Nicola J Rooney

University of Bristol | UB · School of Veterinary Sciences

Dog have been trained to detect a variety of human cancers. However, studies examining their ability to find canine cancer are sparse and show variable results. Whilst dogs were shown to be successful at detecting malignant tumors from saliva samples, they were previously unsuccessful at finding canine urothelial carcinoma (UC) from urine. We used...

Dogs can discriminate stressed from non-stressed human odour samples, but the effect on their cognition is unstudied. Using a cognitive bias task, we tested how human odours affect dogs’ likelihood of approaching a food bowl placed at three ambiguous locations (“near-positive”, “middle” and “near-negative”) between trained “positive” (rewarded) and...

More widespread farming of species not typically used as livestock may be part of a sustainable approach for promoting human health and economic prosperity in a world with an increasing population; a current example is peccary farming in the Neotropics. Others have argued that species that are local to a region and which are usually not farmed shou...

Rewilding landscapes through species or population restoration is an increasingly applied practice in biological conservation. There is expanding interest in wildlife release projects for apex predator population augmentation or reintroductions in historical ranges. Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are an IUCN Vulnerable-listed species with a declining...

Dogs can discriminate between stressed and non-stressed odour samples from humans, but the effect on their cognition and emotional state is previously unstudied. Eighteen dogs each participated in three cognitive bias sessions: baseline (no odour), stress odour and relax odour, with the order of the two test odours counterbalanced across dogs. The...

The illegal primate trade is one of the major drivers of the decline of nonhuman primate populations and a threat to their wellbeing. Thousands of trafficked primates enter rescue centers every year, and their destiny (release back into the wild, long-term captivity, or euthanasia) involves controversial decisions and complex ethical considerations...

Simple Summary Animal charities want to teach people about what animals need and often run campaigns to achieve this. These campaigns usually focus on different aspects of animal welfare. In March 2019, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) launched a campaign called #DogKind. It aimed to increase awareness of dog owner...

Simple Summary There are around 11 million pet dogs in the United Kingdom, yet there is more to learn about how best to ensure their welfare needs are met. We know that owners have an impact on their dog’s well-being and studies have suggested that what people do before they get their dog can subsequently impact their dog’s welfare. We used data co...

Smell is a well-developed and predominant sense in dogs and so it is unsurprising that olfaction is tightly linked to dog welfare. The extent to which a dog can use their olfactory abilities and the types of odours they smell, have been shown to affect their behaviour, memory, and wellbeing, and similarly an animal’s state of health and welfare imp...

Interactive clinical skills models have been demonstrated to be useful for teaching medical and veterinary clinical skills, yet to date, very few exist for teaching skills relevant to zoological companion animals and wildlife species including birds. This two-part study aimed to create, develop, and validate a model. Interviews and a survey were co...

Snake ownership is popular; however, housing and care may not always satisfy the animal's welfare needs. For example, snakes are often kept in environmental conditions that restrict their ability to stretch out fully or move around, using rectilinear locomotion. To date, little empirical data exist on the housing and husbandry of captive snakes and...

Bush encroachment is a habitat change phenomenon that threatens savanna and grassland ecosystems worldwide. In Africa, large carnivores in bush encroached landscapes must adjust to increasing woody plant cover and biomass, which could affect predation success at multiple stages through complex and context-dependent pathways. We highlight, interpret...

Background The Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale (BRPS) was developed using a combination of methods, focus groups and behavioural observation, that led to a composite pain scale of six categories (Demeanour, Locomotion, Posture, Ears, Eyes and Grooming) with four intensities of pain (0, 1, 2, and 3), and a total score of 0–18. The aim of this study was to...

Context Habitat loss and alteration affect wildlife populations worldwide. Bush encroachment alters landscapes and threatens arid and semi-arid grasslands, but its effects on predator–prey relationships and carnivore community ecology are not well understood. Predation strategies of large predators, for example high-speed pursuits versus ambush fro...

Livestock guarding dogs (LGDs) are utilized worldwide as a non-lethal strategy to alleviate human-wildlife conflict. However, while studies show their effectiveness, resulting in reductions of livestock loss, there is limited research into the factors that influence individual dog variation. One factor which may be important is the proximity of the...

Background: There are few studies on the physiology and haematology of rescued bearded capuchin monkeys. These are necessary to better understand the health and welfare status of the animals, including when performing reintroductions, and to avoid zoonoses. Methods: We aimed to obtain physiological and haematological values, morphometry and para...

