Short Synopsis: Creatine/cortisol ratios are useful for measuring acute stress in dogs. Researchers wanted to see how habituation to an environment could reduce acute stress for dogs in a kennel environment. They took 31 1-year-old male Labrador Retrievers and habituated half of them to a kennel environment. This was a long, careful process of introducing young puppies to crates and eventually …
Aggressive behavior in adopted dogs that passed a temperament test
Title: Aggressive behavior in adopted dogs that passed a temperament test Short Synopsis: Temperament testing done by shelters cannot reliably illustrate aggressive tendencies that dogs exhibit in the home. This is likely due to situations that are not mimicked on temperament testing that occurs in the home motivating territorial and predatory aggression. Authors: E Christensen, J Scarlett, M Campagna, K …
Relationship between aggressive and avoidance behaviour by dogs and their experience in the first six months of life
Short Synopsis: The researchers looked at the histories of dogs who came to a vet for problems with fear or aggression. The researchers excluded any dogs whose histories before the age of 6 months were unknown, because the goal was to see how early life experiences and behavioral problems were related. The dogs were divided along 3 main criteria: Those raised …
Clicker training increases exploratory behaviour and time spent at the front of the enclosure in shelter cats; Implications for welfare and adoption rates
Short Synopsis: Quote from the abstract: “Twelve cats were clicker trained over two weeks their behaviour and response to humans was recorded before and after the training schedule. Cats showed significantly more exploratory behaviour, a decrease in inactivity and spent more time at the front of their enclosures after training. Four of the cats which failed the human approach test initially, …