Pritchett Margaret, Barnard Shanis, Croney Candace
Department of Comparative Pathobiology, Purdue University, 725 Harrison Street, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA.
Animals (Basel). 2021 Mar 20;11(3):890. doi: 10.3390/ani11030890.
Understanding the behavioral welfare of dogs in commercial breeding kennels (CBKs) is important for improving breeders' management practices as well as dog welfare. In the current study, breeding dogs from CBKs were exposed to novel stimuli to evaluate their behavioral responses, with emphasis on indicators of fear. Subjects were presented with a standard stranger-approach test, a traffic cone, and a realistic dog statue. Sixty dogs were exposed to the three stimuli and behavioral responses were scored using an ethogram developed for this study. Dogs spent significantly more time investigating the environment, staying further away from the stimulus, and they took longer to approach and investigate when presented with the cone than with the dog statue or stranger ( < 0.01). These findings suggest that the cone elicited more fear-related behaviors than the dog statue and stranger. Given these results, in addition to socializing their dogs to unfamiliar people and other dogs within their kennels, commercial breeders should be encouraged to increase the exposure of their dogs to more diverse novel stimuli to reduce non-social fear and support the welfare of dogs while they reside in the kennel and when they transition to new homes.
了解商业繁殖犬舍（CBK）中犬只的行为福利对于改善繁殖者的管理实践以及犬只福利非常重要。在当前研究中，来自CBK的繁殖犬接触新刺激以评估其行为反应，重点关注恐惧指标。对受试犬进行了标准的陌生人接近测试、一个交通锥和一个逼真的犬只雕像测试。六十只犬接触了这三种刺激，并使用为本研究开发的行为图谱对行为反应进行评分。犬只在调查环境上花费的时间显著更多，与刺激物保持更远的距离，并且与面对犬只雕像或陌生人相比，当面对交通锥时，它们接近和调查所需的时间更长（<0.01）。这些发现表明，交通锥引发的恐惧相关行为比犬只雕像和陌生人更多。鉴于这些结果，除了让犬只在犬舍内与陌生人和其他犬只进行社交外，还应鼓励商业繁殖者增加犬只接触更多样化新刺激的机会，以减少非社交性恐惧，并在犬只居住在犬舍以及过渡到新家时支持它们的福利。