Henipavirus infection (NiV), a fatal disease transmitted by bats has caused human death and disease in India and Bangladesh. With an average case fatality rate of more than 70%, NiV has the potential to cause widespread outbreaks that can have a devastating impact on human health. Spillover of NiV from bats to humans is influenced by several factor...

In Africa, wildlife-watching experiences create substantial revenue from tourists that can finance wildlife conservation. Horseback safaris, where an experienced guide takes guests through the bush on horseback to observe plains game species, are a popular activity. Close encounters between ridden horses and game species are unnatural and potential...

Stress during handling can negatively impact the welfare of an animal. Gradual habituation or systematic desensitisation can reduce this but is not always possible. Blindfolding has been shown to decrease stress indicators, including heart rate and struggling in cattle ( Bos taurus ), but has not been studied in domestic rabbits ( Oryctolagus cunic...

Livestock guarding dogs (LGDs) are used all over the world to help in carnivore conservation by mitigating human-wildlife conflict. In Namibia, LGDs are used in cheetah conservation to prevent depredation of stock and reduce retaliatory killings. However, behavioral problems in the dogs, such as chasing wildlife and harassing livestock, exist leadi...

Periodontal disease is one of the most common conditions affecting dogs worldwide and is reported to be particularly prevalent in racing greyhounds. A range of potential risk factors have been hypothesised. Previous research has suggested that regular tooth brushing can reduce both calculus and gingivitis, but the frequency required is unclear. Her...

A species-specific composite pain scale is a prerequisite for adequate pain assessment. The aim of this study was to develop a multidimensional pain scale specific to rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) called the Bristol Rabbit Pain Scale (BRPS). The scale was developed over five phases using a unique combination of methods: focus groups and behaviour...

The growing body of working dog literature includes many examples of scales robustly developed to measure aspects of dog behavior. However, when comparing behavior to working dog ability, most studies rely on training organizations' own long-established ratings of performance, or simply pass/fail at selection or certification as measures of success...

Rating scales are widely used to rate working dog behavior and performance. Whilst behaviour scales have been extensively validated, instruments used to rate ability have usually been designed by training and practitioner organizations, and often little consideration has been given to how seemingly insignificant aspects of the scale design might al...

Self-assessments of performance are commonly used in the human workplace, although compared to peer or supervisor ratings, they may be subject to positive biases or leniency. The use of subjective ratings scales in animal sciences is also common, although little consideration is usually given to possible rater bias. Dog handlers, work very closely...

Objectives To gain insight into veterinary nurse knowledge of pain recognition and control in rabbits. Materials and Methods We used a survey to establish current attitudes amongst veterinary nurses towards pain management in pet rabbits and factors that might shape those attitudes. The survey was advertised at national and international veterinar...

Training new medical odors presents challenges in procuring sufficient target samples, and suitably matched controls. Organizations are often forced to choose between using fewer samples and risking dogs learning individuals or using differently sourced samples. Even when aiming to standardize all aspects of collection, processing, storage and pres...

Background In the last 20 years, two studies on the veterinary use of perioperative analgesia in small mammals reported a limited use of analgesics in rabbits but suggested an increasing use over the years. The aim of this study was to better understand how pain is treated and ameliorated in rabbits while under veterinary care. Methods An online s...

Owner-independent assessments of Diabetes Alert Dog (DAD) behaviour post-placement are currently lacking. Here we describe the first study to simultaneously collect objective DAD behavioural data from CCTV footage and concurrent owner glucose levels via a Flash Glucose Monitoring System (FGMS). Using a pre-defined behavioural ethogram, both trained...

Background Little research has been carried out into how guinea pigs are cared for in the UK, and information regarding potential welfare issues is sparse. This study was designed to examine the five welfare needs, collecting data on the extent to which these are each met by a sample of UK guinea pig owners. Methods A survey of 4590 owners was con...

Rabbits are popular companion animals. There are numerous welfare issues affecting the majority of the population, including the fact that most rabbits are fearful when handled. Pet Remedy ™ (Unex Designs) is an herbal product containing valerian, marketed as a natural calming aid. Its efficacy for domestic rabbits is previously untested. We descri...

Poaching associated with the ivory trade is estimated to cause an 8% annual loss in the world elephant population. Although international trade in ivory was banned by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species in 1989, elephant populations continue to suffer. Together with global price data on ivory transactions, information on...

