. So emotional resilience, it comes from the word resilio or meaning to bounce back.

There's also some, talk about thinking in terms of bouncing forward as well, which I, I do like that concept, the idea that it's recovery from, so it is about moving forward. But the actual definition of it does come from a word that says to bounce back. But it's the ability to adapt to stressful situations.

It's the ability to cope with things that are sort of up and down. So resilience is something that's really important. In order to eliminate, those things that are, that, that are used, the emotions that's happened, but is no longer useful.

So, you have an emotional response, it fulfils a purpose. And then after you've had that emotional experience and you've dealt with it, then we need to get rid of that. We need to, bounce back from that and be able then to start again with a good capacity for emotion.

So emotional stability is gonna be influenced by a lot of different factors. And when we're talking about the emotional upbringing of puppies, we need to remember that absolutely anyone who cares for dogs in whatever role has some role in ensuring that emotional stability is optimised. In the animals they're dealing with.

Whether that's us as a veterinary profession, or whether it's groomers, or whether it's trainers, whether it's doggy daycare boarders, all sorts of different people who engage with our canine companions are all having some input into this issue of their emotional stability. But breeders have a very specific level of responsibility, particularly in this part of the understanding of emotion, this idea of stability and capacity. And why are breeders so important?

Well, they are going to select the breeding stock. They're going to select which individuals to breed from, and we know that genetics plays a role in emotional stability. So it's one of the factors that leads to the potential emotional capacity of an individual.

One of the factors. As well as that, we know that breeders will be caring for the bitches whilst they're pregnant, and we'll come back to that concept in a minute. That it's not just about the puppies once they're born, but it's also about what happens to them prenatally as well, that's important in determining their emotional life and how they recover, or how they cope with living in a domestic environment.

And then also, it's about early rearing of puppies. What happens to those puppies during those early weeks of rearing? What is happening to them then, not just in terms of their physical health, and, of course, we'll be involved as a profession with breeders on that side, but also in terms of this, a concept of emotional stability and developing emotional intelligence.

So, caregivers who obviously are the next stage of life, so we breeders, we're gonna come back to that in more detail in a minute, but moving on just to think about who's involved, caregivers have a very specific responsibility as well, because they're going to. The physical and social environment that that individual's going to live in after they leave their breeding environment. And there's a responsibility on caregivers to provide an environment that is optimised in relation to species specific needs.

As well as that, the caregivers are responsible for providing the opportunity for beneficial learning, the ability to create the suitable emotional associations through classical conditioning, for example. And we'll revisit again these terms as we go through, but socialisation and habituation are words that you're probably very familiar with. Certainly, the concept of socialisation is that the individuals need to meet social encounters, either with other dogs or with other species or with people, in order to be able to create appropriate emotional associations.

We want them to have engaging emotional, motivational balance when they're with people, when they're with cats, when they're with other. Other dogs. And habituation is the word that's often used to talk about the exposure of puppies to, environments and to experiences.

Now, actually, habituation is a word that means to neutralise the emotional response. And, and actually, technically, what we want to do is go a step further than that. We actually want these puppies to Engage in what's termed non-social environmental learning, where they're not only becoming neutral emotionally about having experiences in a domestic environment, but they're actually starting to form positive or engaging emotional balance and emotional associations when they're in those contexts.

So it's slightly more than habituation. The other thing about classical conditioning is that it's very important, of course, in toilet training. So it's a really, important part of living with a small puppy.

It's one of the things we get asked a lot about, I'm sure. In, in, in general practise, people struggling with, house training, when actually, house training is a form of classical conditioning. So it's an associative form of learning, where the puppy just needs to be in the right context, with the right substrate when the bladder and bowel is full.

And if that happens, and that's the hard bit, because of the fact that the dog is living in an environment where access to that context, to that location, and to that substrate is actually governed by people. And that is usually the stumbling block, because the act of house training through classical conditioning is actually relatively simple. But setting up success to make sure that those two things do coincide is often where things go wrong.

Now, the other form of learning we need to think about is operant conditioning. So, in addition to classical conditioning, we also have operant conditioning, which is what we commonly think about in the context of training. But obviously, operant conditioning occurs all the time whenever there is a stimulus and a response, and that response.

