About
63
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Introduction
[Update: as of October 2023 I am unemployed due to severe ill health with ME/CFS] I am an Honorary Associate Professor in Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare at The University of Nottingham. I am a Zoologist with a specialism in dog behaviour and welfare. My skills lie in questionnaire design, data analysis and applied animal behaviour. My current research interests are in clinical animal behaviour & supporting companion animal welfare in the veterinary sector and through owner engagement.
Additional affiliations
August 2017 - November 2019
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- This position was funded by Dogs Trust, the University of Nottingham & Royal Canin with Dr Sarah Blott, Prof Gary England & Dr Steve Shaw working on the risk factors for canine atopic dermatitis, & development of a new screening tool.
December 2014 - July 2017
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- This post-doctoral position was funded by Guide Dogs, following on from my PhD work, to finalise the larger 6-year 'Epidemiology of Guide Dog Behaviour' project with Dr Lucy Asher and Prof Gary England.
Education
January 2011
September 2005 - June 2008
Publications
Publications (63)
Simple Summary
Very little is known about where our pet rabbits come from: Who the breeders are, how good/or bad the conditions are that breeding rabbits are kept in, or whether breeders are being monitored by local authorities. This study aimed to bring to light information on breeding rabbits and breeders in the UK. Several methods of data collec...
Canine atopic dermatitis (cAD) is a common hereditary clinical syndrome in domestic dogs with no definitive diagnostic tests, which causes marked morbidity and has a high economic impact internationally. We created a novel questionnaire for Labrador (LR) and Golden retriever (GR) owners to evaluate canine skin health with respect to clinical signs...
Definition:
The stage in human and nonhuman animal development through which a juvenile becomes a reproductively and behaviorally mature adult.
Introduction:
Adolescence is a developmental stage in an animal’s life history that is characterized by both reproductive and behavioral maturation. The terms “puberty” and “adolescence” are often used int...
Simple Summary
Stressed pet dogs, such as when deprived of their owners or after the loss of a social companion, can become inactive and unresponsive. Dogs in this condition are commonly referred to as being “depressed”, but this remains an untested hypothesis. One hallmark of human clinical depression is anhedonia—a reduction in the experience of...
Early life experiences are known to influence behavior later in life. In dogs, environmental influences of early home rearing could be exploited to improve the chances of developing adult behavior most suited to the adult environment. For working dog organisations, such as Guide Dogs, suitable adult behavior is important to ensure dogs can fulfil t...
Dog behaviour that owners perceive as undesirable can compromise dog welfare, impact the owner and human–animal bond, and may result in relinquishment or euthanasia. This longitudinal study explored the type and percentage of owner-perceived undesirable behaviours in 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18-month-old dogs, and examined differences in the prevalence of...
Recognition and interpretation of dogs’ emotional and motivational states from visual behavioural signs are important for public safety and dog welfare. This study used an online survey to explore the ability of members of the public (n = 4,133) to recognise the underlying emotional or motivational states of dogs in silent videos (n=30). Participan...
Dear Editor,
“For patients with severe [or] very severe ME there are no commissioned specialist inpatient services both regionally and nationally” ~ Dr Anthony Hemsley, medical director at Royal Devon & Exeter hospital
The above is a quote from the 2023 pre-inquest inquiry meeting into the death of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) patient Maeve Boo...
Objectives
Determine comparative tolerance of daily oral and weekly parenteral cobalamin supplementation, in hypocobalaminaemic dogs with chronic enteropathy. Determine whether oral is as effective as parenteral supplementation at achieving eucobalaminaemia, in hypocobalaminaemic dogs with protein‐losing enteropathy, severe hypocobalaminaemia or hi...
Simple Summary
Owners’ understanding of dog behaviour influences dog welfare. This study explored owners’ experiences and perceptions of dog behaviour. Data came from an ongoing UK/ROI study of dogs. Survey questions when dogs were 12/16 weeks (data combined), 6, 12, 18 and 24 months were analysed. Data were explored with two approaches: (1) qualit...
Canine atopic dermatitis is an inflammatory skin disease with clinical similarities to human atopic dermatitis. Several dog breeds are at increased risk for developing this disease but previous genetic associations are poorly defined. To identify additional genetic risk factors for canine atopic dermatitis, we here apply a Bayesian mixture model ad...
This study has identified the four most reported owner-perceived problem behaviours in dogs aged 6, 12 and 18 months. These findings can help inform where specific training strategies and interventions are needed to target these problems and prevent their development which could impact on dog welfare and the human-animal bond. Future work will expl...
As part of a population management strategy for a troop of Guinea baboons (Papio
papio) at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, adult females were given a Suprelorin contraceptive
implant. There was no information on the effect of contraception on behavior in this
species, so behavioral data were collected before and after implant placement to
determine any im...
Simple Summary
Human–animal interactions consist of many relationship types. The human–dog bond is one such example. This study reviewed how we measure the human–dog bond through questionnaires and found a lack of questions related to the dog’s investment in said bond. To rectify this, twelve semi-structured interviews were carried out with a varie...
