Editorial: Children and Companion Animals: Psychosocial, Medical and Neurobiological Implications

Journal Articles

This Research Topic presents experiences with companion animals provided to children in varied settings. Methods include monitoring of the ongoing interaction of children with companion animals, or conducting interviews or surveys, as well as experimental interventions where changes occurring...

Factors Associated With Bites to a Child From a Dog Living in the Same Home: A Bi-National Comparison

Journal Articles

We conducted a veterinary clinic-based retrospective cohort study aimed at identifying child-, dog-, and home-environment factors associated with dog bites to children aged 5–15 years old living in the same home as a dog in Kingston, Jamaica (236) and San Francisco, USA (61). Secondarily,...

Could the Visual Differential Attention Be a Referential Gesture? A Study on Horses (Equus caballus) on the Impossible Task Paradigm

Journal Articles

We tested horses on the impossible task paradigm, a drawback affecting the decision-making process in animals. We used the direction of the horse’s ear cup as an indicator of its visual attention in terms of visual selective attention when both ears were directed at the same target and...

Expectations for dog ownership: Perceived physical, mental and psychosocial health consequences among prospective adopters

Journal Articles

Dog ownership is popular worldwide, with most human-dog dyads forming successful attachment bonds. However, millions of dogs are surrendered to animal shelters annually, possibly due to mismatches between owner expectations and the realities of dog ownership. The aim of the current study was to...

Post-Adoption Problem Behaviours in Adolescent and Adult Dogs Rehomed through a New Zealand Animal Shelter

Journal Articles

Problem behaviours in dogs rehomed through animal shelters can jeopardise the long-term success of adoptions if not correctly managed. Data from 61 adolescent and adult dog adoptions that occurred through an animal shelter in Auckland, New Zealand, was analysed to identify the most common...

Literary Anthrozoology: Do Fiction and Literature Have a Place in Anthrozoology?

Journal Articles

Literature has been stimulating minds for centuries, as has science. This essay explores the need for both in the emerging field of anthrozoology. Anthrozoology is unique in its interdisciplinary approach to the sciences. By integrating zoology, anthropology, psychology, biology and others,...

Unruly Raccoons and Troubled Educators: Nature/Culture Divides in a Childcare Centre

Journal Articles

Current times of anthropogenically damaged landscapes call us to re-think human and nonhuman relations and consider multiple possibilities for alternative and more sustainable futures. As many environmental and Indigenous humanities scholars have noted, central to this re-thinking is unsettling...

Exploring bereaved older adult pet owner's relationship and grief experiences following the death of a companion animal

Theses

Grieving the Loss of a Pet Needs the Health System Recognition

Journal Articles

Globally there is increased presence of pets in the households. This non-human relationship, with its dimensions of physical and emotional bonds, can get severely jolted on the death of the companion animal. It sets a feeling, ‘our life is now left with a void and the house feels utterly...

The attachment of humans to pets and their reactions to pet death

Journal Articles

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Cat Care and Needs Scale (CCANS)

Journal Articles

The objective of this study was to develop a brief scale, primarily intended for research applications, that measures how well people report meeting the welfare needs of their pet cats. The practice of keeping cats as a companion animal has increased, and despite their popularity, many cats...

Decolonising the Waters: Interspecies Encounters Between Sharks and Humans

Journal Articles

Often portrayed as ‘man–eaters’, sharks are one of the most maligned apex species on earth. Media representation has fuelled public imagination, perpetuating fear and negative stereotypes of sharks and hysteria around human-shark interactions; whilst government initiatives...

Visualising human-animal-technology relations : fieldnotes, still photography and digital video on the robotic dairy farm

Journal Articles

This paper explores the potential for developing less anthropocentric approaches to researching human-nonhuman relations through visual ethnography, critically examining the potential for conceptualising nonhuman animals as participants. Arguing that method in “more-than-human...

Affectionate Interactions of Cats with Children Having Autism Spectrum Disorder

Journal Articles

Mental and physical benefits of dogs have been reported for adults and children with special needs, but less is known about benefits of cats for children. A cat that can be held by a child could provide important therapeutic companionship for children with severe or less severe autism spectrum...

Unleashing the Beast: Animals, Energy, and the Economy of Labor in Ottoman Egypt

Videos

In the land-based agrarian world of early modern Ottoman Egypt, animal wealth, labor, and movement were the bases of social and economic life. Animals were the trucks, motors, cranes, heaters, and gas stations of this early modern society. Interspecies relations between humans and various...

Fulfilling the Fundamentals of Life: A Grounded Theory of the Process of Human-Horse Relationship Development

Theses

This thesis explores how relationships develop between humans and their equine companions, and how such relationships may be mutually beneficial. Specifically, the research question asks: What are the processes that occur in the interaction between humans and horses? The research employs a...

Animal Assisted Psychotherapy: An Exploration of the Adult Client's Experience of Individual Psychotherapy with the Assistance of a Dog

Theses

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How Wolves Turned into Dogs and How Dogs Are Valuable in Meeting Human Social Needs

Journal Articles

A wealth of recent behavioral, neurobiological, and genetic results allows us to draw a new, comprehensive picture of the human-wolf-dog relationship. Dogs originated from wolves 35,000 years ago, mainly via selection for tameness. Wolves were probably spiritual partners and hunting buddies of...

The impact of tickling rats on human-animal interactions and rat welfare

Theses

Rats initially fear humans which can lead to negative affect, poor welfare, and difficult handling. Also, modeling and measuring positive affect states in rats can pose an additional challenge. Heterospecific play, or “tickling,” is a handling habituation technique that mimics rat...

Humane education: the effects of animals in the classroom on children's empathy in Japanese elementary schools

Theses

Although humane education, promoting children's kindness toward animals, has been evaluated as a factor influencing children's kindness toward humans later in their life, the effect of a classroom pet hasn't been well studied. The current study investigated the influence of...