ABSTRACT
To examine the dog ownership factors characteristic to a population of dogs confiscated after a human and/ or animal-directed biting incident, we compared bite risk assessment reports of 159 confiscated dogs in the time frame 2008, 2009, 2010 (tf1) and of 215 confiscated dogs in the time frame 2020, 2021, 2022 (until mid-May; tf2). The reports were compiled by the same institute in a standardized format. We studied frequencies and chi-square pairwise comparisons (P<0.05) for 30 identified ownership factors. Overall (tf1 and tf2), 1,308 ownership factors were mentioned in the reports and reports mentioning ≥5 factors were twice as frequent in tf2 (38%) than tf1 (16%). Our data suggest that nine factors may in particular serve as a warning signal for biting incidents, as these factors were most frequently (≥15%) prevalent in the total of reported cases: having a multiple dog household, a dog reportedly roaming a neighbourhood without an owner, a dog's care tasks being transferred, a short leash and muzzle obligation served to the owner for a dog, an isolated and/ or confined keeping of a dog, a dog owner's (suspected) substance abuse, a dog owner's (suspected) animal abuse, a dog owner aggressing at confiscation of the dog and a dog owner being reported on for antisocial behaviours such as intimidation. Particularly, a dog owner's aggressive or antisocial behaviours and previous obligations to muzzle and short leash a dog (in our dataset often inappropriately adhered to by owners), may indicate that a proportion of owners of confiscated dogs, may not always be willing and/ or capable to guarantee societal safety. The results show that identification of dog ownership factors, might be useful for establishing biting incident policies and further studies should be done on preventive measures and controls.
Subject(s)
Antisocial Personality Disorder , Bites and Stings , Humans , Dogs , Animals , AggressionABSTRACT
Measuring physiological parameters of stress in horses during groundwork, for example when involved in equine-assisted interventions, is important to gain insight into the stress levels of the horses. Heart rate and heart rate variability can be used as physiological indicators of stress in horses. Heart rate monitors could be easily incorporated into practice, as they are not expensive and easy to use. However, it is questionable whether heart rate monitors present accurate heart rate variability results in exercising horses, similar to electrocardiograms. The aim of this study was to determine the accuracy of heart rate monitors for the assessment of heart rate variability in horses during groundwork exercise. Simultaneous telemetric electrocardiograms (Televet) and heart rate monitor (Polar H10 transmitter and M430 receiver, Hylofit electrodes) recordings were performed on 28 horses (15 mares and 13 geldings). Results indicate that the heart rate monitor accurately determined heart rate and time-domain heart rate variability parameters when compared to electrocardiograms during both baseline and groundwork conditions. As expected, heart rate significantly increased and the heart rate variability significantly decreased during groundwork compared to baseline conditions. This indicates that the heart rate monitor can be used to accurately determine heart rate variability during groundwork.
ABSTRACT
Chronic stress causes insensitivity to rewards (anhedonia) in rats, reflected by the absence of anticipatory behavior for a sucrose-reward, which can be reversed by antidepressant treatment or repeated announced transfer to an enriched cage. It was, however, not clear whether the highly rewarding properties of the enriched cage alone caused this reversal or whether the anticipation of this reward as such had an additional effect. Therefore, the present study compared the consequences of the announcement of a reward to the mere effect of a reward alone with respect to their efficacy to counteract the consequences of chronic stress. Two forms of synaptic plasticity, long-term potentiation and long-term depression were investigated in area CA1 of the hippocampus. This was done in socially stressed rats (induced by defeat and subsequent long-term individual housing), socially stressed rats that received a reward (short-term enriched housing) and socially stressed rats to which this reward was announced by means of a stimulus that was repeatedly paired to the reward. The results were compared to corresponding control rats. We show that announcement of enriched housing appeared to have had an additional effect compared to the enriched housing per se as indicated by a significant higher amount of LTP. In conclusion, announced short-term enriched housing has a high and long-lasting counteracting efficacy on stress-induced alterations of hippocampal synaptic plasticity. This information is important for counteracting the consequences of chronic stress in both human and captive rats.