As a consequence, then operant conditioning is going to happen. So caregivers have got a responsibility to set up an environment, both social and physical, which is optimal for that dog, for that puppy, according to their species-specific needs, to provide opportunity for this learning, which is going to help to improve. Their bias of emotion, make sure they have engaging emotional associations with other living things and with situations, to train them, to create good cognitive health, and also to reward appropriate decision making, which is where we come back to the concept of emotional intelligence.

In addition to this, of course, the overall message for anyone dealing with a puppy is that it's all about setting them up to succeed. We want to get them into a situation where, when they are offered these opportunities for emotional conditioning through classical conditioning, and learning through operant conditioning, that what they are learning is appropriate. And that's our responsibility as human caregivers.

So let's go back to this concept of emotional intelligence and this idea of stability. And I said that emotional stability is linked to capacity, because in order to be stable, so being stable emotionally, we said, was to not exceed your capabilities, so to not have a level of arousal that is greatest idea of having emotional capacity. In 2010, I developed the emotional, the sink model of emotional, health in non-human animals.

And we can think about capacity as a sink, a sink which is of a particular size, and therefore, that is the capacity of the individual for emotion. And of course, there's considerable variation between individuals in the amount of challenge that they can withstand before we start to see significant behavioural consequences. And our aim, when we're dealing with these puppies, is to create such a capacity that they have the best chance of remaining emotionally stable, no matter what life throws at them.

And so, illustrating it here, the sink is created from a component of genetics. So, yes, we said that the breeder had responsibility because of the fact that they select the breeding stock. And so, I liken the making of the sink to the act of making.

Something on a potter's wheel. You can think of the genetics of the parents and relatives and the emotional health of the parents, particularly the bitch. You can think of that being like the blob of clay that is on the potter's wheel.

That's what you can make this sink from. It's your potential sink size. But if you're a puppy, your moulding of that clay blob into a potential sink takes place during that 1st 8 weeks of life.

So, we said the breeder had specific responsibility because of the fact that they they are engaging, with the puppies at that time. They're setting up the experiences that that puppy's gonna have. They're making sure about the things they're exposed to.

And that is all about. Developing that blob of clay that you, you were, they were given through genetics into this wibbly wobbly grey structure on the potter's wheel that looks like the ultimate sink. But of course, it's not, is it?

It's a wibbly wobbly grey thing. It's very vulnerable. It could, with the right hands, with a good potter, it could get bigger.

But if the pot is incompetent, if the way in which that rearing happens is not beneficial, then that sink could actually be stunted. It could even get smaller during those 8 weeks. So we wanna make sure that we're optimising the amount of growth of the capacity of that individual during those 1st 8 weeks.

And then, of course, we don't want to have a sink that's wobbly and wobbly. It needs something that's solid, something that's resistant to getting smaller. And therefore, we go through a firing process of that, structure on the potter's wheel, and we can liken that to the first year of life or so.

Not fixed for a year of life, but the first year being very important. You never stop firing your emotional sink. It's a process that carries on.

But of course, the more solid and robust your sink becomes, then the more difficult it is to make it smaller, but also the more difficult it is to make it bigger as well. So, the more resistant to change that capacity becomes. Now, if we go on with the idea of the sink, we can think about the input of emotion as well.

So, when we're trying to get emotionally intelligent puppies, we're aiming for them to be emotionally stable. We want them to have a good sink size, but we also want to think about what's coming into the sink. And this is based on the work by Jack Panse, Estonian biologist, and he talks about the valence of emotion.

The type of emotions. And he classifies them into two groups. Now, the first group he calls positive emotions, and I liken those to the, the blue or the cold tap coming into the sink.

And so, when you have a trigger for desire-seeking or social play, lust or care, those emotions which are engaging emotions, so, Jack Paset uses the words positive and negative. I tend to use the words. Engaging and protective, because the protective emotions, the ones that are represented by the hot tap, are not bad.

And there is a bit of a danger in the, in the English language for the word negative to be thought of as always meaning that something is bad. That's not the case in these emotions. So, positive emotions and negative emotions are good as long as they are justified.

And necessary. So, fear, anxiety, pain, frustration, and panic, grief are useful emotions, provided you do need to protect yourself. If you're having those emotional biases when you are not in any form of danger, when your body is not in danger, and you experience pain through chronic pain, for example, or if you're in a situation where you're experiencing fear anxiety when there's no actual threat, then those become, abnormal or maladaptive.

