A new Netflix documentary titled, “Inside the Mind of the Dog” that explores the psychology and personality of pets features a Penn Vet program, writes Kristin Hunt for PhillyVoice.

Staff at the Penn Vet Working Dog Center are among several experts that talk about what makes dog tick throughout the documentary.

The Working Dog Center differs from ordinary veterinary clinics. Cynthia Otto, who founded the University of Pennsylvania program in 2012, was inspired by the search-and-rescue dogs deployed during 9/11.

The program researches and trains scent detection dogs, as Otto and her colleagues aim to test and develop science-backed methods of training dogs for these tasks.

“We realized that there was no science to really support these amazing dogs that were doing the search-and-rescue work,” Otto says in the documentary. “We needed a program that we could research the dogs, we could understand the dogs and improve the health, the well-being, the welfare of these dogs. And the availability, because there weren’t enough of these search-and-rescue dogs to do the jobs that we’re asking for them.”

The documentary provides viewers a peek at the Working Dog Center’s training exercises.

Read more about Penn Vet’s Working Dog Center and the new Netflix documentary in PhillyVoice.

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