Creating a therapeutic and healing environment with a pet therapy program

04 May 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Ellen Mahoney, Amanda Bulette Coakley

Background—Hospitalized patients encounter stressors that impact their experience and recovery. There is a need for theoretically based, empirically supported nursing interventions to create a therapeutic and healing environment that decrease stress and improve patients' experiences. …

Does pet arrival trigger prosocial behaviors in individuals with autism?

02 Aug 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Marine Grandgeorge, Sylvie Tordjman, Alain Lazartigues, Eric Lemonnier, Michel Deleau, Martine Hausberger

Alteration of social interactions especially prosocial behaviors – an important aspect of development – is one of the characteristics of autistic disorders. Numerous strategies or therapies are used to improve communication skills or at least to reduce social impairments. Animal-assisted …

Perspectives

30 May 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): David A Rubenstein, Mustapha Debboun, Richard Burton

Humans have domesticated animals for assistance and companionship since before the beginning of recorded history. Beasts of burden permitted the development of civilization by breaking land for agriculture with plows, and carrying crops, products, and people in larger quantities and over longer …

Cognitive relatives yet moral strangers?

25 Feb 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Judith Benz-Schwarzburg, Andrew Knight

This article provides an empirically based, interdisciplinary approach to the following two questions: Do animals possess behavioral and cognitive characteristics such as culture, language, and a theory of mind? And if so, what are the implications, when long-standing criteria used to justify …

The ecology of dog bite injury in St. Louis, Missouri

09 Feb 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Honey Loring, Alan M. Beck, Randall Lockwood, Alan M. Beck

http://jstor.org/stable/4595235 St Louis, MO38.6270025-90.1994042 1975 Public Health Reports 262-267 90 3 0.00.0 8 en text en

Future directions in human-animal bond research

09 Feb 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Aaron Katcher, Alan M. Beck, Alan M. Beck

Human-animal contact can influence psychological and physiological parameters important to health and welfare; nevertheless, there has been relatively little research on the variables that influence or mediate those health consequences. In addition, little attention has been paid on how to create …

Risk factors for pet evacuation failure after a slow-onset disaster

09 Feb 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Sebastian E. Heath, Philip Kass, Alan M. Beck, Larry Glickman, Alan M. Beck

Predictors of pet evacuation failure are usually present before a disaster strikes and are potentially modifiable. Mitigation of pet evacuation failure should focus on activities that reinforce responsible pet ownership and strengthen the human-animal bond, including socializing dogs, attending dog …

Forty-two thousand and one dalmatians: Fads, social contagion, and dog breed popularity

09 Feb 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Harold Herzog

Like other cultural variants, tastes in companion animals (pets) can shift rapidly. An analysis of American Kennel Club puppy registrations from 1946 through 2003 (N = 48,598,233 puppy registrations) identified rapid but transient large-scale increases in the popularity of specific dog breeds …

Moral emotions and social activism: The case of animal rights

09 Feb 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Harold Herzog, Lauren Golden

Why do some people and not others become involved in social movements? We examined the relationships between a moral emotion—disgust—and animal activism, attitudes toward animal welfare, and consumption of meat. Participants were recruited through two social networking websites and included …

Reliability of protocol reviews for animal research

09 Feb 2012 | Journal Articles | Contributor(s): Scott Plous, Harold Herzog

Over the past 20 years, the reliability of scientific peer-review judgments has been a topic of frequent debate and scrutiny. However, one area of peer review that has not received much empirical investigation is the system that protects animal subjects from research risks. At most research …