Karen Overall

Noise reactivity and noise phobia are anxiety- and panic-related conditions in dogs that may affect up to 50% of dogs across their lifetime. Affected dogs show a range of signs of distress including trembling, freezing, panting, social withdrawal, pacing, salivating and escape behaviors. Noise reactivity and phobia have been shown to be co-morbid c...

Phenotyping behavior is difficult, partly because behavior is almost always influenced by environment. Using objective terms/criteria to evaluate behaviors is best; the more objective the assessment, the more likely underlying genetic patterns will be identified. Behavioral pathologies, and highly desirable behavioral characteristics/traits, are li...

VETERINARY surgeons, dog trainers, dog breeders and rescue services frequently, often automatically, recommend that puppies are ‘socialised’. What this means, why it's important and how ‘socialisation’ should be executed are often left undiscussed. In a paper summarised in this week's issue of Veterinary Record , Pierantoni and others (2011) strong...

Prevention of dog bites injuries in people requires an open-minded multidisciplinary approach that recognises the interaction between the dog, the human and the environment in which they interact, say Tiny de Keuster and Karen L. Overall AS specialists in veterinary behavioural medicine with a commitment to promoting safe and humane interactions...

Tests of canine cognition are now receiving much deserved attention. Not only are dogs excellent models for human anxiety-related conditions and those involving brain aging, but how dogs learn and problem solve are interesting stand-alone topics. A number of factors can affect learning at the molecular level including stress or distress, factors th...

Until recently, canine genetic research has not focused on population structure within breeds, which may confound the results of case-control studies by introducing spurious correlations between phenotype and genotype that reflect population history. Intrabreed structure may exist when geographical origin or divergent selection regimes influence th...

Neurobehavioral deficits in higher cortical systems have not been described previously in a large animal model of diffuse brain injury. Anesthetized 3-5 day old piglets were subjected to either mild (142 rad/s) or moderate (188 rad/s) rapid non-impact axial rotations of the head. Multiple domains of cortical function were evaluated 5 times during t...

The dog is an attractive model for genetic studies of complex disease. With drafts of the canine genome complete, a large number of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are potentially useful for gene-mapping studies and empirical estimations of canine diversity and linkage disequilibrium (LD) are now available. Unfortunately, most canine SN...

Olfactory neurons obtained through nasal biopsy were characterized. Using standard immunohisto-chemical techniques, nascent, developing, and mature neurons were identified in the tissues obtained. This technique shows that aspects of canine olfactory function may be potentially assessed using a relatively simple and minimally invasive biopsy techni...

Behavioral wellness has become a recent focus for the care of laboratory animals, farm and zoo animals, and pets. Behavioral enrichment issues for these groups are more similar than dissimilar, and each group can learn from the other. The emphasis on overall enhancement for laboratory dogs and cats in this review includes an emphasis on behavioral...

New areas of endeavour succeed either because they make a compelling case for their worth within an existing paradigm or because a new generation is raised for whom a once heretical paradigm is now the norm. It is difficult to tell which route will lead to the acceptance and growth of veterinary behavioural medicine, but the latter seems likely and...

The objective of the study was to investigate the incidence of adverse events and changes in behaviour after use of clomipramine to treat separation anxiety in dogs. This study was a follow-up investigation to a previously published clinical trial. In the main trial, dogs were randomised in a double-blinded manner to receive placebo, standard (1–2m...

Boundaries between behavioral conditions and medical differentials are likely to blur more rather than less as we learn more about genomic, cellular, and subcellular effects on common conditions. These changes should lead to better treatment but may also require a paradigm shift in how we view behavioral conditions and the mechanisms that contribut...

A 9-month-old, female Labrador retriever mix was presented for two types of seizure-like episodes, one of which occurred only during sleep. The two types of episodes were morphologically distinct. An electroencephalogram (EEG) demonstrated that the sleep-associated episodes occurred during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, supporting a diagnosis of a...

Veterinary behavioral medicine remains an under-supported, under-appreciated, and under-taught specialty within veterinary medicine. Neuropsychopharmacology is the aspect that has provided the field with the most scientific legitimacy, but is also one of the most hotly debated. Paradigms for use of pharmacologic intervention include firstly ruling...