Abstract Background The greyhound is a sighthound known for its speed and agility. Greyhounds were selectively bred as functional racing animals but increasingly are kept as pets in the UK, often after their racing careers are over. The VetCompass™ Programme collates de-identified clinical data from primary-care veterinary practices in the UK for e...

Objective: To quantify Diabetes Alert Dog (DAD) performance by using owner-independent measures. Research Design and Methods: Eight owners of accredited DADs used a FreeStyle Libre Flash Glucose Monitoring System (FGMS). Concurrent Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footage was collected for between 5 and 14 days in each owner's home or workplace. Th...

Hundreds of thousands of dogs are housed in kennels worldwide, yet there are no standard protocols for assessing the welfare of dogs in these environments. Animal science is focusing increasingly on the importance of animal-based measures for determining welfare states, and those measures that have been used with kennelled dogs are reviewed in this...

Aims Domestic dogs are trained to a wide variety of roles including an increasing number of medical assistance tasks. Glycaemia alert dogs are reported to greatly improve the quality of life of owners living with Type 1 diabetes. Research into their value is currently sparse, on small numbers of dogs and provides conflicting results. In this study...

Domestic dogs are members of the class Mammalia, order Carnivora, and family Canidae. Although within the order Carnivora, dogs have evolved to eat an omnivorous diet. Their nutritional requirements include specific amino acids, glucose precursors, fatty acids, and dietary fibre are important dietary elements. Dogs are generally social animals. Mos...

Objective: To provide an overview of pain and analgesia in rabbits with the aim of developing a more accurate understanding of these topics. To illustrate and discuss the areas that have advanced in recent years and those that still require further research. Databases used: Three key subject resources were used: Web of Science, Medline and CAB A...

It is often claimed that certain dominance-related problems in dogs can be triggered by the games played by dog and owner. In particular it is thought that allowing a dog to win uncontrolled games such as Tug-of-War will increase the likelihood of it attempting to become dominant over its owner. However questionnaires (Goodloe & Borchelt, 1998) and...

Background Dogs are ubiquitous in human society and attempts to manage their populations are common to most countries. Managing dog populations is achieved through a range of interventions to suit the dog population dynamics and dog ownership characteristics of the location, with a number of potential impacts or goals in mind. Impact assessment pro...

The causes of fear and anxiety in working dogs are multifactorial and may include inherited characteristics that differ between individuals (e.g. Goddard and Beilharz, 1982; 1984a,b), influences of the environment (Lefebvre et al., 2007), and learned experiences during particular sensitive periods (Appleby et al., 2002) and throughout life. Fear-re...

The Review & Assessment of Best Practice Rearing, Socialisation, Education and Training Methods for Greyhounds in a Racing Context was commissioned by Greyhound Racing New South Wales and undertaken by Working Dog Alliance Australia. The review found that there were improvements needed in the areas of participant education as well as rearing and tr...

Background: The welfare of pet rabbits is an area of growing interest in Europe and the UK. This study analyses questionnaire results from a diverse population of 1254 rabbit owners from three different geographical areas in England with the aim of providing an accurate representation of how pet rabbits are currently housed and cared for and key a...

Our understanding of the welfare of companion animals is both incomplete and fragmentary. For domestic dogs, most research has focused on animals that do not have stable relationships with people, such as dogs in laboratories and rehoming kennels. The welfare of pet dogs has received limited attention, presumably due to an assumption that owners ha...

Repetitive behaviour is common in kennelled dogs, yet its motivational basis remains relatively unexplored. We examine the repetitive behaviour of 30 kennelled working dogs in ten contexts both coinciding with, and in the absence of, commonly occurring arousing stimuli, such as care staff, other dogs and food preparation. A large proportion (93%) o...

Previous studies have suggested that some pet dogs respond to their owners' hypoglycaemic state. Here, we show that trained glycaemia alert dogs placed with clients living with diabetes afford significant improvements to owner well-being. We investigated whether trained dogs reliably respond to their owners' hypoglycaemic state, and whether owners...

The methods by which owners train their pet dogs range widely, with some exclusively using rewards, and others using a combination, or only punishment-based methods. This paper examines links between the way in which owners reported to have trained their dogs and observations of the dogs’ subsequent behaviour. It also explores associations between...

In the UK, numerous pedigree dogs of many breeds experience compromised welfare due to the direct and indirect effects of selective breeding. Many breeds are selected to have physical conformations which, although perceived by some to be desirable, have direct negative effects upon their welfare. Dogs are regularly bred whose heads are too large an...

