Welfare & Individual Differences Flashcards
World Organisation for Animal Health (2010)
an animal has good welfare if ‘healthy, comfortable, well-nourished, safe, able to express innate behaviour and its not suffering from unpleasant states such as pain, fear and distress’
Abnormal behaviour as a welfare indicator
Vice 'injurious' stereotypies redirected behaviours sham behaviours decreased behavioural complexity altered frequencies of behaviours
Broom & Fraser (2015) stereotyped behaviour
is repeated, relatively invariant sequence of movement that has no obvious function
Horse stereotypes
pacing
weaving
wind sucking
crib biting
Dog stereotypies
tail chasing
pacing
licking
species specific
Cat stereotypies
wool sucking
licking
Rodent stereotypies
fixed running patterns
jumping
Mason (2016) abnormal repetitive behaviour
obsessive/compulsive
develops from inability to express strongly motivated behaviours
leading to channeling of behaviour into simplified forms
may be rewarding through stress relief
causes depend on example; frustration, lack of exercise, nature of feeding, social isolation
prevention/treatment depends on cause
coping mechanism may be learned helplessness
Choice tests
let the animal choose
easy can be useful but need care in design and interpretation
Problems- wrong option, history, does preference indicate necessity,
Operant conditioning
working for positive and avoiding negative reinforcement
behaviour demand functions
Personality
distinctive personal character
pattern of behavioural characteristics of an individual (Janczech et al 2003)
Temperament
distinctive individual character which determines how an individual reacts to given situations
genetic and environmental influences
traditional psychologists dislike because of anthropomorphic connotations
Manteca & Degg (1993)
as welfare relates to how individuals cope with environmental challenge
coping style
a coherent set of behavioural and psychological stress responses which is consistent over time and characteristics of the individual
Active copers
deal with an aversive situation by trying to escape or remove aversive stimulus
Passive copers
respond to aversive situations with no obvious outward signs
Temperament traits should be
stable across time
predictive in other situations
FFM
Openness Coscientiousness Extraversonn Agreeableness Neuroticism some evidence for personality traits in domestic animals
Assays of temperament
open field tests- reaction to isolated animal to novel stimuli
novel object tests
handling tests
CBARQ
quantitative scores for 14 different different scales including owner/dog/stranger directed aggression, different types of fear and excitability amongst others
Gosling & John risk of anthropomorphism
biases then not an issue
Behavioural studies in rats
coping styles reactive (slow) proactive (fast) proactive bury in sawdust reactive wait for it to go away
Physiological correlates of coping strategies
HPA activity
sympathetic activity
Emotion
an intense short lived affective responses
Qualitative Behaviour Assessment
different groups of people asked to judge the behaviour of their animals
use of subjective terms
high agreement found in the ‘way in which an animals behaves’
5 Freedoms
- freedom from hunger and thirst
- freedom from discomfort
- freedom from pain, injury, disease
- freedom to express normal behaviour
- freedom from fear and distress
Lawrence & Rushen (1993)
malfunctioning equipment or poor human management may lead to aggression, cannibalism and other types of abnormal behaviour
Blackwell et al (2013) urinary cortisol as indicator of poor welfare
in S/LT kenneled dogs
no diff
both had high levels
John & Gosling (1999) big 5 in 19 nonhuman species
ENA showed strongest cross species generality
followed by O
C only found in chimps
Bekoff (2000)
current research provides compelling evidence that at least some animals likely feel a full range of emotions including, fear, joy, happiness, shame, embarrassment, resentment, jealousy, rage, anger, love, pleasure’ and goes on to reference several studies that have found these emotions in various animals
Bekoff
emotions can be broadly defined as psychological mechanisms that help behavioural management and control
Bekoff (2000)
many researchers are of the opinion that humans cannot be the only animals that experience emotions
Svartberg & Forkman (2002) personality in dogs
• 5 narrow dimensions 1. Playfulness 2. Curiosity/fearlessness 3. Chase-proneness 4. Sociability 5. Aggressiveness • 1 broad dimension 1. Correlates positively to playfulness, interest in chase, exploration and sociability to strangers 2. Correlates negatively to avoidance 3. Does not correlate with aggressiveness
Corsin et al (2018) personality in dogs
• 5 factors 1. Sociality-obedience 2. Activity-independence 3. Novelty seeking 4. Problem orientation 5. Frustration tolerance • Good inter reliability • First test to show consistent behavioural traits related to problem solving and frustration tolerance in pet dogs
Goodloe & Borchelt (1998) companion dog temperament traits
- Playing tug of war does not associate with aggression to a family member suggesting playing tug of war does not encourage dominance aggression
- Prefers to sleep on bed with or near owner does not load onto this factor suggesting again it doesn’t encourage dominance aggression
