Your dog really might be addicted to that toy
Scientists find that some dogs exhibit behaviors similar to human addiction around their favorite toys.
Have you ever seen a dog playing slot machines in a casino? Probably not, but you might have seen one that really likes to play with toys. A new study shows that there might not be much of a difference.
Some dogs behave toward their toys in ways that resemble those of behavioral addictions in humans, such as gambling and internet gaming, scientists write in the journal Scientific Reports.
Stefanie Riemer, a behavioral biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna and author of the new study had long heard of pet owners calling their dogs “ball junkies” because of their love for toy balls. But when she realized no one had ever explored whether the criteria for human addiction could be applied to dogs and their toys, she decided to find out — with science.
For now, researchers don’t want to claim that what they are seeing is an actual addiction — just “indicators that seems a little bit like an addiction,” Riemer says.
How do we know if dogs are addicted?
In the human realm, addiction has two sides. The first is a craving and compulsion toward a particular stimulus—like drugs or the rush of gambling—and the change of mood when they get that reward. The second is feelings like withdrawal symptoms when that stimulus is taken away.
“An addiction means persisting in something despite it having negative consequences in long term,” says Riemer.
So, can dogs experience something similar with their toys?
To answer this question, Riemer and her team designed 14 different tests for 105 dogs (56 males, 49 females), with an age ranging from 12 months to 10 years. Different breed groups were tested, including shepherds, terriers and retrievers.
In one of the tests, for example, the dogs could choose between a favored toy that was inaccessible—such as in a box or on a shelf—and another type of reward or interaction, such as food or play with their owner.
Dogs that seemed addicted to the toy remained fixated on it, trying to break the box or staying focused on the shelf, instead of going for the available reward.
In another test, the researchers analyzed whether and how a dog would calm down after toys, food, and everything else was removed from the experimental room. Dogs that showed more addiction-like behavior kept walking around for the entire duration of the test, says Riemer. “They would focus on the door where the toys had disappeared from, or on the shelves where the toys had been previously stored.”
Researchers observed that among all the breeds they studied, shepherd breeds such as German Shepherd and Belgian Shepherd had the highest scores for addiction-like behaviors. Shepherds are bred for high-focus activities such as livestock protection, police work, and search and rescue, which require persistence and strong motivation. But while these traits are desirable for working dogs, in extreme cases they could lead to addiction-like behaviors, and there might be negative consequences. For example, “in some dogs the welfare is definitely impaired if they have high frustration levels when they don't get access to the reward,” says Riemer. “That's not healthy.”
The association with particular breeds also leads researchers to hypothesize that there could be a strong genetic component in the addiction-like behaviors they observed. “It does seem that it's very much a characteristic within the dogs already,” Riemer says.
Only a starting point
Animal welfare and behavior experts who were not involved in this research say they appreciate how the paper explores a new animal psychology frontier. But they point out that many questions remain unanswered.
“This is a really good first step,” says Julia Espinosa, a post-doctoral researcher at York University in Toronto, Canada. Espinosa says she’s not sure whether we can equate human addictions with what we see in these dogs. That’s because in addictions like gambling, people are aware of the risk they are taking. “In fact, the risk might be what makes it so addictive,” says Espinosa. On the contrary, while there might be negative consequences for the dogs as well, our furry friends don’t know that. An open question, Espinosa adds, is how strong would be a dog's tendency to engage in addiction-like behaviors if there were adverse consequence —something the researchers didn’t test to respect the dog’s welfare.
Despite that, “this is something that addresses a really important aspect of dog welfare, and highlights that this it's not just people characterizing or anthropomorphizing something about the dog,” she says. Addiction-like behaviors could have implications for future approaches to dog training, Espinosa adds.
A relatively small subset of dogs show addiction-like behaviors that reach a level that could be concerning, Riemer notes, but in those dogs their attachment to particular objects should be addressed. Future research could dive into questions like: what’s the best way to make a dog behave less compulsively around a toy?
Holly Molinaro, an animal welfare scientist at Animal Wellbeing Solutions, notes that the authors only recruited and tested play-motivated dogs and dogs that excessively play, which makes it hard to know how common these behaviors are in the broader world of dogs. She said it’s an interesting starting point, but further research is needed.
Overall, it’s too soon to give dog owners advice based on this research.
“The authors were very clear, this is exploratory,” Molinaro says. “We should not diagnose from this study. So, I hope that people know that. Don't start self-diagnosing your dog.”
