Jana Kottferová

University of Veterinary Medicine in Košice · Institute of Applied Ethology and Professional Ethics

Dog breeds are grouped based on scientific agreement, whether for traditional reasons or specific tasks during their domestication. Discrepancies may occur between public views of breed behaviour and actual evidence. This research aims to investigate differences in five behavioural traits (aggression towards people, aggression towards animals, fear...

Pet hedgehogs, which are increasingly favoured companions, have garnered attention due to their potential as carriers of zoonotic diseases. These small insectivorous mammals, native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, are commonly kept as pets. The encroachment of humans into hedgehog habitats has brought these animals closer to people, raising concerns a...

Veterinarians stand in many contradictory positions, such as moral and ethical representatives of animals and their welfare and the clinic owner, which makes income for them and their families. The article will look at factors in decision-making significantly impacting veterinary professionals' mental health. Distress is caused by high societal pre...

Intraspecific social interactions in domestic cats are often categorised as affiliative or agonistic. However, public or professional assessment of encounters can have difficulty distinguishing rough-and-tumble play from true agonism. One possible issue is the potential occurrence of elements of both, play and agonism, within inter-cat play, for ex...

Fungal skin diseases are well-recognized diseases with public health implications. The study provides a comprehensive overview and aims to determine the rate of positive fungal cultures to identify the most common fungal species in guinea pigs and rabbits and to determine the rate of asymptomatic carriers in healthy pet animals. This knowledge is e...

Dogs exhibit behavioural heterogeneity as a result of their close proximity to people as pets, working animals, or research animals. This variability stems from their natural talents as well as contextual effects. This document examines the several types of dog behavioural tests, including those that are used to evaluate dogs and others that are us...

The determination of cortisol concentrations in animal hair appears to be a relatively simple and non-invasive method of assessing chronic stress.This method has advantages but it also has some drawbacks. We discovered that there are specific coat properties and individual factors in animlas that can affect corisol levels and skew the interpretatio...

With a growing number of dogs abandoned, living in shelters, and being rehomed, it is important to distinguish behavioural responses due to stress in our domestic companions. Cortisol is involved in the stress responses in animals which generally enters the individual’s body into a “state of emergency”. Prolonged stress can lead to exhaustion, dise...

To assess stress in horses, a method of monitoring eye blinks (full and half) and eyelid twitches while collecting saliva and blood samples before and after annual intensive police training was carried out. This noninvasive monitoring method was used to determine whether blood collection, which is considered invasive, is more stressful for horses t...

This paper presents a clinical case report of a golden eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos ) with foreign bodies (stones) in its proventriculus. The case deals with the identification, management and removal of foreign objects identified in the gastrointestinal tract. A surgical removal by proventriculotomy under general anaesthesia was attempted. The surger...

Play in domestic cats has been largely studied using a contextual approach, i.e., with a focus on what the cat is playing with, such as an object, itself or another cat. Such classification may be superficially attractive scientifically but it limits the ability to investigate function. We propose consideration of a psychobiological approach, which...

Every year, police horses undergo police training focused on passing difficult obstacles, during which their physical and mental abilities are tested. Using a method of eye movement monitoring, specifically eye blinking and eyelid twitching, we estimated if the training of horses was stressful. The results we found suggested that the training itsel...

Long-term tethering of dogs, or their keeping under unsuitable conditions can result in issues related to changes in their behavior as they may not satisfy their basic needs of life. These needs are discussed in this paper, along with cases when dogs unnecessarily have to endure cruelty and pain. The unavoidable tethering of a dog must not cause tr...

The aim of the study was to investigate the key factors influencing the successful adoption of dogs from dog shelters in Slovakia. The study covered the following factors in relation to individual dogs: time spent at the shelter, age, body weight, sex, coat color, length of the coat, and behavior (specifically intraspecific aggression, aggression t...

Using a popular method of behaviour evaluation which rates the intensity of behaviour in different contexts, we demonstrate how pooling item scores relating to a given construct can reveal different potential risk factors for the dependent variable depending on how the total score is constructed. We highlight how similar simple total scores can be...

The symmetry of social play in Canids has been previously studied, especially in wolves, free-ranging dogs, and within mixed-aged groups, however our study focused on symmetry and asymmetry within play interactions in two litters (14 puppies) of German Shepherd dogs (GSDs). At the age of 7 weeks, we evaluated 1287 dyadic interactions (litter 1: n =...