But in their normal state, negative emotions are just as useful as positive ones. And we also have, in the sync logy, a mixer tap, because there are certain situations where not only will you get some engaging emotion, but you may also, at the same time, feel some protective emotions. So, if you go to a party where you don't know many people, you may have engaging emotion of desire.

And wanting to be at the party, but a little bit of fear, anxiety because it's unknown, because the people around you are unfamiliar. And we see something very similar in dogs often who are obligately social, and therefore, any social interaction has an element of desire-seeking motivation and engagement. But if you're not Well socialised as a puppy, or if you have had unfortunate experiences with humans, which have developed a perception that they can sometimes be threatening, then you may also, as a dog, have desire seeking, tampered with, or mixed with the, the protective emotions as well.

Protective emotion of fear or anxiety. So we've got this concept that this puppy needs a sink that's really big. It's also going to need an input which is appropriate for the situations that it's in.

We want these emotions to only be triggered when they serve a purpose, when they are justified by the context. But once water comes into a sink, we've then got to also think about resilience. Resilience being the ability to then dissipate that emotion once it's served its purpose.

If you put water into a sink and you never pull the plug out and it never leaves the sink, then you're going to reduce the capacity of the sink because there's going to be residue sitting in it. So if we can have good drainage, if we can have resilience in the individual, so that after a trigger has been encountered, they can release that emotion once it's served its purpose, then that's going to mean that they have a low level of residue in. Their sink, which maximises their ability to have capacity.

So, we don't want emotions sitting there that no longer serves a purpose anymore than we want emotion that's not justified and not necessary coming into the sink in the first place. So, our drainage can be likened to the outlet pipe of the sink, and there are certain behaviours that help us to remove that emotion, to dissipate it. There are behaviours which are common to many species, like sleeping, for example.

And then we have more species-specific examples of, drainage behaviours like chewing in dogs, grooming in cats, for example. And the significance of these drainage behaviours is that they are going to happen whenever there's water in the sink, emotion in the sink, which no longer serves a purpose. But that drainage can occur after any emotional inflow has occurred.

You don't need to have the sink full before you pull the plug out. In fact, it's probably better to pull the plug out after each emotional inflow so that you keep that maximal capacity. Always available.

And also, of course, if it's appropriately done, then you're going to have these manageable levels of emotion all of the time. That's gonna mean that you're always ready with a good capacity for whatever's going to happen next. Now of course it may be that there are times when either we have a very high level of inflow from a specific, trigger, or we have a situation where we have more than one inflow quickly in succession, and there's not an opportunity for the individual to drain out in between.

And we end up with a high level of emotional arousal, a lot of water in the sink. And when that happens, then those just, drainage behaviours will be more intense when they occur. So, if you think about having water in an actual sink, if you've got a little bit of water in the sink and you pull the plug out, then the water's going to go out through the plug hole relatively calmly.

You may not even hear it going. But if you've got a sink that's nearly full to the brim and then you pull the plug out, it will go out with more force, more intensity, and you'll be more aware of that water leaving because it's going out under more pressure. And so we see things like chewing behaviour being used as a drainage response with an individual that's already very aroused that as they are chewing, they're chewing very intently because there's a lot of emotion to dissipate, to get rid of.

Now, the other way in which water can leave the sink, of course, is through the overflow hole at the top of the sink. So displacement, which is the word we use to describe behaviours which are associated with releasing emotion in this way, displacement is always associated with a full sink, because if you think about where the overflow hole is in a sink, you can't activate that. Unless there's a very large amount of water already in there.

If your residue is very small, then that overflow hole will not be activated. So, displacement occurs when the sink is full and is likened to the overflow hole. But what we know about displacement is that it will occur when the sink is full, no matter what it's full of.

So, we're going to hear water trickling out through an overflow hole, even if the sink is full of cold water. So even if the individual has had a large amount of input of emotion, but it was all of the engaging variety, if that has created a lot of water in the sink, a lot of emotional residue, you could still see displacement behaviours. So displacement behaviours themselves don't tell you what the valence of the emotional residue is.

They just tell you that the sink is getting very full. And displacement, displacement behaviours are basically normal behaviours occurring in an abnormal context. And I'm sure you're familiar with many of these.

So, things like scratching and stretching and yawning, things like shaking as if the dog's wet or self-licking, particularly of the Feet, chewing nails, and also lip licking. Behaviours that tell us that this individual has got a very full sink, but don't tell us what the valence of that emotion is. So, the sink helps us to understand this interplay between the input, the capacity, and the drainage.

