Subject: New Book on Working Dogs From: Deak Helton Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:33:29 +1200 To: Applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca Dear folks, I thought you may be interested in a new book coming out soon on working dogs: "Canine Ergonomics: The Science of Working Dogs". The amazon cite for the new book is: http://www.amazon.com/Canine-Ergonomics-Science-Working-Dogs/dp/14200799 13/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239929304&sr=8-1 Take care, Deak William "Deak" Helton, Ph.D. University of Canterbury Subject: mcironutrients for treating aggression in farm animals From: lihaug@aol.com Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:16:32 -0400 To: avsabe@yahoo.com, applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca Does anyone have references to studies t using micronutrients (vitamins and/or minerals) to treat aggression in farm animals? Lore I. Haug, DVM, MS, DACVB, CPDT, CABC Texas Veterinary Behavior Services 2627 Cordes Dr. Sugar Land, TX 77479 281-980-3737 281-313-1849 fax www.texasvetbehavior.com LIhaug@aol.com APDT #692, IAABC Check all of your email inboxes from anywhere on the web. Try the new Email Toolbar now! Subject: Re: mcironutrients for treating aggression in farm animals From: Janice Willard Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2009 12:23:10 -0600 To: lihaug@aol.com, applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca Hi Lore, Interesting question. My answer is not in the form of references but from personal experience. I have been trying for several years to get ahead of a micronutrient deficiency (selenium and copper) that is on my farm and affecting the health of my animals (sheep, goats and llamas). I have seen overt and subtle health consequences of this deficiency, but not anything that I have identified as behavioral. Perhaps I haven't looked closely enough. Differences in "reactivity" that I have seen in my herds and others around here seem to be more due to genetics and breed differences (for example, the primitive sheep breeds are a lot more reactive, in my experience). But I could see that some micronutrient deficiencies could make an animal more irritable and reactive and thus ramp up the normal level of interspecific competitive behaviors. Can you be a bit more specific about the kind of aggression you are interested in? I see a lot of behaviors in my herd/flock that are competitive in nature and involve aggressing on another animal but that I consider within the realm of normal. In breeding season, rams will butt heads. After lambing or kidding, my border collie can get nowhere near a mom and new baby without being attacked by the mom. A new mom who is having a baby that isn't hers (either with fostering or with mis-mothering where she failed to bond with one of her own babies) trying to nurse from her will aggressively butt and kick at the baby when it tries to access her udder. She can easily severely injure or kill the offending kid or lamb (I have a pair I am attempting to foster right now and mom has to be restrained 24/7 to protect the youngster--hope she comes around to accepting him soon). (In fact, even though this situation involves a lot of aggressive behavior directed at the fosterling, I hesitate to call this aggression abnormal because the mom is just doing what she evolved to do--protect her milk resources for only the babies she identifies as hers). Goats will clash over territory, access to feed bunkers and sometimes will pick a goat they don't tolerate well in their group (I have a pet Nubian who lives with the sheep for this reason). But, while these behaviors involve aggression (on rare occasions, even injury and death), I consider them to be within the normal range of social behaviors you see in a herd/flock situation. I am wondering how one would determine when one has stepped over the line between normal competitive behavior to an abnormal level of aggressiveness? Certainly group dynamics and space considerations are strongly correlated with level of aggressing that animals in a group will do. Good livestock managers will routinely be doing a number of management changes to limit this, like separating the bully from the bullied or not introducing a new ram during breeding season (and if you have to bring in a new ram in breeding season, introduce them in a small pen so that this will limit the amount of damage they can do to each other--this way they can only push and shove, not get running momentum behind their butting). A particularly dangerous situation occurs when a young ruminant is bottle-fed and becomes bonded to humans as a baby and then grows up to be an intact breeding male. These males will direct interspecific competitive behavior toward humans, sometimes with deadly consequences. Savvy livestock operators know to keep hand's off any animal you plan to leave the testicles on. So, it is an interesting question to ponder, but I am wondering if you would be willing to be