Tail Docking - Again!

I was, with respect (as they say), very disappointed to read this recent tail docking monologue. OK, Prof Mellor accepts that there is no behavioural substitute for a dog-mounted tail, that tail docking is likely to result in chronic inflammatory pain and chronic neuroma pain..., but, he contests, that a puppy up to a few days old is incapable of feeling pain because they lack consciousness. He says that this is what the "science says", but I am sorry, but I think the science says no such thing.  I think the most straightforward uncontestable fact is that we don’t know, and maybe that we can’t possibly know.  

So what evidence does Prof Mellor present in this paper, to assuage us of the idea that neonates feel pain.  Well, this is a little embarrassing, because the paper is quite difficult to read from a critical perspective, it is written in many ways like a blog.  Whilst it includes about 25 self-citations these are kind of mostly references to the fact that he has argued previously that puppies don’t feel pain (or that different species attain consciousness at different times).  

At one point there is a line with 8 references followed by several sentences of the main argument (that puppies don’t have consciousness for several days)... but few specific facts in this section have their own citation! I am embarrassed to say this of someone so eminent, really, but that is no way to write a scientific paper. We want, in the main body, fact citation, fact citation et seq.  

I made the effort to try and track down those 8 references.  Most are simply self-citations of reviews. Not good enough. Mark = D- (not a U/E... because there was an attempt to use referencing). Whilst most are reviews, others were original scientific papers.  These were 1967 EEG papers showing that neonates have far less complex EEG than more developed puppies. Largely in the sleep state.  In fact, they DO SHOW that the EEG changes on nociceptive stimulus, but not as much as the adult.  It would be over-reaching to therefore state that they feel less pain (because we do not know categorically with old studies like that what the actual markers of pain would be except.. different to no pain), but that would be the most you could possibly say, from that data.  So cutting a puppy’s tail off would be, what 25% as painful as cutting an adult leg off? 15%? 30%? Still sounds pretty painful.

The main body does two things; one half attests that the reason we think they do feel pain is by ill-founded analogy with other species, and then... the other half rebuts this with, largely, analogy with rats.  

Unless you are prepared to read all the previous REVIEWS I didn’t feel there was any useful new information in this one paper. The basic mantra is: They don’t have consciousness, as evidenced by the fact that I have previously stated that they don’t have consciousness. 

So there’s a quoted paper (much more specific) showing the average yelps during the procedure is about 20.  Feeble-minded sorts like myself may assume that this is because it hurts, but of course the old argument is used that this a subcortical behaviour to signal the need for assistance from the mum. Clearly, as stated in this piece, nociceptive (pain) signal has traversed to the spinal cord and up to the sub-cortical yelp centres [partly agree], but it doesn’t reach the cortex because ...because he says so on the basis of previous reviews.  Why “partly” agree above?  Because studies have not even successfully located where the yelp centre is and how it is controlled even in adult dogs.  Big damage to pretty much any part of the cortex can suppress this “reflex” (reference: I say so - gosh isn’t academic writing easy once you can just quote yourself). 

So can I prove that puppies feel pain? Nope. I cite Occam's Razor (“the starting hypothesis should be the simplest”).  Now, this creates a problem.  If you really are deeply religious in a literal and creationist way you believe that man was created, then woman then animals. OR was it the other way around (Sunday School quite a while ago)? Anyway, they were created separately. Animals are sort of machines created for our entertainment.  So Occam's Razor could be that only humans feel pain.  In fact, I think some people believe that only they themselves feel pain!  ...my standpoint is that of evolution as a proven fact.  In that case, I would say that Occam's Razor is that all those responses that look the same are the same.  And you need an experiment to disprove it.  What experiment could you do? ...well it is tricky!! ...Maybe we should think about FRMI or something at least... are there cortical changes in the cortex of a puppy with pain... but even that means that we feel we really know where consciousness lies and we are not that sure.....  and anyway, those 1967 papers already showed that there is a cortical change on painful stimulus in a puppy.  So why would anyone be soooo desperate to dock a puppy that they would need to do those type of experiments just to shed light on whether the well recognised screaming really represents pain or not.... when we already no about the chronic pain, the neuroma and the tail’s central role in canine behaviour?

Can the Dog’s Tail Wag in a New Era for Animal Welfare

So are we to take it that this is not a happy dog, since he wags here to the left?

(This blog was put on the University of Liverpool Viewpoint Website and is reproduced here just for my own personal diary)
The media and social media have been alive today with the latest revelations of complexity in canine caudal oscillations: “Tail wags”.  The bottom line of Prof Angelo Quaranta’s latest research is simply that dogs can read other dogs’ tail wags for emotional features such as happiness and nervousness.  The claim that dogs wag their tails more to the right than left when they are happy was reported years ago by the same group.  To pick holes in the research would be too easy; for example the authors imply that stress results in elevated heart rates (which it does), but that that “happiness” does not.  That is pretty unlikely, we did a number of student projects years ago measuring heart rates from horses and dogs and found, unsurprisingly that stimuli you would think would excite them increase heart rate considerably.  A race horse for example pumps up its heart rate to near full race speed just at the thought of the race, well before it actually starts racing.  So do I dispute the findings? No not at all, but I think the real interest is far deeper.  It relates to whether non-humans experience emotions at all; that is the central issue and it is a regular battle ground for those debating animal welfare.

The common scientific opinion for centuries has been that only humans experience emotions.  Occam's razor (the simplest hypothesis should be assumed true) has been taken to mean that unless you can prove an animal experiences emotion, it should be assumed they do not.  ...and of course, it is pretty much impossible to prove what emotions another human is really feeling let alone another species.  Professor Quaranta’s two famous doggie happiness papers actually never dare use the words “happy” or “happiness” at all; I presume this is because they would receive too much scientific pillory.  To most non-scientists it seems obvious that animals experience emotion.  Elk run away when faced with a wolf pack, dogs bark and squeak when their dinner is being prepared.  However, the scientific view since Descartes, probably well before, is that these are all simply emotion-free responses conditioned to promote animal survival.  Take “Pavlov’s dog” experiment for example.  The scientific theory is that the dog does not “think” about food when he hears the bell and thus salivate. The theory is that an automatic (thought-free) response is created so that salivation directly results from bell ringing without any thought.  So the concept of happiness, pain, love and hate are all widely excluded from scientific consciousness.  One of the irksome things that Darwin did, apart from implying man was little more than a naked ape, was to suggest that emotions had also evolved.  Even the title of his book “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” was and still is divergent with the broad swath of scientific thinking.

To me it has always seemed scientifically irrational to believe that animals’ emotions would be all that different to humans.  There is a part of the brain traditionally associated with the expression of emotions (the “limbic system” ...sort of in the “lower-middle” of the brain) which is extremely well conserved between species.  The most substantial differences are in the outer parts of the brain where, generally, the thinking is done.  In terms of animal welfare, shouldn't Occam's razor read “non-animals should be considered to have the same emotions to humans unless proven otherwise”?  I don’t argue that we should not use animals for food or medical research, only that people should cease the mantra that emotions are unique to the human animal.  So the study of dog tail wags and its implicit connection to a state of happiness is progress, bringing an acceptance of animal emotion to a wide audience.  The trouble is, you know what traditionalists will say about dog tail wags now? ....it does not betray subconscious feelings of happiness, but is simply an emotion-free response evolved to convey danger to the rest of the pack and promote survival.