Because what we're interested in is whether or not this individual is going to overflow. And when we're rearing these puppies and we're trying to develop emotional intelligence, what we're aiming for is an individual where there is unlikely to be overflow because they are resilient emotionally, because they have a good capacity, and also that they select the most appropriate behavioural responses when they experience those emotions. So emotional overflow is most likely if the sink is small.

So that means they have a low emotional capacity. And we know that that was related to their genetics, their early rearing, and their experiences. We also know that they're more likely to overflow if the tap is hot and not justified.

So if they've got a pessimistic bias, they're biassed towards protective emotions, but with no justification. So we have anxiety in situations where there is no potential for harm. We have chronic pain, which is obviously a disease state form of the pain emotional system.

Or we have frustration, which is not justified. In those situations, which we would term an emotional disorder, and the tap, the hot tap is on in that non-justified sense, we have more likelihood that they are going to have emotion coming into the sink, which is unnecessary and therefore taking up space. It may be, though, that that hot tap, that protective emotional bias is actually justified.

Is the animal living in an environment, whether that's physical or whether it's social, which is inappropriate for it. It doesn't fulfil its needs, or it is challenging, and it justifiably leads to a level of anxiety. Or it may be that the tap is turned on full, so it's not necessarily that there is inappropriate or justified increase in inflow, but just that they're on full, and that could be the hot tap or the cold tap.

And if there's a high level of residue in the sink at the time, so they don't have good, resilience, they can't dissipate, then, of course, they are more at risk of having an emotional flood. Now, the complicating factor for puppies as well that are living in a domestic environment, is that there's another factor that needs to be considered, which is the awareness of the people who are around the animal in being able to recognise when there is impending overflow. Can they recognise displacement behaviours?

Do they recognise body language that it leads them to know whether there's a positive or a negative bias. So in summary of the sink, we've got a small sink, a high inflow and a poor drainage. They're not, if those are not in good balance with one another, then we're more likely to create high residue and we're more likely to flood.

So if we're talking about puppies, we're talking about prevention. And when we talk about preventing emotional health issues, we're talking about optimising emotional health. And we're gonna do that by creating good emotional capacity through appropriate breeding and rearing, and good experiences, appropriate experiences.

By establishing good socialisation and habituation. Also this non-social environmental learning. What does that achieve?

Well, it leads to a reduction in the flow rate, so the salience of everything. That is in a normal world becomes less. So the salience is related to the amount of flow that is generated by the stimulus.

And the more normal the stimulus is, the lower the level of flow rate, then that is going to obviously lead to more available capacity. But it also creates positive associations, so there's engaging associations, which means that the cold tap inflow is predominant. We also want to create optimal resilience, and we're gonna do that by encouraging drainage behaviours, making sure that puppies can chew appropriately, that they learn how to relax, and, very importantly, that they get a good quality and quantity of sleep.

But there's also the domestic environment, there's also the need to think about the prevention of emotional problems in puppies by thinking about the human side of the equation. So, we also need to optimise understanding on the part of the people who interact with the puppy, because they need to understand these emotional systems. And recognise the need for the pet to respond to them.

Remember that emotional intelligence is being aware of and controlling your emotions and reacting appropriately. And so we need the humans around them to understand what these emotions are and what their need is in terms of responding appropriately. So, allowing appropriate Social play, for example, with other members of the species, allowing puppies to meet other puppies and to play using social play motivation.

Making sure that they understand what triggers the desire-seeking motivation. So, what is it that the puppy needs to engage with? Appropriate play, appropriate food, appropriate resting places.

Also, it's about teaching caregivers that avoidance is an appropriate behavioural response if you have a negative bias. And so allowing avoidance to take place when they indicate that it's necessary is important in teaching that. Puppy, that if you do feel uncomfortable, the right thing to do is to move away from whatever it is, not to use the an alternative behavioural response like repulsion, which is more likely to get the puppy into trouble later in life.

Also, we want the caregivers to understand that those protective emotions sometimes lead to what we call appeasement, where they're gathering information from people. And we need the people to understand what that is, that, that, what, why the puppy needs information. And to make sure the information they give is the right information.

That what you're telling the puppy is that the world is a safe and a secure place to be, so that they develop positive emotional bias. And then we also need the humans to understand the equal roles of the different ways that you can respond to negative emotion. So that it's OK to use repulsion if it's appropriate.

