Willing but Unable: Moral Distress and Burnout in Italian Veterinarians Working with Companion and Farm Animals.

Veterinarians face ethical challenges during their careers, but despite evidence of work-related stress and burnout in veterinarians, moral distress has been poorly investigated. Using an online survey, professional experience, moral distress, and burnout were investigated in 704 Italian veterinarians caring for companion animals, farm animals, or both. The reliability of the moral distress questionnaire was optimal, and Factor analysis identified four factors for moral distress: I.

When the owner does not know: comparing puppies and adult dogs' showing behavior.

Domestic dogs have been shown to engage in interspecific communication with their owners using a flexible repertoire of signals (i.e., gaze, vocalizations, and postures).

Flat-Faced or Non-Flat-Faced Cats? That Is the Question.

Persian and exotic shorthair cats are the most-popular brachycephalic breeds worldwide. This study aimed to explore differences in human-cat bonding, behavioural traits, perception of clinical breed-related problems, and the motivation for purchasing between brachycephalic cat owners (BCOs) and non-brachycephalic cat owners (NBCOs). Using an online questionnaire, human-cat bonding and cats' behavioural traits were explored using the CORS and Fe-BARQ scales, respectively.

The Complexity of the Human-Animal Bond: Empathy, Attachment and Anthropomorphism in Human-Animal Relationships and Animal Hoarding.

The human-animal relationship is ancient, complex and multifaceted. It may have either positive effects on humans and animals or poor or even negative and detrimental effects on animals or both humans and animals. A large body of literature has investigated the beneficial effects of this relationship in which both human and animals appear to gain physical and psychological benefits from living together in a reciprocated interaction.

Humans and Goats: Improving Knowledge for a Better Relationship.

There is consensus that the quality of the human-animal relationship (HAR) is relevant to guarantee appropriate levels of animal welfare. Given the impact that HAR may have on both goats and human beings, the aim of the present review is to elucidate: (1) how humans and goats communicate; (2) which are the factors affecting human-goat interactions; (3) how we can measure the quality of this relationship. The systematic review led to the selection of 58 relevant articles.

What's in a Meow? A Study on Human Classification and Interpretation of Domestic Cat Vocalizations.

Although the domestic cat () is probably the most widespread companion animal in the world and interacts in a complex and multifaceted way with humans, the human-cat relationship and reciprocal communication have received far less attention compared, for example, to the human-dog relationship. Only a limited number of studies have considered what people understand of cats' human-directed vocal signals during daily cat-owner interactions. The aim of the current study was to investigate to what extent adult humans recognize cat vocalizations, namely meows, emitted in three different contexts: waiting for food, isolation, and brushing.

Food quantity discrimination in puppies (Canis lupus familiaris).

There is considerable evidence that animals are able to discriminate between quantities. Despite the fact that quantitative skills have been extensively studied in adult individuals, research on their development in early life is restricted to a limited number of species. We, therefore, investigated whether 2-month-old puppies could spontaneously discriminate between different quantities of food items.

Wolf-like or dog-like? A comparison of gazing behaviour across three dog breeds tested in their familiar environments.

Human-directed gazing, a keystone in dog-human communication, has been suggested to derive from both domestication and breed selection. The influence of genetic similarity to wolves and selective pressures on human-directed gazing is still under debate. Here, we used the 'unsolvable task' to compare Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs (CWDs, a close-to-wolf breed), German Shepherd Dogs (GSDs) and Labrador Retrievers (LRs).

Automatic Classification of Cat VocalizationsEmitted in Different Contexts.

Cats employ vocalizations for communicating information, thus their sounds can carry a widerange of meanings. Concerning vocalization, an aspect of increasing relevance directly connected withthe welfare of such animals is its emotional interpretation and the recognition of the production context.To this end, this work presents a proof of concept facilitating the automatic analysis of cat vocalizationsbased on signal processing and pattern recognition techniques, aimed at demonstrating if the emissioncontext can be identified by meowing vocalizations, even if recorded in sub-optimal conditions.

Effects of breed group and development on dogs' willingness to follow a human misleading advice.

The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of dog breed groups, i.e., primitive, hunting/herding and Mastiff like (Study 1) and development, i.

Pet dogs' behavior when the owner and an unfamiliar person attend to a faux rival.

While dog owners ascribe different emotions to their pets, including jealousy, research on secondary emotions in nonhuman animals is very limited and, so far, only one study has investigated jealousy in dogs (Canis familiaris). This work explores jealousy in dogs one step further. We conducted two studies adapting a procedure devised to assess jealousy in human infants.

Breed, sex, and litter effects in 2-month old puppies' behaviour in a standardised open-field test.

A considerable number of studies have reported differences among dog breeds with respect to their genetic profile, cognitive abilities or personality traits. Each dog breed is normally treated as a homogeneous group, however, researchers have recently questioned whether the behavioural profile of modern breeds still reflects their historical function or if the intense divergent selective pressures and geographical barriers have created a more fragmented picture. The majority of studies attempting to assess and compare modern breeds' personality focused on the evaluation of adult dogs where the potential effects of environmental/human factors on the dogs' behaviour are hard to discern from their genetic heritage.

The importance of gestural communication: a study of human-dog communication using incongruent information.

We assessed how water rescue dogs, which were equally accustomed to respond to gestural and verbal requests, weighted gestural versus verbal information when asked by their owner to perform an action. Dogs were asked to perform four different actions ("sit", "lie down", "stay", "come") providing them with a single source of information (in Phase 1, gestural, and in Phase 2, verbal) or with incongruent information (in Phase 3, gestural and verbal commands referred to two different actions). In Phases 1 and 2, we recorded the frequency of correct responses as 0 or 1, whereas in Phase 3, we computed a 'preference index' (percentage of gestural commands followed over the total commands responded).

