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Intelligence in dogs is something that is constantly debated, and for good reason because how does one define intelligence? This important definition creates a different breed list depending on the criteria we are measuring intelligence by. Is intelligence how trainable a dog is? Is intelligence how well a dog will perform a task independently? Is intelligence a dogs ability to solve problems? Is intelligence how well a dog can interact socially? The list of things that c

Another Research Analysis for you all to sink your teeth into and this time we are looking at a research paper all about stress. Before we get going, for those who don't know, the word chronic means long term and the word acute means short term. Chronic pain could be something like a bad knee that causes you issues constantly for a long period of time whereas acute pain is something more like stubbing your toe on the table. It's often more intense but subsides again afterw

We are led to believe in this world that the normal thing to do is to walk your dog, and the other week we wrote a blog about just that (if you haven't read it, here it is https://www.britishinstituteofcaninescience.org/post/should-you-walk-your-dog) In that post we discussed some more exciting things you can try on a day to day basis, but today we want to discuss some official sports you can try with your dog. If you are sat reading this thinking 'oh I'm not good enough for

Behavioural euthanasia is a hot topic among canine researchers, behaviourists, veterinarians etc. Some believe that there is good reason for this in a lot of instances, some believe it never should be an option. Personally, we think that it has its place, but that place is something that too many people are arriving at far too quickly. In almost fourteen years of training dogs, we can count on one hand how many dogs were truly not able to be rehabilitated. This paper loo

For those of you in the United Kingdom, like us, we are in the middle of a huge heatwave at the time of writing this and it's that time of year where we have some hot weather coming. Before we start this blog it is important to note for those of you in much hotter areas than we have, that acclimation is a very real thing. Our dogs here in the UK do not get sufficient time to acclimate to the hot weather. Full heat acclimation can take up to sixty days, and here in the UK we

We've been working away behind the scenes on the start of our project, hoping to create a complete and comprehensive canine ethogram and we've collected a few links for you all to enjoy on the topic.

This week, we are going to dive into a paper written by Alexander et al. (et al means and others for those new to this!) about the effects of obedience training on search dog performance. This paper basically observes how other types of training effect the likelihood of the dog passing a search dog qualification. For example, dogs that spent more than four hours a week generally training had a higher association with national level certification, but is the data useful? Ho

Seems like a very obvious answer to a very easy question, right? You should definitely walk your dog, because here in the Western world we have been conditioned into a routine of dog ownership where most people walk their dogs in the morning and walk their dogs on an evening, but the truth of the matter is it's much more complicated than that. Absolutely, your dog needs physical exercise to have a fulfilled life. Travel and movement are huge parts of a dog's life but that's

Genetics are not something most pet owners tend to consider when thinking about their dog. We think about their emotions, their wellbeing, what they are eating, where they are sleeping, when they last went on a walk and many other things which are indeed very important. When most people purchase, or rescue a dog, they don't spend much time thinking about the genetic predisposition of that dog. They look around and decide they like the look of a certain breed, or they like a

Another research analysis, and this is a really, really interesting one so members, buckle up and enjoy and if you're not a member then click to join us and get stuck in. As always we will be looking into this study and trying to translate it into something a little easier to digest because academic writing can be extremely heavy if the subject matter is not your area of expertise.

We said in the last blog post that we will soon be announcing our first piece of research and here is the sneak preview as to our plans for all our Silver and Gold members.

In this blog we wanted to share our latest and most up to date research plans. Our team here at the British Institute of Canine Science are always having new ideas on things that we want to investigate so this is not a 'set in stone' list of upcoming projects, but more a mind dump on some of the things we want to research, the reasons why and why we believe they are important to the real world of dog ownership and training. Thankfully as an independant research team we are n

Here at The British Institute of Canine Science we are deeply passionate about dogs and understanding precisely what makes them tick. There is a fascinating relationship between dogs and humans that dates back somewhere in the realm of twenty thousand years or more, depending who you ask. We are no historians here but we will dive into some studies around the early domestication of dogs because it is nothing short of fascinating. Our relationship with dogs is like no other

Our very first research analysis. These blog posts will not be written in the style of academic writing, but in easy to digest language so everybody can enjoy the fruits of some brilliant researchers around the world. The first piece of research we are looking at is investigating if training your puppy is beneficial and reduces the risks of behavioural problems as your dog gets older.

Welcome to the British Institute of Canine Science! We are very excited to launch this exciting project and finally address some issues surrounding canine science, academia and research. This blog post is here to serve as an outline as to what we wish to do, how we wish to do it and what is coming in the near future. We founded the British Institute of Canine Science to commit to further understanding of our dogs. Our extremely small research team have been involved profes