What Pets Actually Want & Need | Dr. Karolina Westlund

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Dog breeds are slices of the wolf's predatory sequence

  Westlund, an ethologist, describes the wolf hunting sequence: orient and sniff, eye and stalk, chase, grab-bite, kill-bite, dissect, eat. Over the last couple of hundred years, breeding selected different parts of it — hounds for sniffing, pointers for eyeing, others for chasing. Knowing which parts your dog was bred for tells you which behaviors it needs to express.

• 02

  Use the 'core affect space' to judge an animal's emotional state

  Plot valence (pleasant to unpleasant) against arousal. The goal is the calm, pleasant quadrant where animals feel safe and socialize. Reduce high-arousal negative states like fear and aggression, and lift animals out of low-arousal negative states (boredom, depression) with stimulating environments. Seeking, foraging, exploration, play and sex sit in the high-arousal pleasant quadrant.

• 03

  Primate-style hugging often reads as restraint

  Humans are huggers, but to many animals an embrace or a pat on top of the head is restraint and can feel like a predator's grab. Most dogs prefer the neck or upper chest. Huberman described an experiment suggesting dogs are averse to rapid petting, and slow, deliberate strokes visibly relax them. Westlund links calm handling to co-regulation, a concept from polyvagal theory.

• 04

  'Dominance' is usually a misused label

  To an ethologist, dominance means priority of access to resources, not a dog trying to 'control' you by jumping up. Dogs stay at heel because pulling ahead was followed by something unpleasant, not because of rank. Strip the label away and most behavior has simpler explanations. Much dog training is really owner training.

• 05

  Tail wags and head turns may encode emotion by side

  Tail wagging occurs in many contexts and may spread scent from glands as well as signal visually. Wags biased to the dog's left tend to go with negative states and right-biased wags with positive ones. Cats similarly view stimuli more with the left eye in negative states and the right eye in positive ones. Dogs' facial muscles differ from ours, so whole-body language is a more reliable read than the face.

• 06

  Tell play from fighting with 'MARS'

  Meta-signals (such as the play bow), Activity shifts (chasing, pouncing, wrestling in jumbled order), Role reversals (taking turns winning, since play stops being fun if you always lose) and Self-handicapping. For example, a big dog in tug-of-war may just hold the toy against a small dog, then engage its full strength when a human pulls.

• 07

  Cats don't bring 'gifts'

  Cats carry prey to a place where they feel safe. Many perform only the grab-bite, not the kill-bite, and lose interest once the prey stops moving; movement restarts the sequence. How a cat responds to perceived threat, including from a well-meaning human, depends heavily on early social learning.

• 08

  Wild behavior explains house problems

  Covering waste likely reduces infection risk, and animals avoid eliminating where they eat, so keep the litter box well away from food. To diagnose indoor urination, mark every spot on a floor plan: edges near windows and doors suggest territorial marking, while a box linked to pain (for example, painful urination) suggests an elimination problem.

• 09

  Neutering affects behavior as well as reproduction

  More than 20 studies over the last two decades, Westlund says, suggest neutering (particularly of males, depending on age) can increase fear, reactivity, aggression and noise sensitivity, and raise the risk of certain cancers and physical problems. Rules vary: Norway bans neutering without a medical reason, while Western Australia requires it unless you're breeding. Alternatives include vasectomy or tubal ligation, which preserve hormones, and reversible chemical castration.