Research conducted by the Anthrozoology Institute and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory has shown that many working dogs exhibit high levels of physiologic stress in response to kenneling (Hiby et al., 2006; Rooney et al., 2007a). Furthermore, these dogs tend to perform poorly during training, establishing links between welfare and work...

It is widely recommended that kenneled dogs are provided with environmental enrichment such as toys or feeding devices. However, the adoption of enrichment for military working dogs is impeded by a widespread belief that it reduces their motivation to work. Handlers of 22 working German Shepherd dogs were asked to rate their dogs on 11 attributes p...

We have explored the validity of urinary cortisol/creatinine ratios (C/C) and behavioural measures as indicators of acute psychological stress in the domestic dog, by monitoring 1 year old male Labrador Retrievers (N=31) prior to and following their introduction to novel kennels in a training establishment. Baseline early morning urine samples were...

To date, there are few validated tests for quantifying the ability of working dogs, and none documented for use on specialist search dogs. Such tests are essential to the empirical examination of ways to improve the efficiency of search dogs, a process critical to meet the increased demand for search dogs in a climate of global terrorist threat. Th...

Behaviour and urinary cortisol/creatinine ratios (C/C) were monitored in twenty-six dogs, on days 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10 following their admission to a rehoming kennel. Half had been relinquished from homes, and half were either strays or returns to the shelter. Drinking and grooming increased with time, while panting and paw-lifting decreased, but o...

Social cognition, in particular the derivation of social information from observation of interactions between members of a social group, has been widely investigated in primates, but it has received little attention in other social mammals, although it has been anecdotally reported in the domestic dog, Canis familiaris. We recorded the behaviour of...

The behavioural characteristics of specialist search dogs were examined using a survey of 244 dog handlers and trainers. The English Springer Spaniel was the most common breed, followed by the Labrador Retriever, cross breeds and the Border Collie. Individuals of these four breeds varied significantly on 5 out of 30 characteristics, as rated by the...

The ideal and actual characteristics of specialist search dogs have been examined in questionnaire surveys of 244 dog handlers and trainers from the six main UK dog-using Government agencies. The ten most important characteristics were (ideal level in brackets): acuity of sense of smell (very high), incentive to find an object which is out of sight...

Historically, pet dogs were trained using mainly negative reinforcement or punishment, but positive reinforcement using rewards has recently become more popular. The methods used may have different impacts on the dogs’ welfare. We distributed a questionnaire to 364 dog owners in order to examine the relative effectiveness of different training...

It is often claimed that certain behavioral problems in domestic dogs can be triggered by the games played by dog and caregiver (owner). In this study, we examine possible links between the types of games played and dimensions of the dog-owner relationship that are generally considered to affect such problems. Fifty dog-owner partnerships were film...

It has often been suggested that intraspecific dominance relationships are established through play. By analogy, it is also claimed that the outcome of competitive games can affect dog–human relationships. This paper experimentally tests the latter idea. Fourteen Golden Retrievers were each subjected to two treatments; 20 sessions of a tug-of-war g...

Play signals are known to function in the solicitation and maintenance of intraspecific play, but their role in interspecific play is relatively unstudied. We carried out two studies to examine interspecific signalling when humans play with domestic dogs, Canis familiaris. In the first, we recorded dog–owner play sessions on video to identify actio...

Play signals are known to function in the solicitation and maintenance of intraspecific play, but their role in interspecific play is relatively unstudied. We carried out two studies to examine interspecific signalling when humans play with domestic dogs, Canis familiaris. In the first, we recorded dog–owner play sessions on video to identify actio...

In the popular literature, it is often assumed that a single conceptual framework can be applied to both dog–dog and dog–human interactions, including play. We have, through three studies, tested the hypothesis that dog–dog and dog–human play are motivationally distinct. In an observational study of dogs being walked by their owners (N=402), dogs w...

p>Dog-human play was characterised as distinct from dog-dog play. Focal sampling of 402 dog walkers and a survey of 2585 dog owners revealed that dogs housed in multi-dog households played as frequently as did dogs in single-dog households, indicating that interspecific play is unlikely to be a substitute for intraspecific play. An experimental stu...

Executive summary 1. What is the problem? Many pedigree dogs remain healthy for much of their lives, yet there can be no doubt that numerous dogs of many different breeds experience compromised welfare due to the effects of selective breeding practices. Many breeds have high rates of diseases with hereditary causes, and some have anatomical featu...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Southampton, 1999.