Puberteit bij honden

[Laboriginals]

Het onderzoek naar de puberteit bij honden staat nog in de kinderschoenen. Uit de weinige studies die er zijn, lijkt de puberteit naar voren te komen als een andere belangrijke gevoelige fase voor het ontwikkelen van gedrag, naast de neonatale fase en de alom bekend socialisatiefase bij pups. Er zijn aanwijzingen dat een gebrekkige socialisatie in de puppytijd nog kan worden beïnvloed in de puberteit, hoewel die absoluut niet de puppysocialisatie kan vervangen.
Er zal nog veel meer onderzoek nodig zijn om hier het fijne van te weten te komen.

Hier is een deel uit een artikel, ik heb alleen het deel over honden gekopieerd:

" Writing about the implications for dogs, Riemer et al (2014) say, “… a major reorganisation of the central nervous system occurs during puberty, and there is growing evidence that adolescence can be considered as an additional sensitive period (beyond the prenatal and early postnatal periods), with profound effects on future behaviour (reviewed in Sachser et al 2013). There is evidence that steroid-dependent adolescent brain and behavioural development can be modified by social experience. Thus, experiences after the first sensitive period of socialisation, and in particular during adolescence, will also play an important role in determining the adult animal's behaviour.”

This is good news for poorly socialized adolescent dogs, as it means there is still an important window of opportunity in which to improve their behaviour. This is an age at which many dogs are surrendered to rescue organizations because they are no longer cute puppies and their increased size means their behaviour has become problematic. A better understanding of development during this stage would therefore benefit many dogs.

So does this research mean we don’t need to worry about puppy socialization anymore? Absolutely not! This is the most important time for ensuring your puppy will grow up to be a calm, friendly adult dog. (...).

However, if you have an adolescent dog that hasn’t been socialized, it means it would be a good idea to build positive socialization experiences into their training plan.

The potential for change during adolescence is necessary, they argue, because sometimes there will be a mismatch between the conditions in which the offspring is born and experiences very early life, and the environment in which it matures. In particular, they suggest future studies should examine the effects of this kind of mismatch, in order to find out more about this stage of development.

Not enough is known about canine development, and more research is needed to confirm the biological and behavioural changes that take place during adolescence. We look forward to learning more about this important stage of development."

Bron: http://www.companionanimalpsychology.co ... hance.html

Hanneke