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Understanding what pets actually need from us

Dr. Karolina Westlund explains the science of animal behavior and what pets truly need versus what we assume they want.

"Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Carolina Westland. Dr. Carolina Westland is an animal ethologist and expert in animal behavior. Dr. Westland and I discuss the relationship between humans and domesticated animals with a focus on the evidence-based protocols for optimizing the mental and physical health of our pets. Dr. Westland explains the best way to interact with our animals. Now, we may assume that the way we pet our animals and exercise them and feed them makes them truly happy. But as she points out, many of the things that people assume turn out to be false when it comes to our pets and their fundamental drives. She teaches us the very basic but powerful things that we can do to satisfy those drives, both for the animal's sake, of course, and to better our relationship with them. We also discussed the unique neurological and physiological requirements of different dog breeds. That's a fascinating conversation that stems from their lineage from wolves. And we'll tell you whether or not your particular breed, even if it's a mutt, should be exercised in a particular way, whether or not it needs additional forms of stimulation that you're not currently giving it, and so on. And because we both realize there are also cat owners out there too, we discuss the often misunderstood communication signals and social needs of cats. As you may know, there is a tremendous amount of debate out there about the best training and practices for taking care of our dogs and other animals. And so much of that is grounded in speculation and training outcomes, which of course are important. The conversation today with Dr. Westland approaches animal health and welfare through the lens of ethology and the species that our pets evolved from to provide actionable protocols that are grounded in science and that you can implement right away to improve your pet's well-being. So if you're a pet owner, this episode is going to be of immense value to you. If you're not a pet owner, you'll still learn a ton about animal biology and psychology, including yours. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors."

Dogs were bred for partial predatory sequences

Selective breeding gave different breeds specific fragments of the predatory sequence, from herding to retrieving to guarding.

"We systematically intentionally bred for that like a couple hundred years ago. Then we have the ones that don't show much of the predatory sequence at all."

Displacement behaviors signal animal frustration

When motivated to proceed but unable, animals redirect activation into displacement behaviors like shaking, pacing, or chewing.

"What is that? My guess would be perhaps some sort of displacement behavior, that there's motivation to move on in the sequence of behaviors to the next behavior, but it's not quite time yet. And so that sort of activation then gets an outlet through that behavior. But I really don't know. I don't know. I haven't seen this discussed. So it's almost like a hydraulic pressure or something. Maybe. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. We've talked about dogs. We've talked about cats. Let's talk about birds. Okay. I had parrots when I was a kid. They were domestically bred, little gray-cheeked dwarf parrots. It didn't turn out poorly. It didn't turn out great. They were, I didn't clip their wings because I couldn't bring myself to, and they flew around my room a lot and shit around the room a lot and threw a lot of food on the ground a lot and eventually made sense to give them to somebody who had an aviary. Parrots are smart, yeah? Yeah. What are parrots thinking about? I think what, what all animals are thinking about, where their next meal is going to come from, social interactions and whether there's any threat anywhere. Is that really their, like 90% of their conscious life? I would say that, um, uh, if the animal doesn't feel safe, then it's very hard to engage the animal in any type of sort of view. If an animal is fearful, you try to feed them. They often won't take food, for instance. So the sense of safety has a very high priority because if you don't feel safe, you could die, essentially. So if you're in a situation where you don't feel safe, it's because that situation is potentially dangerous. There could be predators around, and then you must focus your attention on those predators because otherwise you're going to die. And that, of course, depends on the species. Some species are sort of aggregate in big flocks, if we're talking birds, and some are pair-bonding species. But the social environment is really important, both with regards to, you know, parenting behavior. So sexual behavior, parenting behavior, raising young and so on. All of that also has high priority because it's essentially about furthering your genes into the next generation. And then foraging behaviors. Where am I going to get my next meal? We feed them on a plate. We're thinking like we think that we're doing them a service, like here's your food on the plate. You don't have to do anything. But they come equipped to actually show their food-getting repertoire of behaviors. So typically if we don't allow them to show those behaviors, we might see some problem behaviors popping up instead, because they will redirect that energy, that intention into, I don't know, did you have any problems with the animals, sort of the birds, you know, ripping your carpet? Oh, they destroyed everything. I mean, they destroyed, I mean, they took great pleasure in ripping everything. Books, books, covers. Yeah, photos. Foraging behavior directed towards the wrong thing. Yeah, I don't recommend anyone own parrots, frankly. That was an experiment gone wrong. Luckily, I think they're still alive. They live a very long time. Oh. And people can look up the Ecuadorian gray-cheek dwarf parrots. It has this beautiful orange under their wings. They have little gray cheeks and they were called pocket parrots. The excitement for me at that, I was young, I was probably 11, was that I'd be able to carry them around in my pocket. They didn't want to do that at all. Anyway, it's interesting to think about this need for animals to express their natural repertoire of behaviors. For dog owners, I think the common practice is to, you know, put out a bowl of food. Would we be better off bringing the food to a park and going to the park and then having them eat there? Or somehow incorporating the roaming and prey-seeking behavior? I mean, how would one incorporate that into a more pleasant experience for the dog? Because what you're saying makes total sense. They need to express these behaviors. If they can't, it's going to come out some other way and maybe destructive to them or the environment. Yeah. I think that for dog owners, that what we can do is we can try to promote the different aspects of the predatory sequence that that particular dog in front of us enjoys doing."