It's OK to use avoidance, appeasement, and inhibition. They're all. Equally important, and not to think that it's only a problem if that negative emotion creates repulsion.

Because actually, from a welfare point of view, it's important, however, that protective emotion is expressed. And then learning to read those signs of increasing emotional arousal and recognising those displacement behaviours, if we're going to have successful puppies, the people around them need to know when they're in trouble. They need to recognise, not at the point where the flood happens, we, we, if we're going to manage our sink.

Well, we're not going to be wanting to learn how to mop up the mess, but learn how to prevent the mess from happening in the first place. Learning to hear that water dribbling out of the overflow hole and learning to go and turn the taps off to prevent that level of arousal getting any higher. So, prevention is, yes, what we do with the puppy, but it's also how we educate the humans.

So let's go through this idea of how we lead to an a a puppy which is emotionally intelligent. And we said we'd have to start by thinking about breeding and rearing, because that's the way that we create emotional capacity. And the relevance of the sink in terms of advice for breeders relates primarily to this influence of genetics and the influence of early rearing.

So the breeder is going to optimise genetic influence on that emotional health and also minimise psychological, sorry, physiological stress. And the physiological stress comes from emotional bias. So if breeding bitches.

Are in a bias towards their protective emotions whilst they're pregnant, that potentially is going to have physiological stress implications for that bitch, and therefore affect the development of the puppy in terms of their emotional health. Of course, the breed is also responsible for establishing positive emotional responses once they're born, and reducing this emotional salience of these social and environmental stimuli through starting the process of socialisation and habituation. And by establishing good resilience, giving these puppies opportunities to chew and sleep.

So selection of breeding stock, unfortunately is mainly driven by factors other than emotional health. So the primary driving factor often is about confirmation, what they look like, or it's about performance, and temperament and emotional stability are less commonly thought of as primary selection criteria for breeding stock. Emotional criteria deserve equal consideration though, particularly when these puppies are destined for companion animal roles, when they need to be living in a domestic environment.

Because emotional stability leads to the ability to be adaptable emotionally, to be able to cope with change. And this emotional stability, therefore is affected by genetics. And the clay, we said that you're gonna make your sink from is related to this input from the breeding stock.

If we're using emotional criteria, though, for our breeding stock selection, it's very important to go back to that understanding of the responses to emotional motivation. Because I think when bits are showing repulsion behaviour to protective emotions, so if they are slightly anxious, but they growl and they snarl and they snap, then maybe it's less likely that those individuals will be selected as breeding stock. But what about the ones that show inhibition or appeasement or avoidance?

The ones that don't show challenging behaviours, but show behaviours which are just as indicative of a protective emotional bias, and therefore make them equally unsuitable as breeding stock. And you can see this, little dog here is, and actually a breeding bit. And you can see that this dog has got clear avoidance and inhibition responses to negative emotion and still is unsuitable.

And it may also be that if there are high levels of appeasement and high levels of inhibition without avoidance, that they may also be something we should be considering when we are selecting breeding stock. So it's important to remember that emotions lead to physiological responses, so-called stress. And that has the function of maintaining emotional homeostasis.

It's a good thing that when we have emotional responses, our body responds with these physiological changes. But of course, the word stress is often used to suggest that it is always a bad thing. So, stress that is acute in nature.

Stress that actually fulfils a purpose, is actually going to be beneficial in terms of the body responding appropriately to those emotions. And it's important, therefore, to differentiate between acute and chronic stress when we're thinking about the individuals that we're. Wanting to use as our breeding stock and about the experiences that puppies get.

So if it's, if they engage in some situations where they have acute stress, the responses to that stress can be beneficial. But if that bitch is in a chronic state of stress, chronically physiologically challenged, then that is going to be detrimental. Not only to the bitch, though, But also to the puppies.

Because the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis is actually developed pre and postnatally. So it's development in utero can be adversely affected by chronic stress in the bitch, and therefore, we are perhaps more commonly involved in physical health care of bitches when they're pregnant. We're we're asked for our advice about the physical health of the bitch.

But all Also, the emotional health of the bitch during pregnancy is not only important for her, but it's also important for her puppies. So, the bitch here on the left hand side, heavily pregnant, in a positive, emotional bias, engaging bias, positive body language, as opposed to this poor bitch on the right hand side, who's in negative emotional bias. Now, we probably start the story often of developing emotional intelligence at this next point.