Separation-related behaviours (SRBs), including but not limited to vocalisation, pacing, destruction and toileting, occur in the absence of human company. As well as being problematic for the dogs’ owners, such behaviours indicate that the dogs’ emotional state is compromised. As part of the COVID-19 pandemic, time spent alone decreased considerabl...
This paper outlines the main points to consider when conducting a reliability study in the field of animal behaviour research and describes the relative uses and importance of the different types of reliability assessment: inter-rater, intra-rater and test-retest. Whilst there are no absolute methods under which reliability studies should be analys...
APPENDIX I: Tools for the measurement of HAI published between 2009-2018.
Behavioral development is a lifelong process where cognitive traits such as learning and memory may be expected to take quadratic or linear trajectories. It is common practice for operational purposes to reduce study subjects into chronological categories when conducting research. However, there are no agreed-upon thresholds for this practice, and...
Simple Summary
Initial COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in the United Kingdom (23 March–12 May 2020) prompted many people to change their lifestyle. We explored the impact of this lockdown phase on pet dog welfare using an online survey of 6004 dog owners, who provided information including dog management data for the 7 days prior to survey completio...
Simple Summary
The ability to predict later success in guide dog training can be of great benefit to assistance dog providers, such as those providing guide dogs, to ensure maximum resource and production efficiency and to maintain high welfare standards. This study evaluated the predictive capabilities of a behaviour questionnaire (the refined pup...
Introduction: The importance of using appropriate tools to measure human-animal interactions (HAI) is widely recognised. Continuing on from Wilson and Netting's (2012) review of HAI instruments up to 2008, this paper presents the results of a systematic literature review for HAI questionnaires created between 2009 and 2018, and discusses the curren...
Lifestyle changes ensued for many people across the United Kingdom (UK) in the Spring of 2020 due to ‘lockdown’ restrictions imposed to curb the spread of a newly emerged virus, SARS-CoV-2, which caused a global pandemic of the disease known as COVID-19.
More than 6,000 dog owners living in the UK completed our online survey between the 4th – 12th...
The relationship between parent and child changes around adolescence, with children believed to have: (i) an earlier puberty if they have less secure attachments to their carer; (ii) a phase of increased conflict behaviour toward their carer; and (iii) heightened conflict behaviour when carer attachments are less secure. We find support for analogo...
Exposure to chronic stressors and/or traumatic events can trigger depression-like forms of waking inactivity in non-human species (mice, horses, primates) as well as clinical depression in humans. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that elevated levels of waking inactivity in the home environment, in tandem with exposure to chronic stress and/...
Simple Summary
Canine atopic dermatitis (cAD) is a common allergic skin condition in dogs that causes long-term itching; it is similar to eczema in people. The overall quality of life in dogs with cAD is known to be reduced, and humans with eczema report significant psychological burdens from itching that increase stress levels and can lead to the...
Simple Summary
The majority of pet rabbits have flatter, shorter faces than wild rabbits. However, rabbits with flat faces are at higher risk of developing considerable health problems, including painful dental problems. The aim of this research was to identify which type of rabbit face people actually prefer, in order to better understand why rabb...
Background
Canine atopic dermatitis (cAD) is one the most common and distressing skin disorders seen in dogs. It is characterized by dysfunction in the skin barrier, with a complex pathogenesis combining both genetic and environmental factors.
Objectives
To evaluate associations between environmental factors and case‐control status in two closely...
There has been much concern in recent years about the welfare of elephants in zoos across North America and Europe. While some previous studies have assessed captive elephant welfare at a particular point in time, there has been little work to develop methods which could be used for regular, routine welfare assessment. Such assessment is important...
The authors would like to add the following statement to the published article [...]
Simple Summary
The chance to experience positive social interactions is important for captive animals. The amount of positive or negative social interactions that occur within groups of captive animals can be used to evaluate the welfare of the group and determine how compatible the individuals may, or may not, be. In the wild, elephants live in re...
This article is open access and can be found at:
https://theconversation.com/obese-dogs-could-have-similar-personality-traits-to-overweight-humans-new-study-97746
An owner perspective contribution towards the Veterinary Record series "WHAT IS YOUR CLIENT THINKING?"
Dr Naomi Harvey, a zoologist, describes how she has learnt to deal with her anticipatory grief
Definition:
A dog that has received specific training to perform specialized tasks that aid people with disabilities, including visual impairment, reduced mobility, and psychiatric and neurological disorders.
What is a Service Dog?
All service dogs are united by the fact that they have undergone a specialized training regimen, which has provided t...
Epidemiology is the study of patterns of health-related states or events in populations. Statistical models developed for epidemiology could be usefully applied to behavioral states or events. The aim of this study is to present the application of epidemiological statistics to understand animal behavior where discrete outcomes are of interest, usin...