These proceedings contain oral and poster presentations from various experts on animal behaviour and animal welfare in veterinary medicine presented at the conference.

Cortisol, which is produced in the adrenal glands, is an endogenous glucocorticoid hormone that delivers its hormonal message to cells by acting on glucocorticoid receptors. It is one of the main stress hormones responsible for stress responses in animals and humans, and its overproduction is characteristic of certain diseases. While acute stress d...

The aim of the study was to compare and evaluate the welfare of cows kept on two conventional and two organic farms using Animal Needs Index (ANI) system. The system is rapid and easy to use. Its most important advantage is that it provides a final score and thus allows one to rate the evaluated object on a scale reflecting the level of welfare on...

A questionnaire is an integral component of methods determining the temperaments of dogs. From the range of questionnaires used for evaluation of a dog's temperament, we selected C-BARQ. This particular type of questionnaire allowed us to determine the degree of agreement of evaluations of the same dog by individual members of one household. The ev...

The aim of this study was to assess the influence of various stimuli that confound interpretation of assessed indicators of horse welfare during rest and working period by the use of non-invasive methods of sampling. In total, 40 horses of different breeds and used for different purposes in Slovakia were used. The following indicators were tested:...

Effect of group composition on agonistic behavior and performance of newly mixed weaned pigs Summary The objective of the present study was to compare the differences and regularities in social behavior of newly mixed piglets under the conditions of large-scale commercial pig production. Three methods of grouping piglets at weaning (31-34d) into a...

ABSTMCT Aggressive behaviour is a typical feature of dogs and is important in nature for survival of individuals, their integration into pack, defence of territory, food or the young. Aggression and the related manifestations in humans and animals is an important philosophical, psychosocial, ethological and ethical issue on both human and subhuman...

It was the aim of our study to investigate the effect of risk elements on biological material of bulls and dairy cows coming from the area polluted by imissions. It was found out that in the examined organs of beef cattle, in dairy cows Cd, Pb, Cu are being accumulated in higher amounts in kidneys. In bulls, the higher accumulation of Cd, Zn, and N...

This report presents an analysis of sexual abuse of five three-month old calves that died as a result of injury. A subsequent police investigation concluded that the animals had been sexually abused by an individual affected with zoophilia. The calves received injuries in the anogenital region resulting in fatal internal bleeding. The wounds appear...

No abstract available.

The effects of different levels of nitrite and nitrate (1,10, 50 and 100 mg·kg-1 NaNO2 or NaNO3, respectively) on Lactococcus lactis dairy culture were evaluated. Experiments with Lactococcus lactis and a nitrite additive revealed a statistically significant decrease (p ≤ 0.05) in titratable acidity only at higher nitrite concentrations (50 and 100...

The aim of the study was to obtain rabbit serum against proteins from heat-processed bovine muscle tissue. The immunogen was prepared by extracting a homogenate of beef muscle tissue and subsequent heat processing at 75, 100 and 121 o C. Electrophoretic comparison of the heat-processed and non-processed extracts revealed denaturation of almost all...

This paper presents the theoretical basis of the test of social dominance according to Campbell. The aim of the study was to draw attention to the need for an exact understanding of social behaviour of dogs during their ontogenesis. This is linked to the prediction of social dominance in adult dogs from their early ontogenesis, as well as to their...

The study dealt with ethological and psychological man-dog interactions. An effort was made to seek the correlation between physiological characteristics of men and ethological profile of dogs. The experiment included 88 people of both sexes and 88 dogs of German shepherd, Doberman, Cockerspaniel, and Boxer breeds. Significant differences were obse...

Conventional microbiological procedures are time consuming and laborious. Because of that other methods have been introduced based on detection of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) residua. They provide information about the level of sanitation within several minutes. On the basis of the above mentioned, we focused our study on validation of the method...

Summary Investigations were carried out to observe predetermined forms of social behavior in pigs affected by environmental space restriction. Pens of floor area 3.6 m 2 , 6.8 m 2 , and 29 m 2 were used in the study. The experimental programme included 150 piglets from 15 litters with their mothers (10 piglets in one litter). In each cage five pigl...

The effect of cadmium (Cd) and vitamin D 3 on Cd retention in the organism of laying hens was observed. Hens ( n =48) were divided into eight groups with six animals per group as follows: experimental groups 1, 3 and 5 were administered Cd (0.3, 0.6 and 6.0 mg CdCl 2 kg -1 body weight, respectively) daily in water and groups 2, 4 and 6 were adminis...