We actually often think about emotional intelligence from the point when the puppy is born. But as we've just seen, a lot of the work towards emotional stability has already started by this point. It's already been influenced.

But of course, the potential for unresolved. Negative emotional motivation in the bitch to influence their puppies after they're born also needs to be considered. So, the emotional health of the lactating or the nursing bitch is also important.

Two very different scenarios here in terms of puppy development between this bitch on the right-hand side and the one on the left. So, neonatal puppies are able to communicate with the world even before they have visual and auditory communication, they have tactile and olfactory communication, and they are learning. So once they're born.

What happens to them, right immediately through tactile and through olfactory communication, then later, through their visual and their auditory communication is going to determine what they learn about the world around them and about how they emotionally develop. So, we want to create positive emotional responses. Positive emotional responses from the bitch will also be beneficial.

If she is calm and has positive bias in the context that we want to expose these puppies to, that will be beneficial in creating a positive bias for them as well. Conversely, if she is having negative emotional bias, that will have an influence on the development of her puppies. And what about the role of the breeder in shaping that bias further?

As well as the mum living along humans is something we want to be mutually beneficial. So, the idea of, the way we rear puppies is about making the relationship mutually beneficial. Not just something that makes dogs good for us, but makes us good for dogs as well.

And we remember that some of the things that dogs do in their interaction with humans, some of the reasons we live with dogs, are based on their natural behaviour. So their tendency to engage in searching and in recovering or retrieve. And herding may lead to functions which are useful in a human society, and but not only useful to us, but beneficial as well for the dog, because they have real enjoyment from engaging in those activities.

And then we have other activities that people like to engage in with their dogs that have no basis at all in natural behaviour, such as showing. And obviously, if we're going to engage them in behaviours that are not naturally beneficial, then they need to learn some benefit. They need to create some positive emotional association.

So the way we rear is going to be dependent on what we want that dog to do ultimately, what's its ultimate lifestyle. Overall, early positive introduction to the environment they're destined to live in is the best approach. So, where do I get a puppy from?

Well, that really depends on what are you getting this puppy for? What's the life that this puppy has ahead of it? The closer the similarity can be between the life at the breeder's home and the life at the ultimate home, the better.

And that's not the same for every puppy. If I'm going to live as a, a collie, I'm going to live on a farm, I'm going to spend most of my time in a barn. I'm gonna spend my time working sheep, then actually, if I'm Born and brought up in an environment where those are normal features of my environment and my life's to live in an urban environment with people around me, then that sort of farm environment may not provide the enough similarity to give the best basis or the best start in life.

So it depends on where they're going to end up. Also, this socialisation and non-social environmental learning that we talked about, these associative methods of learning are about developing these positive emotional responses in association with the things that will be in the world that dog inhabits. So the sorts of environmental stimuli they're exposed to, if they match where they're going to live eventually, then we're already doing the job at the breeders establishment.

So socialisation and non-social environmental learning, of course, has to continue. It doesn't only happen at the breeders. Breeders start the work.

They should inform the caregivers about what they've already done, give them guidance as to how they can continue it, and how they can, can provide complexity, but complexity that's in a positive and a controlled environment. And we have a role to play in this as well, because the veterinary visit is a very specific experience that puppies need to become prepared for. For most puppies, the experience will involve the waiting room and the consulting room, primarily.

Some of them may find that they have to spend time in the hospitalisation areas as well. And promoting positive emotional valence while they're having a veterinary experience is part of our responsibility in setting the right bias in association with our environment. So the valence of emotion is the crucial thing during this form of learning.

If we're going to end up with socialisation and non-social environmental learning that's been beneficial, then the valence during exposure needs to be positive. Puppies need to be exposed to this novelty and this complexity when their positive emotional motivations are predominant. And that will lead to a good level of emotional stability, it will create that optimal sink.

But if they're in a negative emotional bias while they're encountering the things, then they will become sensitised. This is about the association. So he said that emotional intelligence is about making associations.

It's about knowing your emotions, being able to express them and knowing how to respond to them. But our responsibility as human caregivers is also to make sure that they create that positive bias during those early weeks. And the sensitization can set them up to be more likely to have negative behavioural responses as well, or unwanted responses.

So, socialisation and non-social environmental learning is not simply about exposure. We have a tendency to use things like tick lists, and tick lists can be helpful. They can certainly give the new caregivers an understanding that there's a lot to do.