Working dog organisations, such as Guide Dogs, need to regularly assess the behaviour of the dogs they train. In this study we developed a questionnaire-style behaviour assessment completed by training supervisors of juvenile guide dogs aged 5, 8 and 12 months old (n = 1,401), and evaluated aspects of its reliability and validity. Specifically, int...
PCA loadings from each age at assessment (5, 8 and 12 months) for 38* of the items from the PTSQ.
Results given are component loadings based upon varimax rotation, with loadings below 0.4 suppressed. Items are ordered according to the groups they were designed for and expected to form. Those highlighted represent five groupings of items that emerge...
Subtests and behavioural coding measures from a juvenile guide dog behaviour test used for comparison against the PTSQ scale scores (adapted from Harvey et al., 2016a).
(DOCX)
The original 39 puppy training supervisor questionnaire (PTSQ) items, ordered according to the trait they were designed to represent, not in order of appearance in the questionnaire.
On each new page the text “This dog…” appeared as a prefix to each item. Superscript numbers provide reference to the origin of the item: 1 Serpell & Hsu (2001); 2 Ara...
The 39 PTSQ items ordered as they were following Initial Refinement and shown with p-values from univariate logistic regressions against training outcome (5M n = 837, 8M n = 832, 12M n = 811).
(PDF)
Types of Z-score, at each age, which showed best predictive ability in terms of identifying individual dogs.
NF, no flag able to be assigned. Note: Yellow flags were based on red flag Z-scores except where red flags could not be assigned when they were instead based on green flag Z-scores.
(DOCX)
A priori predicted correlations between the final scales of the puppy training supervisor questionnaire.
(DOCX)
Rotated component matrix loadings for the responses to subtest 7 (tea towel) from the juvenile guide dog behaviour test, at 5 and 8 months of age.
The PCA’s achieved KMO statistics of 0.77 and 0.72 for the 5 and 8-month tests, respectively, with Bartlett’s test of spherictiy significant to p<0.001 for both. Cumulative variance explained by the comp...
Rotated component matrix loadings for the responses to subtests 8 (food), 9 (robin), 10 (pigeons) and 11 (human) from the juvenile guide dog behaviour test, at 5 and 8 months of age.
The PCA’s achieved KMO statistics of 0.60 and 0.65 for the 5 and 8-month tests, respectively, with Bartlett’s test of spherictiy significant to p<0.001 for both. Cumul...
A list of all predicted associations between puppy test behavioural measures and puppy training supervisor questionnaire (PTSQ) scales.
Coef., test coefficients; these are correlation coefficients (rho) for all continuous, component or mean data and standardised test statistics for all tests with binary data from Mann-Whitney U tests (shown in ital...
In a resource-limited world, organisations attempting to reduce the impact of health or behaviour issues need to choose carefully how to allocate resources for the highest overall impact. However, such choices may not always be obvious. Which has the biggest impact? A large change to a small number of individuals, or a small change to a large numbe...
LIMBER tail syndrome (LTS), also known as acute caudal myopathy, is an unusual and poorly understood condition affecting the muscles in the tail and is most often reported in working or sporting dog breeds (De Lahunta and Glass 2008). Although there is no clear definition for the condition, the diagnosis is based on clinical signs of a limp tail, o...
The domestic dog is one of our most popular companions and longest relationships, occupying different roles, from pet to working guide dog for the blind. As dogs age different behavioural issues occur and in some cases dogs may be relinquished or removed from their working service. Here we analyse a dataset on working guide dogs that were removed f...
The ability to measure stable and consistent behavioral traits in dogs would facilitate selection and assessment of working dogs, such as guide dogs. Ideally, these measures should predict suitability for the working role from a young age. This study assessed test-retest reliability of a juvenile guide dog behavior test and predictive validity usin...
Animal personality develops as a result of interactions between genetic components and environmental experiences. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of rearing environment upon personality scores in potential guide dogs. Subjects were 224 potential guide dogs (104M: 120F). Volunteers living with the dogs between 3-14 months of a...
Assessment of quality of life (QoL) is an important, increasingly popular outcome measure in veterinary research and practice, particularly in dogs. In humans, QoL is commonly assessed by self-reporting and since this is not possible for animals, it is crucial that instruments designed to measure QoL are tested for reliability and validity. Using a...
Maintaining adequate welfare in captive elephants is challenging. Few studies have investigated overnight rest behavior in zoo elephants, yet time spent resting has been identified as a welfare indicator in some species. We investigated resting behavior in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in UK zoos, with the aim of identifying patterns or prefere...
Questions
Question (1)
I'm working with juvenile dogs, assessing their personality development over their first year of life. I've discovered behavioral changes occur around adolescence but I can't find any papers discussing the physiological changes that occur in dogs during adolescence; hormonal or neurological. I can find similar papers for rats, ground squirrels and who knows what else, but surprisingly not dogs. If you've come across anything that sounds like that then I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know.