A survey on Zn levels found in poultry meat from Slovakia is presented. The samples of poultry (leg muscle, heart, liver and kidney) were analyzed for the presence of Zn on the atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Unicam Solar 939). The mean values of Zn were found in leg muscle, liver, heart and kidney (12.83, 18.44, 13.89, 13.37 mg×kg-1 wet weigh...

The effects of nitrites and nitrates on the titratable acidity of milk after the addition of cream culture were determined. Experiments with culture and a nitrite additive revealed a statistically significant decrease (p≤0.05) in titratable acidity to 6.09 g.l-1 lactic acid. In milk containing 100 mg.kg-1 nitrite the resulting concentration was 25....

 The effect of cadmium and vitamin D3 on the solidity of eggshells was observed. Laying hens were divided into 7 groups with 10 animals per group. In the experimental groups 1, 2, and 3, we administered daily 0.3; 10.0, and 15.0 mg CdCl2 kg–1 body weight, respectively; in experimental groups 4, 5, and 6 were administered the same CdCl2 concentratio...

The aim of the present work was to study the influence of Cd, and interaction of Cd and Zn in tissues and organs of laying hens after Cd administration. Samples were determined by atomic absorption spectrometry. Laying hens were divided into 3 groups per 6 animals; group 4 was control. In the first 3 groups CdCl 2 was administered as follows: group...

The aim of this work was to determine the level at which Cd and Pb accumulate in muscles, kidneys and liver of game reared in an area of Eastern Slovakia. The studied animals were the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), the red deer (Cervus elaphus), the European hare (Lepus europaeus) and the wild boar (Sus scrofa). In the European hare, kidneys were...

 The aim of this work was to observe the effects of nitrites and nitrates on the titratable acidity of milk after addition of Lactobacillus helveticus (TX 121) and L. casei (CAD 154) dairy cultures and on the levels of nitrate and nitrite. After adding L. helveticus and nitrites the increasing concentrations of the latter brought about a marked dec...

The aim of this study was to observe the dynamics of nitrates and nitrites during the six stages of manufacture of Emmental cheeses. Samples were taken of untreated milk, of pasteurized milk, of milk with nitrates added, of pressed cheese curd, of whey, of maturing cheese and of the final product. The samples were drawn from a commercial operation...

Effect of both vitamin D3 and cadmium (Cd) on chymotrypsin activity (ACHT) of laying hen has been studied. Ten month-old laying hens were fed a compound feed of HYD-10 ad libitum. The birds were divided into 8 groups (each group consisting of 6 birds) as follows: experimental groups G1, G3, and G5 were supplemented with Cd (0.3; 0.6; and 6.0 mg.kg-...

The aim of our study was to observe the contents of nitrates and nitrites during the six stages of manufacture of Edam cheese. Samples were taken of raw milk, of pasteurized milk, of milk with nitrates added, of pressed cheese curd, of whey, of ripening cheese and the final product. The samples were drawn from a commercial operation in cheese facto...

Ten-month-old hybrid Tetra SL laying hens were included in the experiment. The birds were fed a complex feed mixture of HYD-10 as a full-value feed with balanced components of nutrients, vitamins, and trace elements. Feed and water were provided ad libitum, approximately 100 to 120 g/day. Laying hens were divided into 7 groups. The first three grou...

Standard Pb, Cd, Zn and Cu additives were investigated for their effects on the fermenting activity of Lactobacillus helveticas and Lactobacillus casei. In milk enriched with a Lb. helveticus dairy culture and containing the standard Cu additive, activation of dairy bacteria could be observed. Standard amounts of Pb and Zn did not cause changes in...

This work investigates the effects of nitrites and nitrates on yogurt culture. If the yogurt culture contained nitrites, titratable acidity was seen to decrease markedly. With nitrates, differences in titratable acidity could be observed (controls-11.25 g litre−1 lactic acid; maximum addition-9.58 g litre−1 lactic acid). At a standard addition of 1...

As some species of game and free‐living animals promptly respond to ecosystem damage by a reaction that is easy to interpret, they are important ecological indicators in assessing the total contamination of the environment. Consumers of the highest order like predators, predatory and fish‐eating birds are among the most important bioindicators of e...

Attention was devoted to the effects of risk element-containing industrial emissions on the biological material of cattle bred on farms in the vicinity of a metallurgical plant in East Slovakia. The observations lasted two years and included four agricultural farms in the polluted area and one control farm outside this area. In 1991, 20, 30, 30, 30...