Make them, have an understanding of the sorts of things that it's important for puppies to encounter during those early weeks of life. But there is a little bit of a danger that overenthusiastic caregivers may actually be creating more problems. And they're preventing.

If they're ticking off a tick list, and they're thinking it's just about exposure, and they're just trying to get as many experiences in as possible, it is possible that actually, that puppy is going to be not always in the right emotional bias during exposure. And also, there's a possibility that even if it is, there's too much emotion. More is not always better in terms of emotion.

The flow rate, the amount of emotion that's coming from that tap, needs to be in balance with the size of the sink. And whilst you're a young puppy and your sink is still developing, it's still getting bigger. It's not yet, it's at its optimal size, then we need to manage that in.

We don't just want to be flooding the sink with lots of emotion, even if it's positive or engaging, because we want to be able to temper that input in relation to the capacity and the efficiency of the drainage system, when it is also being developed in these young puppies. So simply exposing puppies to lots and lots of happy, exciting experiences may not be as beneficial as it first seems. It's about having a controlled exposure.

So we need to see it from the dog's perspective. We need to be aware of the way in which the puppy is perceiving what's happening and the way in which they learn so that we can make sure that we're not establishing inappropriate, unwanted associations. Cause learning is happening all of the time.

And, well, yes, if we give food to the puppy, and it puts its bottom on the floor in what we would call a sit position. And, is a position that we desire the puppy to learn, and it's beneficial, then it's going to learn to put its bottom on the floor more frequently. But if the dog gets up on the dining room table and finds a joint of meat, then getting up on the table created the availability of food.

That's just as positive from the puppy's point of view. And the probability of the puppy getting up on the table again is going to be increased in just the same way. The other thing we need to think about is the sensory differences between the puppy and ourselves.

The fact that they have differences in sensitivity to an interpretation of communication signals. So we need to be thinking about, are, are we actually giving signals that mean what we think they mean to the puppy? Are we using vocal signals that Are calm and quiet.

Kirsty Sexel, who's a veterinary behaviourist in Australia, talks about whispering and gliding around animals, because if we overwhelm them with high levels of vocal input, sometimes that can actually verge on being threatening because of their perception of sound. And they have highly developed senses and can pick up on signals that we're not even aware that we're giving. So having an awareness ourselves as what as to what we're teaching is important.

And they may not interpret situations in the way that we expect them to. So, for example, we have them in an environment that we see as being beneficial, where we would like to be, but actually, they may not be seeing it from the same perspective. So, we look at this puppy here's a little bit of apprehension on his face.

We want to be aware of that. Just pick. Up on that and make sure we optimise his experience.

Here we have a nice little rose gallery picture taken from a doggy daycare. And obviously, this is supposed to be to give to the clients to say, Look how happy your dogs are when they're at daycare. But let's just look at a few of them where we can see some negative emotional signals.

Maybe not enjoying it quite as much. As we thought they were. And things where we're giving interaction, and the smiles on the human faces say the intention is good, but the expression on the dog's face says that actually, I'm not perceiving that in the way that you intended.

And everybody can potentially expect an animal to perceive a context in one way when they actually perceive it in another. And of course, the dog may misinterpret us as well, what we're doing. So when humans are hugging one another or hugging the dog, that close proximity is something that humans interpret as being something very beneficial.

We like to be in that close proximity. In fact, it's one of the things we've missed so much during COVID. But for dogs, actually, the way in which that physical contact is delivered can be very different in terms of their interpretation.

So optimising patient emotional health starts with the breeder, goes through the caregiver, but it also involves us. Preventative behavioural medicine is the remit of every veterinary practise. We have contact with puppies very early in their emotional development.

We see. Them soon after they're purchased, either for a post-purchase health check or for their vaccination. And when we see them, of course, we have the opportunity to give practical advice about the fact that these animals have emotional health and about how we can develop emotional intelligence.

And we can deliver that information through appropriate literature, through holding emotional intelligence classes, or nursing clinics as well. Particularly nursing clinics for the adolescent dog to make sure that we don't lose touch with these dogs between their first booster and their second booster, the time when actually all this emotional, development is so important. So, emotional intelligence classes are not just the same as what you might be familiar with as puppy parties or puppy classes.

