Zoonoses, biting incidents, hereditary problems, and other issues can threaten the welfare of both humans and dogs. The Dutch government and animal welfare organizations seem to have little effect in their campaigns to influence the behavior of (potential) dog keepers, who can experience dissonance when faced with these campaigns and use coping strategies to relieve the dissonance instead of changing their behavior. In this study, in focus group discussions, dog keepers with pedigree dogs, high-risk dogs, foreign shelter dogs, and dogs purchased at puppy farms shared their experiences with opinions on dogs and were confronted with negative opinions on their dogs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Dutch animal welfare law includes so-called principle-based standards. This means that the objective is described in abstract terms, enabling farmers to comply with the law in their own way. Principle-based standards are, however, difficult for the inspection agency to enforce because strict limits are missing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs part of an evaluation of Dutch breed specific legislation, data were collected from dog bite victims (1078) and dog owners (6139) using Internet surveys. The incidence rate of dog bites and details of incidents (victims, injuries, circumstances and aggressors) are reported and the justification for using breed specific measurements to deal with dog bites are considered. For aggressors, attack records for breed groups and popular breeds were established by calculating breed risk indices using a reference population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrenatal stress has been shown to program responsiveness of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA-axis) and behavior in offspring. In pig husbandry, sows are exposed to stressful conditions during gestation. Previously, cortisol treatment of pregnant sows has been shown to alter stress responsiveness and immunological parameters in their piglets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral behavioural effects of prenatal stress are reported in literature, and these seem to depend, among other factors, on the gender studied and the period of gestation in which prenatal stress is applied. In the present study, oral administration of hydrocortisone-acetate (HCA) to 41 pregnant sows was used as a model for prenatal stress, since corticosteroids are considered a key mediator in the effects of prenatal stress. HCA was orally administered to pregnant sows during three periods of gestation: 21-50 (period 1, P1, n = 10), 51-80 (period 2, P2, n = 10) and 81-110 (period 3, P3, n = 10) days after insemination (term 115 days).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrenatal stress is known to affect several offspring characteristics, but its effects depend among other factors on the period of gestation in which it is applied. In the present study, oral administration of hydrocortisone-acetate (HCA) was used to elevate cortisol concentrations in pregnant sows to levels also observed after psychological stress. HCA was administered during three different periods of gestation (115 days in pigs): period 1: 21-50 (P1, n = 10), period 2: 51-80 (P2, n = 10) and period 3: 81-110 (P3, n = 10) days after insemination.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe present study examined the consistency over time of individual differences in behavioral and physiological responsiveness of calves to intuitively alarming test situations as well as the relationships between behavioral and physiological measures. Twenty Holstein Friesian heifer calves were individually subjected to the same series of two behavioral and two hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis reactivity tests at 3, 13 and 26 weeks of age. Novel environment (open field, OF) and novel object (NO) tests involved measurement of behavioral, plasma cortisol and heart rate responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To design a treatment that increases plasma corticosteroid concentrations to mimic prenatal stress in pregnant sows.
Animals: 24 pregnant sows.
Procedure: Sows were assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups; treatment consisted of twice-daily oral administration of a placebo or 20, 60, or 180 mg of hydrocortisone acetate (HCA)/sow from 7 to 11 weeks of gestation.