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The State of Research on Human–Animal Relations: Implications for Human Health
Journal Articles
Since the late 1970s, scientific evidence has accumulated showing that pet ownership can have positive effects on people’s physical and mental wellbeing. This paper reviews the current state of affairs regarding the relationship between companion animals and human health, focusing on both...
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A One Health Research Framework for Animal-Assisted Interventions
Journal Articles
Background: The integration of animals into healthcare, referred to as animal-assisted intervention, is a rapidly growing research field and was previously related to One Health. However, the assessment of synergistic effects of animal-assisted interventions (AAI) has been poorly addressed to...
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Good fences make good neighbours: A qualitative, interpretive study of human–baboon and human–human conflict on the Cape Peninsula
Theses
Picturesque Cape Town is the epitome of an urban/nature interface but one within which chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) face slander for transgressing both the socially constructed human/animal and nature/culture divide, and/or the actual, physical borderlines associated with these divides. The...
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We Don’t Train in Vain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Human and Canine Caregiver Training
Journal Articles
The present review assessed the current knowledge regarding caregiver- training effectiveness for human and human-canine dyads. Most canine-related sources (66%; n = 19) were case studies reporting a decrease of learner undesired behavior when using oral instruction (21%; n = 6). Most...
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A Longitudinal Study of Decision Making in the Process of Acquiring a Dog
Journal Articles
To prevent potential problems in the relationship between people and their dogs, it is important to engage in a thoughtful decision-making process with regard to acquiring a dog. To map the most important elements in the decision-making process, a social cognitive model was applied using seven...
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Psychological Mechanisms Predicting Wellbeing in Pet Owners: Rogers’ Core Conditions versus Bowlby’s Attachment
Journal Articles
While pet ownership may confer physical and psychological health benefits, existing research presents inconsistent findings, and the psychological mechanisms through which health benefits might be conferred are unknown. Exploring human–pet relationships from the perspectives of Bowlby’s...
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Measuring the Strength of Human–Animal Bonds in Zoos
Journal Articles
Repeated interactions within individual human and animal dyads can lead to the establishment of human–animal relationships (HARs), which may vary in quality from good to bad, defined in terms of the positivity (e.g., friendly contact, play) or negativity (e.g., aggression) of the interactions on...
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The Effects of Touching and Stroking a Cat on the Inferior Frontal Gyrus in People
Journal Articles
Our study evaluated the effects on the prefrontal cortex, especially the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), of people when touching and stroking a real or soft toy cat, using functional near infrared spectroscopy. Thirty under-graduate students (10 males, 20 females) were recruited and performed three...
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Children Love Their Pets: Do Relationships between Children and Pets Co-vary with Taxonomic Order, Gender, and Age?
Journal Articles
Generally, children love their pets. However, a deeper insight into the beneficial effects of pets on the physical, psychological, and social wellbeing and development of children is needed. This study investigated whether children have more intense relationships with animals which are...
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Empathy-Related Ratings to Still Images of Human and Nonhuman Animal Groups in Negative Contexts Graded for Phylogenetic Similarity
Journal Articles
Research using film stimuli has shown that the strength of empathy-related responses toward nonhuman animals is related to the amount of phylogenetic similarity of the animals to humans. The present study aimed to develop and validate a new set of still images depicting humans and nonhuman...
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Exploring Synchronicity in the Heart Rates of Familiar and Unfamiliar Pairs of Horses and Humans Undertaking an In-Hand Task
Journal Articles
Physiological responses that occur in horses and humans during their interactions, on the ground and during ridden work, have been investigated in a number of studies with some conflicting results. These suggest that in some situations emotional state may be transferred from humans to horses and...
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Using qualitative behaviour assessment to explore the link between stockperson behaviour and dairy calf behaviour
Journal Articles
Dairy farming usually implies close and frequent contact between the stockperson and the animals. A good human–animal relationship (HAR) is therefore essential for good animal welfare. To fully understand the quality of the HAR both the stockperson behaviour and the animals’ reaction to the...
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Influence of gentle touching applied few weeks before slaughter on avoidance distance and slaughter stress in finishing cattle
Journal Articles
The present study investigated the effect of gentle touching applied during the last 5 weeks before slaughter in finishing cattle on behaviour towards humans, stress indicators and beef quality. Three experiments were carried out. Experiments 1, 2 and 3 employed eight Limousin crossbred bulls,...
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Individual and environmental factors associated with stereotypic behavior and fecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels in zoo housed polar bears
Journal Articles
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are known to exhibit repetitive pacing behaviors, usually described as stereotypic, in zoo environments. However, little quantitative information exists about the prevalence of pacing in the zoo population. Similarly, large, multi-institutional studies conducted to...
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I like my dog, does my dog like me?
Journal Articles
In this study, the possibility of there being an association between how an owner perceives his/her relationship to their dog and the way the dog experiences the relationship to its owner was investigated using two well-established methods within the anthrozoology literature. Twenty dog–owner...
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Effects of neonatal castration on social behaviour, human–animal relationship and feeding activity in finishing pigs reared in a conventional or an enriched housing
Journal Articles
Raising entire males is already common in a few European countries. It has the advantage of avoiding the pain of castration. Entire males have also a better food conversion. However, they would be more aggressive than castrates which causes welfare troubles. The consequences for human–animal...
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Behavioral correlates and welfare implications of informal interactions between caretakers and zoo-housed chimpanzees and gorillas
Journal Articles
In captive animal facilities, human staff members are a relevant part of the animals’ social environment in addition to providing care and managing the social group. Structured, predictable interactions and relaxed, spontaneous contacts may all affect the animals’ behavior and well-being, both...
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Approach behaviour of shelter dogs and its relationships with the attitudes of shelter staff to dogs
Journal Articles
The behaviour of animals towards humans is widely used to assess human–animal relationship and welfare in livestock. The aim of this study was to develop an approach test for dogs that is feasible in a surveillance setting, shows stability over a given time period and has good...
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Separation distress in artificially-reared lambs depends on human presence and the number of conspecifics
Journal Articles
The way animals perceive partners, including humans, is yet relatively unknown. Research has shown that humans can provide social support or act as social substitute for domestic animals. Nonetheless, studies investigating the perception of humans by domestic animals in their social environment,...
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Risk factors for the development of behavior problems in a population of Iranian domestic dogs: Results of a pilot survey
Journal Articles
Prevalence and risk factors of behavior problems observed in dogs presented to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran, were evaluated using a survey of canine behavior problems. Information was collected from 368 successfully completed questionnaires on...