Imprinting can cross species boundaries

Konrad Lorenz documented corvids raised from youth that started courting humans, showing how early imprinting shapes social bonds.

"I think Conrad Lawrence had also in his, one of his books, he described some sort of corvid species who he also raised from young and who started courting his secretary or someone. Oh, my. And the interesting story there was the courting behavior in this bird is vomiting, leaving like a present, and offering food in any open surface or orifice. So he would try to sort of get her to open her mouth. And when she didn't, he would go and leave the present in her ear instead. Disgusting. People can offset their disgust by, we'll provide a link to the now very famous picture of Conrad Lorenz, who won the Nobel Prize, I believe, for his discoveries about imprinting where the geese would imprint on him. It's him swimming in a lake with the trail of baby geese behind him, the goslings behind him. So that's the other type of imprinting you're talking about. That's filial imprinting. So there are two types. There's the sexual imprinting, where learn who to mate with, and there's the filial imprinting where you sort of learn who to feel safe with. And they start following that individual. Which is what dogs do with us. Actually, I would say that dogs don't imprint on humans. They grow attachment bonds to humans. What's the difference? So imprinting is typically a very fast process. It occurs within minutes or hours. Attachment takes longer and involves more senses. So imprinting tends to be, I think, visual, if I'm not mistaken, perhaps olfactory in some species. And attachment has previously mostly been studied in humans. So this bond that grows between caregiver and offspring. What's interesting also is that that attachment bond will grow in different ways depending on how the caregiver responds to the young one's needs, essentially. So you can have a secure attachment bond where the caregiver is very reliably responds to the needs of the young one. So that if they find themselves alone, they can self-regulate better. So their nervous system can more easily calm down again after a stressor than if they are insecurely attached. And so it seems that dogs form, rather than imprinting on humans, they form a type of attachment bond and they can also be securely or insecurely attached to their persons."

Neutering removes hormonal behavior activation

Removing testes eliminates the activating effects of hormones on behavior, but dogs can still have a full quality of life.

"By removing his testes, he would not experience the activating effects of hormones. He had a great life. He was a wonderful dog."

Oxalates bind minerals and form sharp crystals

Unlike other plant toxins, oxalates physically bind calcium to form razor-sharp crystals that accumulate in joints, muscles, and kidneys.

"I'm going to give you science-backed strategies to reduce your oxalate load without actually causing more problems than not."

Mental illness risk spikes during adolescence

Dr. Hardin studies how genes interact with hormones and life events during adolescence to shape mental health trajectories.

"When does mental illness emerge, when does risk really start to increase? It's in adolescence."

Puberty timing shapes diverging life trajectories

Secondary sex characteristics emerge at very different rates, creating widely divergent paths into adulthood.

"By the time people finish their teenage years, they begin adulthood on such different life trajectories."

Addiction genes overlap with impulsivity and violence

Genes predicting addiction also predict conduct disorder, active mainly during fetal brain wiring in the 2nd-3rd trimester.

"So what we found is that there's many, many, many genes that affect all of these behaviors. It's massively what we call polygenic. So it's not just one thing in one part of your genome. It's distributed throughout your genome."

Every child is produced, not reproduced

Even siblings with the same parents show vastly different personalities and risk profiles due to genetic recombination.

"Reproduce is something that lulls parents into thinking they're copying themselves, but every child is produced."

Pathology in boys often manifests as aggression

Mental health problems in boys tend to express outwardly as aggression and violence.

"Pathology as expressed in boys always seems to come out as aggressive violence."

Brains reward seeing wrongdoers punished

People get a dopamine-driven reward from seeing wrongdoers suffer, making genuine forgiveness culturally difficult.

"There is a reward that we can see in the brains of people when they see someone suffer if that person is first portrayed as a wrongdoer. So ordinarily, if you see someone be shocked, you have interior insula. It's like you're being shocked too. Unless that person is first portrayed as violating some moral or social norm, in which case, I think that it is a lust just as much as lust for substances or lust for sexual partners. It is a desire. People want to see people punished. Nietzsche was an amazing observer of human nature before there was a scientific psychology, and he wrote about how why do we use minds."