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Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

nature.com

41–50 of 143 posts

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling is not an addiction. It is "gambling disorder" and it was grandfathered into the DSM. It is explicitly not an addiction medically. Eating and shopping are two great examples not erronously grandfathered in, which committees repeated find are not addiction, but which those scammers love to profit off of.

So why do you think people continue to gamble, even after it has ruined their and their families lives and finances? Slot machine addicts will literally void their bladder rather than stop playing for 5 minutes to use the restroom.

Because people make poor choices and it's usually their own fault.

We used have words like "vice" and "sin" to describe these poor choices, but thanks to post-60s radical individualism, the only vocabulary for describing maladaptive behavior that remains of the language of medicine. Therefore, everything bad someone does is a "disease" for which he needs "therapy" or "treatment". We've utterly lost the capacity for describing deficiencies of the conscience.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#42
My dog (Briard) isn't just addicted to play fetch with balls.. Since he knows that when another dog enters the dog park, the ball will be removed/hidden from him (to prevent the dogs clashing trying to get the ball), he becomes hostile to the dog entering the park, actively trying to prevent them from doing so! This happens only if we started to play with balls. If not, he'll be totally friendly... What an ass!

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#43

If there's a frisbee or ball in sight, my female border collie won't even attend to basic bodily needs. And she'll chase the object while she's in pain and exhausted or shivering with cold and not notice. She has lupoid onychodystrophy which causes her nails to come in deformed and split and painful and she'll still obsess on some running play/task while she's got bleeding paws and can barely walk. An an owner we hav…

It’s kind of funny how the idea of behavior being a result of breeding goes out the window when it comes to pitbulls. Retrievers naturally retrieve, collies naturally herd, but when a murder-canine eats a family it’s all “oh it could have been any breed”.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#44
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm shocked to see an informal survey based study (which will just confirm the owners pre-existing biases and opinions) being published in Nature of all things. It's not "Nature", it's "Scientific Reports" with impact factor of only 3.8 vs 48 of "Nature". Sure the publisher is "Springer Nature", and the domain is "nature.com" but that doesn't make the journal "Nature".

You're right. That's it. I'm going to make a browser extension that'll examine any paper I'm reading and color the address bar according to the impact factor of the journal in which it appears and the h-indexes of the authors.

Sounds useful, please share it here if you end up implementing it!

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#45
post #30

If you ever get a chance to see sled dogs in Alaska or wherever, holy shit do those dogs ever want to pull a sled. I’ve never seen an animal so fixated.

What if you never trained them to pull, and they never observed that behavior? Would they still want to do it?

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#46
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm shocked to see an informal survey based study (which will just confirm the owners pre-existing biases and opinions) being published in Nature of all things. It's not "Nature", it's "Scientific Reports" with impact factor of only 3.8 vs 48 of "Nature". Sure the publisher is "Springer Nature", and the domain is "nature.com" but that doesn't make the journal "Nature".

A lot of good work is published in scientific reports.

and sometimes a total unbelievable junk...

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#47
post #25
post #6

Perhaps not surprising, working breeds – many of which are known to have been artificially selected for high toy or predatory motivation – were overrepresented in the sample. This is the vibe I get from my golden retriever. Chasing the tennis ball is more than play, it's a justification for life, her contribution to the pack. Actually eating food has a higher priority than chasing the ball, but not much else does. Wh…

> As in I'm obligated to throw the damn ball. As opposed to my Newfoundland that will tease me with the ball and then I'm obligated to chase her until she wears out, I catch her, or I bribe her with a treat.

I’m hoping this is a puppy trait. Thats what my one year old golden-doodle does

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#48
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As in I'm obligated to throw the damn ball. As opposed to my Newfoundland that will tease me with the ball and then I'm obligated to chase her until she wears out, I catch her, or I bribe her with a treat.

I’m hoping this is a puppy trait. Thats what my one year old golden-doodle does

Sorry - my 9 year old golden doodle still doesn't get the concept of fetch. He's an expert at keep-away though. Throw the toy or ball, he'll chase it gleefully, then come back to just out of reach, drop the toy, and hover over it waiting for me to make a move at it. He'll lunge for the toy, back up a bit, drop it, and the cycle continues.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why do you think people continue to gamble, even after it has ruined their and their families lives and finances? Slot machine addicts will literally void their bladder rather than stop playing for 5 minutes to use the restroom.

Because people make poor choices and it's usually their own fault. We used have words like "vice" and "sin" to describe these poor choices, but thanks to post-60s radical individualism, the only vocabulary for describing maladaptive behavior that remains of the language of medicine. Therefore, everything bad someone does is a "disease" for which he needs "therapy" or "treatment". We've utterly lost the capacity for d…

Why would many, many, many people choose to piss and shit themselves in public instead of stopping for a few minutes to use the restroom? Why would someone choose the push a button every 5 seconds to the point where it ruins their life?

Put it another way: why would gambling companies continue to develop gambling machines? Why not stop with the mechanical, one-armed-bandit of the early 1900s if what they do has no effect on people?

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people make poor choices and it's usually their own fault. We used have words like "vice" and "sin" to describe these poor choices, but thanks to post-60s radical individualism, the only vocabulary for describing maladaptive behavior that remains of the language of medicine. Therefore, everything bad someone does is a "disease" for which he needs "therapy" or "treatment". We've utterly lost the capacity for d…

Why would many, many, many people choose to piss and shit themselves in public instead of stopping for a few minutes to use the restroom? Why would someone choose the push a button every 5 seconds to the point where it ruins their life? Put it another way: why would gambling companies continue to develop gambling machines? Why not stop with the mechanical, one-armed-bandit of the early 1900s if what they do has no ef…

Perhaps by the time someone's at the shitting at the seat phase of a gambling habit the neurological feedbacks arising from the intermittent reward schedule have become too strong for him to resist on his own.

But who made him start gambling in the first place? It's not like people who start gambling don't know how it ends. The most addictive slot machine in the world can't compel someone to sit at it for the first time. People KNOW these machines are addictive and choose to use them anyway.

It used to be cultural common knowledge that the wages of sin is death.

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