Boundaries between behavioral conditions and medical differentials are likely to blur more rather than less as we learn more about genomic, cellular, and subcellular effects on common conditions. These changes should lead to better treatment but may also require a paradigm shift in how we view behavioral conditions and the mechanisms that contribut...

To determine clinical features and outcome in dogs and cats with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Retrospective study. 103 dogs and 23 cats. Records of patients with OCD were analyzed for clinical features, medication used, extent of behavior modification, and outcome. Most dogs affected with OCD had been obtained from breeders. Male dogs signi...

To determine the frequency of nonspecific clinical signs in dogs with separation anxiety, thunderstorm phobia, noise phobia, or any combination of these conditions and determine whether these conditions are associated in dogs. Case series. 141 dogs. Diagnoses were established using specific criteria. Owners of dogs completed a questionnaire on how...

Psychopharmacology has become a popular, and sometimes mandatory addition to treatment regimes for canine and feline patients with behavioural problems; however, clients and practitioners should be dissuaded that behavioural drugs are 'quick fixes'. Veterinarians should only prescribe psychotropic medication when they have a specific idea of how th...

1. The classic animal models for human psychiatric conditions involves rodents. As prey species, their normal behaviors of avoidance would be considered pathological in humans and dogs. Hence, such models may not be homologous for similar behaviors found in psychiatric pathology in humans. 2. Dogs exhibit pathological behavioral conditions that may...

To determine effects of tricyclic antidepressants (TCA) on the ECG of dogs treated for behavioral conditions and to examine correlations between ECG findings and serum concentrations of these medications. Repeated-measures study. 39 client-owned dogs with behavioral problems. Two groups of dogs with behavioral problems were evaluated. In group 1 (n...

The efficacy and tolerability of clomipramine in the treatment of separation anxiety in dogs was tested in a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, international multicenter clinical trial. For a diagnosis of separation anxiety, dogs had to exhibit at least one of the following signs in the absence of their owner...

Most of the future advances in therapy with behavioral medicine probably will be pharmacologic. Newer developments in tricyclic antidepressants, specific and nonspecific anxiolytics, narcotic agonist-antagonists, and benzodiazepines will have great relevance for veterinary medicine. As the field of behavioral medicine expands, its paradigm hopefull...

Atypical, stereotypic motor and locomotor behavior was observed in 3 dogs. In 1 dog, the behavior included circling, vocalization, and snapping; in another, circling associated with pica and aerophagia; and in a third, gradually intensifying locomotor behavior stimulated by bright light. This behavior interfered with normal interaction between thei...

SYNOPSIS. We review two potentially important approaches to predicting the consequences of environmental change for populations of short-lived organisms. First, we examine the concepts of “feasible life histories” and “feasible demographies” and present the results of a set of simulations in which the effects on population growth rate of varying on...

1. Detailed understanding of the factors that influence digestion is required for studies of ecological energetics and individual-based population modelling. With feeding trials, we quantified the effects of temperature, population of origin, lizard mass and consumption rate on apparent digestibility coefficient (ADC), urate production, metabolizab...

Characterization of metabolic rate is critical to constructing daily and seasonal energy budgets, constructing models of individuals for use in individual based modeling, understanding patterns of resource allocation, and understanding within-and among-population variation in life-history phenotypes. We investigated the efects of mass, ambient temp...

We examined correlates (sex, size, age) of variation in maximal burst speed (racetrack) and in stamina (time until exhaustion at 0.5 km · h⁻¹) in two populations of the iguanid lizard Sceloporus merriami in Big Bend National Park, Texas. Because these populations were known demographically and were studied in several years, we were able to examine...

Physiological and biophysical processes interact with a suite of environmental factors to produce important patterns in the population ecology of terrestrial vertebrate ectotherms. We develop a mechanistic approach to understanding the relative contributions of these interactions. Our approach requires a distinction between a life history and a lif...

There has been much recent speculation concerning the nature of life history variation in dinosaurs (Case, 1978; Bakker, 1986; Horner, 1982, 1984a). The purpose of this paper is to review the data on dinosaur life histories and to examine the nature and magnitude of the demographic and physiological factors that must have constrained life history v...