Hi,

I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sussex studying "How Dogs Hear Us", a BBSRC funded project.

One of the aims of our research is to find out how old puppies are when they first start recognising their owner's voice compared to other people's voices, and start learning meaningful words, like "puppy", as opposed to just fun tones of voice.

The tests are simple. We record the breeder's voice reading a passage of text and saying "puppy puppy puppy" in a happy, excited voice or a normal one, and then we play with the sounds. The puppies are then positioned in front of a video camera and we record what they do when they hear the sounds. We repeat weekly to see how their responses change with age. None of it should be scary or distressing to the puppies and we have had our ethics application approved by the University of Sussex Animal Welfare Ethics Review Board. So far, many of the puppies have treated it as a rather fun game as we play with and pet them between the tests, each of which lasts less than 15 seconds.

We're currently looking for breeders in the South-East who would be happy to participate in our study. The only limit is that they need to be within a 2-hour drive from Brighton. We've had great success before with a number of breeders, and the puppies rather enjoyed the tests. The commitment is a 1.5 hour visit a week from when the puppies are 3 weeks old until they leave for their new homes or reach 12 weeks of age. The appointments are at the breeders' convenience and can be shorter than 90 mins if there are fewer than 6 puppies.

If you are interested or know someone who is and expect to have puppies in the next six months, please contact me here or at hr236@sussex.ac.uk and we can discuss how to participate! Thank you.

Dr Holly Root-Gutteridge, Reby Lab, University of Sussex

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