What You Missed: 2024 Canine Science Symposium

Everyone learned some new skills at this year’s Canine Science Symposium. photo: CSS, Marek Szturc

The annual Canine Science Symposium was held last month at San Francisco State University. In case you missed it, here’s my hot take on those two information-packed days.

The Vibe

Have you ever been to a gathering of peers with all levels of education and experience and simply felt out of your league? It would be easy to assume that might be the vibe at the Canine Science Symposium. But I barely felt that way even while talking with scientists with international reputations and an eye exam's worth of letters after their names. The presenters and attendees were warm and welcoming, all there to share and learn about the latest canine research. 

The Speakers

My personal favorite speaker was, well... all of them? Is that possible?  Every single presenter was approachable both on and off the podium. Drs. Zsófia Virányi and Lauren Samet started each day with plenaries that snapped us into learning mode. Dr. Lindsay Mehrkam showed us how it’s possible to get local populations involved in shelter work beyond the typical, "Thanks for the dog, now bye." Drs. Erica Feuerbacher and Nathan Hall engaged us with humor and stories while discussing subjects that might otherwise have been dry as an old Milk Bone. And Drs. Lisa Gunter, Sasha (Alexandra) Protopopova, and Monique Udell offered excellent presentations, including well-deserved shout-outs to the students who contributed to their work.

The Topics

So many topics! We heard about shelter dog welfare, relationships between pets (yes, cats, too) and their human families, scent research, supportive work for pet adopters, and so much more. Every presenter, other than the plenaries, gave two talks each day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, which made for nice pacing and a chance to follow up on issues raised.

Several presenters commented that getting questions from the audience helped give them ideas about how to tweak their studies or identify new variables to test for.  Hearing the value of a seemingly innocuous query helped embolden even the more timid attendees to ask questions.

The most left field yet fascinating topic was likely Dr. Nathan Hall's presentation on scent, including how researchers currently think the canine nose works and how smell concentrations dissipate into the air, affecting how a dog can pick up a scent. This was a great companion piece to Dr. Lisa Gunter’s presentation on Skyler Howard's work, asking whether scent alone can be an enrichment activity for increasing welfare quality for shelter dogs (Howard’s entire thesis and defense is available here).

Other topics included giving dogs a choice on activities outside the shelter; the physical set-up of the shelter itself; how profiles of shelter animals influence their chances of being adopted; post-adoption assistance for new owners; and, of course, the relationships between dogs and their people.

Room for Improvement

One thing that kept sticking out to me was that everyone at the podium was white-appearing or white passing. Please do not misinterpret; everyone presenting clearly had worked smart and hard, had a ton of experience both in and out of the real world, and was leading a new generation of scientists in animal welfare. But we still need to have more visibility of people of other ethnicities and races as well as living environments. 

This isn't to say that these white scientists aren't worth listening to. But people who are working just as hard from other schools and backgrounds need visibility, too, so that those with less funding or fewer connections - or who are just, you know, brown - can see their own lives and experiences being incorporated into the research. As an example, people like Yale Ph.D. candidate Kassidi Jones are bringing other perspectives to the industry with the soft sciences and humanities.  

We cannot talk about animal welfare without including the welfare of their human family members. The reality in the United States is that people with different skin colors have different experiences, and we need to acknowledge this and work with it. I believe the CSS has what it takes to make that happen.

Most attendees appeared to be from suburban or urban areas, yet there are still many people and animals living in rural environments, something us city folks tend to forget. In fact, nearly 20% of Americans live in rural communities, and 97% of land in the US is considered rural. One audience member said they came to learn about ideas to implement on the Native American reservation where they work and where there are more free-roaming animals and high levels of poverty. How, they asked, do we give access to free resources when many people in their area don't even have an internet connection or smartphone?

Attending the symposium alone was well over $400, not counting lodging or plane fare, which is a heck of a lot of money for shelter workers and people from areas with a lower cost of living. I'm glad Maddie's Fund offered sponsorships for those who needed an extra cash cushion to attend. Do speakers need to be paid? Yes. Do shelter workers need to be paid more? Also yes. In the future, advertising the attendance sponsorship more may help gain a more diverse group of attendees.  

My Two Best Takeaways

I learned so much over two days that it’s hard to choose, but here are two takeaways worth sharing. 

• Pets see us as parents or care-giving figures rather than as dominant, controlling figures. The data displayed over and over again showed that an authoritative style of care (versus an authoritarian or permissive style) leads to pets — including cats — with a more secure attachment style, which lends itself to resilience. 

• Habituating a dog to their environment can help reduce their stress. Whether it’s part of a research study or just a new environment, letting a dog take in their new surroundings helps them deal better with change and strangeness. 

What I’m Excited About for Next Year 

I’m already looking forward to updates about what we learned this year, plus cool new things that we can incorporate into our daily lives with our clients and with sheltering animals in need of homes. I want more people of color to get to the microphone. I want us to start learning how class, race, and income levels influence, and sometimes limit, how and why people have pets. I want to learn more about how to improve shelter welfare with whatever research is being conducted as I type this. And I hope more people will attend CSS, be it live or online. 

Until then, keep your eyes open for new canine research - and don’t forget to hug that special dog in your own life.