Lenka Skurková

University of Veterinary Medicine in Košice · Department of Public Veterinary Medicine and Animal Welfare

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 =...

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...

Canine hip dysplasia (CHD) is a locomotive-system disease in dogs, which in many countries is the target of screening programs aimed at reducing the prevalence of CHD among descendants of predisposed dog breeds. Despite the efforts to apply genetic testing or ultrasound diagnostics in diagnosing CHD (as is common in human medicine), the main diagno...

Sheep were used as a model for the examination of radiological and histological changes in bone tissue following total hip replacement. A unilateral total hip replacement procedure was carried out in sheep with radiological examinations at 1, 3 and 6 months after surgery. After six moths, the sheep were euthanized and the bone tissue was collected...

On the basis of a clinical case we describe the symptoms, development and surgical method used for a six-year-old Bernese mountain dog affected by mesothelioma growing out of the pericardium. We provide an overview of the incidence of the tumor, risk factors, pathogenesis and possibilities of therapy in this canine breed. In our clinical case we di...

Sheep were used as a model for the examination of radiological and histological changes in bone tissue following total hip replacement. A unilateral total hip replacement procedure was carried out in sheep with radiological examinations at 1, 3 and 6 months after surgery. After six moths, the sheep were euthanized and the bone tissue was collected...

On the basis of a clinical case we describe the symptoms, development and surgical method used for a six-year-old Bernese mountain dog affected by mesothelioma growing out of the pericardium. We provide an overview of the incidence of the tumor, risk factors, pathogenesis and possibilities of therapy in this canine breed. In our clinical case we di...

We investigated effectiveness and potential use of early diagnosis of hip joint dysplasia in German Shepherd dogs by X-ray examination comparing the conventional extension position I with compression-distraction method. In addition to that we also used Ortolani palpation technique and X-ray examination of the hip joint in order to obtain view of it...