How good is this food? A study on dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event using infrared thermography.

Understanding how animals express positive emotions is becoming an interesting and promising area of research in the study of animal emotions and affective experiences. In the present study, we used infrared thermography in combination with behavioral measures, heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), to investigate dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event: receiving palatable food from the owner. Nineteen adult pet dogs, 8 females and 11 males, were tested and their eye temperature, HR, HRV and behavior were recorded during a 30-minutestestconsisting of three 10-minute consecutive phases: Baseline (Phase 1), positive stimulation through the administration of palatable treats (Feeding, Phase 2) and Post-feeding condition following the positive stimulation (Phase 3).

Guide dogs as a model for investigating the effect of life experience and training on gazing behaviour.

The present study aimed at evaluating possible behavioural differences between guide dogs living in a kennel and interacting with a trainer and those living in a house and interacting with a blind person and their family, when they are faced with an unsolvable task. Fifty-two Labrador retrievers were tested: 13 Trained Guide dogs at the end of their training programme and 11 Working Guide dogs that had been living with their blind owner for at least 1 year. Two control groups of Labrador retrievers were also tested: 14 Young Untrained dogs of the same age as the Trained Guide and 14 Old Untrained dogs of the same age as the Working Guide dogs.

Gazing toward humans: a study on water rescue dogs using the impossible task paradigm.

Various studies have assessed the role of life experiences, including learning opportunities, living conditions and the quality of dog-human relationships, in the use of human cues and problem-solving ability. The current study investigates how and to what extent training affects the behaviour of dogs and the communication of dogs with humans by comparing dogs trained for a water rescue service and untrained pet dogs in the impossible task paradigm. Twenty-three certified water rescue dogs (the water rescue group) and 17 dogs with no training experience (the untrained group) were tested using a modified version of the impossible task described by Marshall-Pescini et al.

Do domestic dogs understand human actions as goal-directed?

Understanding of other's actions as goal-directed is considered a fundamental ability underlying cognitive and social development in human infants. A number of studies using the habituation-dishabituation paradigm have shown that the ability to discern intentional relations, in terms of goal-directedness of an action towards an object, appears around 5 months of age. The question of whether non-human species can perceive other's actions as goal-directed has been more controversial, however there is mounting evidence that at least some primates species do.

Dogs' social referencing towards owners and strangers.

Social referencing is a process whereby an individual uses the emotional information provided by an informant about a novel object/stimulus to guide his/her own future behaviour towards it. In this study adult dogs were tested in a social referencing paradigm involving a potentially scary object with either their owner or a stranger acting as the informant and delivering either a positive or negative emotional message. The aim was to evaluate the influence of the informant's identity on the dogs' referential looking behaviour and behavioural regulation when the message was delivered using only vocal and facial emotional expressions.

Do dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) make counterproductive choices because they are sensitive to human ostensive cues?

Dogs appear to be sensitive to human ostensive communicative cues in a variety of situations, however there is still a measure of controversy as to the way in which these cues influence human-dog interactions. There is evidence for instance that dogs can be led into making evaluation errors in a quantity discrimination task, for example losing their preference for a larger food quantity if a human shows a preference for a smaller one, yet there is, so far, no explanation for this phenomenon. Using a modified version of this task, in the current study we investigated whether non-social, social or communicative cues (alone or in combination) cause dogs to go against their preference for the larger food quantity.

Agility and search and rescue training differently affects pet dogs' behaviour in socio-cognitive tasks.

Both genetic factors and life experiences appear to be important in shaping dogs' responses in a test situation. One potentially highly relevant life experience may be the dog's training history, however few studies have investigated this aspect so far. This paper briefly reviews studies focusing on the effects of training on dogs' performance in cognitive tasks, and presents new, preliminary evidence on trained and untrained pet dogs' performance in an 'unsolvable task'.

Does training make you smarter? The effects of training on dogs' performance (Canis familiaris) in a problem solving task.

This study investigates the influence of training experiences on dogs' performance in a problem solving task, namely opening a box to obtain food. One hundred and eighteen dogs allocated to two different groups according to their training experience (no/basic training vs high level training) were tested. In each group the dogs saw the researcher manipulating either the paw-pad or the lid, prior to being allowed free access to the apparatus.

Behavioral and physiological responses of guide dogs to a situation of emotional distress.

The aim of this study was to analyze the behavioral and physiological reactions of guide dogs in a distressing situation which promotes attachment behaviors towards their blind owners, and to compare such reactions with those of untrained or trainee dogs. The subjects were 57 adult Labrador and Golden retriever dogs (14 males, 43 females) belonging to four different groups: 19 Custody dogs, 13 Apprentice dogs, 10 Guide dogs and 15 Pet dogs. Dogs were tested using the Strange Situation Test, consisting in seven 3-minute episodes in which the dogs were placed in an unfamiliar environment, introduced to an unfamiliar woman and subjected to separation from their human companion.

Social learning in pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and adult humans (Homo sapiens) on a two-action artificial fruit.

An artificial fruit (AF) was used to test for social learning in pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and adult humans (Homo sapiens). A monkey demonstrator opened the AF, showing alternative methods to 2 groups of cage mates. Video films of the monkey demonstrations were presented to adult humans.

Testing for localized stimulus enhancement and object movement reenactment in pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and young children (Homo sapiens).

Four puzzle boxes were used to investigate localized stimulus enhancement and object movement reenactment (OMR) in 13 pig-tailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and 30 human infants (Homo sapiens). Participants received contrasting demonstrations on each box. A circular lid was gripped by its rim or handle and swiveled to the left or right.