Canine behavioral disorders, such as various forms of fear and anxiety, are a major threat for the wellbeing of dogs and their owners. They are also the main cause for dog abandonment and relinquishment to...
Judgement bias paradigms are increasingly being used as a measure of affective state in dogs. Approach to an ambiguous stimulus is commonly used as a measure of affect, however, this may also be influenced by...
Dogs in shelters are faced with the challenge of adapting to a kennel after relinquishment and to a novel home after adoption. To measure adaptability of dogs, more feasible behavioural and physiological parameters need to...
Human interaction is one of the most consistently effective interventions that can improve the welfare of shelter-living dogs. Time out of the kennel with a person has been shown to reduce physiological measures of stress...
The judgement bias test represents one of the most applied tools to evaluate animals’ optimistic/pessimistic attitude and to infer their emotional and welfare state accordingly. The judgement bias test (JBT) has been used several times...
Facial expressions potentially serve as indicators of animal emotions if they are consistently present across situations that (likely) elicit the same emotional state. In a previous study, we used the Dog Facial Action Coding System...
Social buffering of stress refers to the effect of a social partner in reducing the cortisol or corticosterone response to a stressor. It has been well studied in mammals, particularly those that form pair bonds...
In general, codes that have been designed to safeguard the welfare of animals emphasize the importance of providing an environment that will ensure good health and a normal physiological and physical state, that is, they...
The terms short-term, temporary, and transitional are related but can have different contexts and meanings for animal husbandry. The definitions and use of these terms can be pivotal to animal housing and welfare. We conducted...