These are actually classes that address the importance of emotional health and teach caregivers about how to understand their pet, and how to raise them in an emotionally intelligent way. And, for anybody who's interested, then, developing emotional intelligence for puppies is a, is a a scheme that talks about how to optimise that, that intelligence. Obviously, in the adolescent dog, we said, adolescence encompasses this really important period between sexual and social maturity, a period when there's a lot of, danger, if you like, for things to go wrong.

And it's a time when they're often relinquished because of misunderstanding of their behavioural responses. So, if veterinary practises can be more proactive, hold nursing clinics, actually Encourage people to come in with that adolescent, client. Sorry, pets, their adolescent pets, are adolescent patients.

If we can bring them into the the veterinary practise to give specific advice, we can hopefully keep this, emotional intelligence formation happening throughout this difficult period. So, make sure we can we keep that contact and make sure that we are ready to Of preventative advice. Also, that the client thinks about coming to the veterinary practise.

They possibly think about us only for physical healthcare. Going back to the triad, they possibly don't realise that veterinary practises are about looking after the whole of the health of their pet. And we can talk to caregivers at these times about some of the myths that are out there about behaviour as well, because a lot of clients are getting misinformation.

They're being told things about the dominance myth. They're being told about the fact that if it's a male dog and it does anything wrong, then it's probably it's hormones. These things are not true.

These are the myths that are out there about behaviour. And it's our place as a profession to give good scientifically valid information about what do male hormones do to behaviour, that they actually do contribute to confidence. So we shouldn't be.

Thinking about, for example, castrating, nervous male dogs early, because actually that testosterone might be beneficial. We may want to hold on to it for a little bit longer to optimise emotional development. Thinking about, things like, practical physical health as well, in terms of weight gain after neutering, or, talking about whether to neuter or not, and if they do neuter, what the implications of that might be.

Adolescent clinics can also be used to discuss behavioural issues, the sorts of things that often rear their head at this time of development. So where jumping up is happening or pulling on the lead, or lack of recall, whether there's mouthing interactions or problems interacting with other dogs, the time to give advice is at the beginning of the issue. Starting to be seen.

Obviously, ideally, we've done all the rest of the things right, and we've bred with the right stock, and we've reared them appropriately, and we've developed good emotional intelligence. But if things have started to go wrong in adolescence, it's better if we have contact with those caregivers so that we can step in with advice sooner rather than later. And it's also a really good time to discuss fearful behaviour, because during adolescence, then that's the time when we often see a change in the selection of behavioural responses.

So, we want an emotional intelligence. Not only to be aware of emotions and to be able to express them and control them, but to select appropriate responses. And in juveniles, they may be more likely to use avoidance or inhibition or appeasement.

They may lick or sniff, rather than the repulsion behaviours of growling and barking. But as they go through adolescence and come into maturity, if we haven't given the advice to discuss that fearful behaviour, and we haven't helped to change that bias and create more positive emotional bias, then we have a potential that at this age, they'll start to change those responses to responses that are more problematic for the human caregiver. So the underlying emotion may be exactly the same.

May not be that this puppy has suddenly developed a problem, emotionally, it may have had a problem emotionally before, but be showing it through behavioural responses that didn't. Cause concern. So, if we can give information about inhibition, appeasement, and avoidance, so that people are looking out for them, it's more likely that they'll seek advice at that stage, rather than waiting until repulsion is being shown.

So rearing emotionally stable puppies is really complex. It needs a lot of thought, it needs a lot of patience, and it's not the responsibility of one individual or even one group of people. It's the responsibility of anybody who's engaging with that puppy, particularly the breeder, the caregiver, and us as a veterinary profession.

So we all need to be educated in aspects of natural feline behaviour, and we need to understand emotional motivations and these concepts of emotional stability, emotional intelligence, so that we can give the puppies the best start in life. And as a profession, we have a responsibility to safeguard not only the physical health, but the health, and that involves physical, emotional and cognitive aspects and the welfare of the puppies that we engage with. So, physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects need to be considered.

And as a result of considering that, of thinking about that whole aspect of healthcare, we can actually lead to good emotionally intelligent puppies, who can then go on to be sociable, to be confident, to be adaptable. And those are the sorts of dogs that are going to be successful in a domestic environment, and they're going to be welcomed by society as being good to have around. And we, that's what we ultimately, we want to achieve, that dogs are welcome in society because of the fact that they're sociable, confident, and adaptable.

I'm just gonna leave a slide up while we talk about any questions or any comments that anyone's got about the behavioural advice subscription service that we run. So if you do want more details about that, the email address is there on the slide.