Cargando…

Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work

There are approximately a half million active service dogs in the United States, providing life-changing assistance and independence to people with a wide range of disabilities. The tremendous value of service dogs creates significant demand, which service dog providers struggle to meet. Breeding, r...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Byrne, Ceara, Starner, Thad, Jackson, Melody
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9481248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36118349
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.886941
_version_ 1784791221814689792
author Byrne, Ceara
Starner, Thad
Jackson, Melody
author_facet Byrne, Ceara
Starner, Thad
Jackson, Melody
author_sort Byrne, Ceara
collection PubMed
description There are approximately a half million active service dogs in the United States, providing life-changing assistance and independence to people with a wide range of disabilities. The tremendous value of service dogs creates significant demand, which service dog providers struggle to meet. Breeding, raising, and training service dogs is an expensive, time-consuming endeavor which is exacerbated by expending resources on dogs who ultimately will prove to be unsuitable for service dog work because of temperament issues. Quantifying behavior and temperament through sensor-instrumented dog toys can provide a way to predict which dogs will be suitable for service dog work, allowing resources to be focused on the dogs likely to succeed. In a 2-year study, we tested dogs in advanced training at Canine Companions for Independence with instrumented toys, and we discovered that a measure of average bite duration is significantly correlated with a dog's placement success as a service dog [Adjusted OR = 0.12, Pr(>|z|) = 0.00666]. Applying instrumented toy interactions to current behavioral assessments could yield more accurate measures for predicting successful placement of service dogs while reducing the workload of the trainers.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9481248
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-94812482022-09-17 Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work Byrne, Ceara Starner, Thad Jackson, Melody Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science There are approximately a half million active service dogs in the United States, providing life-changing assistance and independence to people with a wide range of disabilities. The tremendous value of service dogs creates significant demand, which service dog providers struggle to meet. Breeding, raising, and training service dogs is an expensive, time-consuming endeavor which is exacerbated by expending resources on dogs who ultimately will prove to be unsuitable for service dog work because of temperament issues. Quantifying behavior and temperament through sensor-instrumented dog toys can provide a way to predict which dogs will be suitable for service dog work, allowing resources to be focused on the dogs likely to succeed. In a 2-year study, we tested dogs in advanced training at Canine Companions for Independence with instrumented toys, and we discovered that a measure of average bite duration is significantly correlated with a dog's placement success as a service dog [Adjusted OR = 0.12, Pr(>|z|) = 0.00666]. Applying instrumented toy interactions to current behavioral assessments could yield more accurate measures for predicting successful placement of service dogs while reducing the workload of the trainers. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-09-02 /pmc/articles/PMC9481248/ /pubmed/36118349 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.886941 Text en Copyright © 2022 Byrne, Starner and Jackson. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Byrne, Ceara
Starner, Thad
Jackson, Melody
Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work
title Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work
title_full Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work
title_fullStr Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work
title_full_unstemmed Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work
title_short Quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work
title_sort quantifying canine interactions with smart toys assesses suitability for service dog work
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9481248/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36118349
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2022.886941
work_keys_str_mv AT byrneceara quantifyingcanineinteractionswithsmarttoysassessessuitabilityforservicedogwork
AT starnerthad quantifyingcanineinteractionswithsmarttoysassessessuitabilityforservicedogwork
AT jacksonmelody quantifyingcanineinteractionswithsmarttoysassessessuitabilityforservicedogwork