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| Bright spark: SPARCS founder Precott Breeden doing what I want to do right now!!! |
We've been fortunate enough to chat with US-based researcher Prescott Breeden to chat about the Society for the Promotion of Applied Research in Canine Science (SPARCS). SPARCS isn't just about good science - its about sharing knowledge. Specifically, knowledge about dogs. And that can have a massive impact on their welfare.
The story behind SPARCS is inspirational. And everyone - vets, vet students, pet owners, dog trainers, biologists, psychologists, YOU - can enjoy the benefits. In the words of canine scientist Mia Cobb, "its a bloody brilliant idea".
I'm a biologist and graduate student
at Arizona State University studying dog behavior. My research
primary interests are in ecology, evolutionary biology, emergent behavior,
behavioral neuroscience, and biophysics. [Ed - And proving that you don't need to wait to graduate to take on the world - nice work!]
How did the idea of SPARCS come about?
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| Prescott and Wotan. |
To be honest, SPARCS as it stands now
is the product of an extremely fast evolution. Initially I wanted to
host a conference in my hometown of Seattle because I was frustrated that
prominent speakers rarely made their way through my neck of the woods. Knowing
that there are others like myself who cannot afford the expenses of travel, I
decided that I would not only gather an array of prominent scientists but that
I would also broadcast the conference live. Of course, I cannot lie
that a large part of me just wanted to be a kid in a candy store and invite
brilliant scientists to come to my town so I could learn from them.
So
I sat down with my mom and laid out what I wanted to do. She
probably had no idea what I was trying to accomplish but thanks to her
generosity and support she agreed to finance our first conference and the
invitations were sent out to the speakers [Ed - what an awesome mum!]. It was actually quite
funny, as the speaker list began to fill out, one of the speakers asked me if I
planned on having security present for the panel discussions.
By the
time we reached 8 speakers, I had somehow managed to build a speaker profile
that was unheard of. Clive Wynne was massively important in this
process. Not only was he one of the first speakers to accept my
invitation, but he spent hours with me designing the programs and helping reach
out to other scientists. He was the first person I asked to
join the board of advisors and we agreed to have an equal number of
psychologists and biologists to influence the board. After all, what
good are advisors that all hold the same biases?
By this point though, I was still
calling SPARCS the “Seattle Pawsitive Association for Research in Canine
Science”. I knew I wanted to raise funds for researchers because
getting funding as a canine scientist is extraordinarily difficult. Truly,
talk to graduate students and they will tell you how even $100 for dog treats
is incredibly helpful for their research. Outside of this, it was in
Seattle and “Pawsitive” seemed like a good P word as any. I believe
it was about a month or two before the conference when my friend and mentor,
Jim Russell, said that SPARCS was becoming something truly special and
recommended the change to the Society for the Promotion of Applied Research in
Canine Science. It was the word “society” that made me realize that
SPARCS could be more than just a one-off conference but rather a new paradigm
in continuing education for everyone who passionately loves dogs and wants to
learn more about them. There are many things that inspire me about
the success of SPARCS, but one of them is without a doubt the passion shared by
these professors and researchers to want a new medium to reach out to the dog
world with. Thus the SPARCS Initiative finally took shape.
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| Global reach: This is where SPARCS online conference attendees are coming from. |
You broadcast your annual conference at no charge. This is incredibly
generous - why so?
Generally speaking, it takes about 50
years for modern science to become popular knowledge. A large reason
for this is because scientists publish in journals with expensive paywalls and
write in a language and style that is impossible of the general public to
understand. This timeline is further challenged by the woes of an
increasing internet and cable TV medium where there is no system in place for ensuring
the quality of information.
I want people to be able to tune in with
no payment gates, no membership requirements: just their computer or smart
phone and their companion beside them so that they can learn from real
scientists about what we know about dogs and what we still have yet to
learn. I want the dog-loving world to come together to a single
place to learn from the best, united by our common love for dogs and our
passion to give them the best life possible under our care.
People
want to be equipped with the most accurate and groundbreaking knowledge to
inform the way that they train and live with their dogs, but nobody should be
required to pay thousands of dollars to continue their education. I
believe that everyone in the world, whether dog owner, enthusiast, or
professional, has the right to continuing education and so SPARCS is making the
science accessible to enable this.
Can you tell us some of the hot topics in canine science at the moment?
Where to begin! Just off
the top of my head; have dogs co-evolved with humans? Are dogs
conscious and sentient beings? Are they capable of empathy and
theory of mind? Are dogs really descended from wolves? Do
dogs form social relationships and attachments like people do? Do we
have reliable means to test the temperament of dogs? What do we do
with a dog population of 1 billion dogs and growing, with 85% of those dogs not
under human reproductive control? What are the causes of increasing
bite statistics? Is it breeding? Training? Life-style? Are
there ways to increase the adoption rates of dogs in shelters?
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I’m
sure many readers will say there are incontrovertible answers to some of these
questions however the fact is that there are brilliant scientists from every
corner of the globe working day in and day out on these questions who are in
tremendous disagreements.
How can people get involved?
One of the best ways for people to
get involved is to spread the word. Last year we had over 20,000
viewers over 3 days watch from all around the world. Australia and
Iceland are not the easiest places to travel to (or out of) and so nothing
brings me greater joy than reading the emails from low-income individuals who
so rarely afforded the ability to learn from the best in canine science. Perhaps
my favorite email so far was from a veterinarian in Namibia who wanted to
travel to SPARCS. He was hoping we would have travel scholarships
for third-world countries and it broke my heart that SPARCS simply doesn’t yet
have the membership base to provide these kinds of opportunities.
The next best way to get involved is
to become a member. In only about 10 months we have already surpassed 400
members and so to all our current members who might be reading this, thank you,
it is because of you that SPARCS is heading into its second annual conference
with an even better line up of speakers than last year. All of our
videos are available online to all of our members.
In celebration of
our current content and the content we will be adding this year and in future
years, we are launching a new website in June and soon after that we will be
releasing SPARCS in French. By the end of 2014, SPARCS will be
available in both French and Spanish. The more members we gain, the
more we can reach out to non-English speaking countries and move the conference
overseas.
I want to bring SPARCS everywhere. Australia,
the UK, Europe, India, Japan, China, Russia, Africa. As the world
comes together, our resources will become less and less expensive and our ability
to give out the largest grants in canine science to graduate students will
become realized. This has untold importance because it is these
graduate students around the world that are the future of animal welfare.
Wow. That is some palpable passion there. Thanks Prescott for that incredible interview!