more specific about what kind of aggression you are interested in? Janice Janice Willard, DVM, MS Moscow, Idaho, USA ----- Original Message ----- From: lihaug@aol.com To: avsabe@yahoo.com ; applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 9:16 AM Subject: mcironutrients for treating aggression in farm animals Does anyone have references to studies t using micronutrients (vitamins and/or minerals) to treat aggression in farm animals? Lore I. Haug, DVM, MS, DACVB, CPDT, CABC Texas Veterinary Behavior Services 2627 Cordes Dr. Sugar Land, TX 77479 281-980-3737 281-313-1849 fax www.texasvetbehavior.com LIhaug@aol.com APDT #692, IAABC Check all of your email inboxes from anywhere on the web. Try the new Email Toolbar now! No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.287 / Virus Database: 270.11.59/2064 - Release Date: 04/17/09 07:08:00 Subject: Inter-Specific Bonding From: "Jay R. Feierman" Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:52:22 -0600 To: human-ethology@yahoogroups.com CC: applied-ethology@usask.ca Go to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/human-ethology/files/Short%20Videos/ Subject: 2009 ISAZ/HAI conferences From: "Martin, Francois" Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:28:33 -0700 To: "avsabe@yahoo.com" , "applied-ethology@sask.usask.ca" The following conferences may be of interest to some members of this list. http://rechai.missouri.edu/isaz_hai09.htm Subject: Stimulus Discrimination by Horses Under Scotopic Conditions From: "Jay R. Feierman" Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:02:18 -0600 To: human-ethology@yahoogroups.com CC: applied-ethology@usask.ca Behavioural Processes Article in Press, Accepted Manuscript - Note to users Stimulus Discrimination by Horses Under Scotopic Conditions Purchase the full-text article References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article. Evelyn B. HanggiCorresponding Author Contact Information, a, E-mail The Corresponding Author, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Jerry F. Ingersolla aEquine Research Foundation, P.O. Box 1900, Aptos, CA 95001 USA Received 23 February 2009; revised 2 April 2009; accepted 10 April 2009. Available online 21 April 2009. Abstract Scotopic vision in horses (Equus caballus) was investigated using behavioral measurements for the first time. Four horses were tested for the ability to make simple visual discriminations of geometric figures (circles and triangles) under various brightness levels within an enclosed building. Measurements of brightness ranging from 10.37 to 24.12 magnitudes per square arcsecond (mag/arcsec2; in candelas per square meter - 7.70 to 2.43E-05 cd/m2) were taken using a Sky Quality Meter. These values approximated outdoor conditions ranging from twilight in open country to a dark moonless night in dense forest. The horses were able to solve the discrimination problems in all brightness settings up to 23.77 mag/arcsec2 (3.35E-05 cd/m2). Moreover, they easily navigated their way around obstacles located within the testing area in extremely dim light (greater than 23.50 mag/arcsec2; 4.30E-05 cd/m2), which were in conditions too dark for the human experimenters to see. These findings support physiological data that reveal a rod-dominated visual system as well as observations of equine activity at night. Keywords: Discrimination learning; Equine; Horse; Night vision; Scotopic vision Corresponding Author Contact InformationCorresponding author. Tel.: +1 831 662 9577; fax: +1 831 662 9575. Note to users: The section "Articles in Press" contains peer reviewed accepted articles to be published in this journal. When the final article is assigned to an issue of the journal, the "Article in Press" version will be removed from this section and will appear in the associated published journal issue. The date it was first made available online will be carried over. Please be aware that although "Articles in Press" do not have all bibliographic details available yet, they can already be cited using the year of online publication and the DOI as follows: Author(s), Article Title, Journal (Year), DOI. Please consult the journal's reference style for the exact appearance of these elements, abbreviation of journal names and the use of punctuation. There are three types of "Articles in Press": * Accepted manuscripts: these are articles that have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication by the Editorial Board. The articles have not yet been copy edited and/or formatted in the journal house style. * Uncorrected proofs: these are copy edited and formatted articles that are not yet finalized and that will be corrected by the authors. Therefore the text could change before final publication. * Corrected proofs: these are articles containing the authors' corrections and may, or may not yet have specific issue and page numbers assigned. To join the Yahoo Human Ethology Group, go to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/human-ethology/