Abstract: Abstract  When apes are not fully understood by humans, they persist with attempts to communicate, elaborating their behaviours to better convey their meaning. Such abilities have never been investigated in dogs. The present study aimed to clarify any effect of the visual attentional state of the owner on dogs’ (Canis familiaris) social-communicative signals for interacting with humans, and to determine whether dogs persist and elaborate their behaviour in the face of failure to communicate a request. Gaze at a hidden target or at the owner, gaze alternation between a hidden target and the owner, vocalisations and contacts in 12 guide and 12 pet dogs were analysed (i) when the dogs were asked by their owners (blind or sighted) to fetch their inaccessible toy and (ii) when the dogs were subsequently given an unfamiliar object (apparent unsuccessful communication) or their toy (apparent successful communication). No group differences were found, indicating no effect of the visual status of the owner on the dogs’ socio-communicative modes (i.e. no sensitivity to human visual attention). Results, however, suggest that the dogs exhibited persistence (but not elaboration) in their “showing” behaviours in each condition, except that in which the toy was returned. Thus, their communication was about a specific item in space (the toy). The results suggest that dogs possess partially intentional non-verbal deictic abilities: (i) to get their inaccessible toy, the dogs gazed at their owners as if to trigger their attention; gaze alternation between the owner and the target direction, and two behaviours directed at the target were performed, apparently to indicate the location of the hidden toy; (ii) after the delivery of the toy, the dogs behaved as if they returned to the play routine, gazing at their owner whilst holding their toy. In conclusion, this study shows that dogs possess partially intentional non-verbal deictic abilities: they exhibit successive visual orienting between a partner and objects, apparent attention-getting behaviours, no sensitivity to the visual status of humans for communication, and persistence in (but no elaboration of) communicative behaviours when apparent attempts to “manipulate” the human partner fail.

Abstract: Personality in animal behaviour describes the observation that behavioural differences between individuals are consistent over time and context. Studies of group-living animals show that movement order among individuals is also consistent over time and context, suggesting that some individuals lead and others follow. However, the relationship between leadership and personality traits is poorly studied. We measured several personality traits and leadership of individual barnacle geese, Branta leucopsis. We measured body size and scored the dominance of individuals living in a stable group situation before subjecting them to an open-field test, an activity test, a novel-object test, and a leadership test in which the order of the movement of individuals in pairs towards a feeding patch was scored. We found high repeatability for activity and novel-object scores over time. Leadership was strongly correlated with novel-object score but not with dominance rank, activity or exploration in an open field. These results provide evidence that leadership is closely related to some aspects of personality. Interestingly, an individual's arrival at the food patch was affected not only by the novel-object score of the focal individual, but also by the novel-object score of the companion individual, indicating that movement patterns of individuals living in groups are affected by the personality traits of other group members and suggesting that movement patterns of a group may be shaped by the mix of personality types present in the group.

Abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate the ability of horses (Equus caballus) to detour around symmetric and asymmetric obstacles. Ten female Italian saddle horses were each used in three detour tasks. In the first task, the ability to detour around a symmetrical obstacle was evaluated; in the second and third tasks subjects were required to perform a detour around an asymmetrical obstacle with two different degrees of asymmetry. The direction chosen to move around the obstacle and time required to make the detour were recorded. The results suggest that horses have the spatial abilities required to perform detour tasks with both symmetric and asymmetric obstacles. The strategy used to perform the task varied between subjects. For five horses, lateralized behaviour was observed when detouring the obstacle; this was consistently in one direction (three on the left and two on the right). For these horses, no evidence of spatial learning or reasoning was found. The other five horses did not solve this task in a lateralized manner, and a trend towards decreasing lateralization was observed as asymmetry, and hence task difficulty, increased. These non-lateralized horses may have higher spatial reasoning abilities.

Abstract: This study addresses development and validation of a composite multifactorial pain scale (CPS) in an experimental equine model of acute orthopaedic pain. Eighteen horses were allocated to control (sedation with/without epidural analgesia – mixture of morphine, ropivacaine, detomidine and ketamine) and experimental groups: amphotericin-B injection in the tarsocrural joint induced pain and analgesia was either i.v. phenylbutazone administered post-induction of synovitis, or pre-emptive epidural mixture, or a pre-emptive combination of the 2. Inter- and intra-observer reproducibility was good (0.8<K<1). The key specific and sensitive behavioural indices were response to palpation of the painful area, posture, and, of lesser value, pawing on the floor, kicking at abdomen and head movement. Of particular interest was the statistical correlation observed between the CPS and both non-invasive blood pressure (P<0.0001) and blood cortisol (P<0.002). This study established the value of some behavioural and physiological criteria in determining equine orthopaedic pain intensity and clearly demonstrated that pre-emptive, multimodal analgesia provided better management than the two other protocols tested.

Abstract: Little research has been done to measure reactivity objectively in therapeutic riding horses (TRH). As individual reactivity and chronic stress could be assessed by exposing animals to acute, novel stressors, the authors of this work aimed at comparing reactions of TRHs and jumping horses (JH) to two challenges. Four TRHs and four JHs were exposed to a restraint covering their head with a hood for 1 h and to a startling stimulus (a 40 cm long, red and white synthetic holiday garland shaken with a rustling noise inside the box). Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded continuously and telemetrically, the reaction was video-recorded and analysed with a software for behavioural analysis. Blood samples were collected before and after each challenge to determine lymphocyte proliferation and other biochemical parameters. Horses spent most of the time immobile, during the challenges (p < 0.05). TRHs had a significantly higher average basal HR than JH (p < 0.05), probably due to their better condition. HR varied among different behaviours during the restraint (p < 0.05): the average HR during “pawing” was higher than during other behaviours (p < 0.005). A significant decrease in the proliferation of lymphocytes in samples taken after the removal of the hood (p < 0.05) was found, while the other stress related parameters did not vary significantly after the challenges. The authors conclude that TRHs did not react less than JHs to the new stimuli and this should be taken into consideration while planning their daily work and management.