Background: The sport horse industry is growing exponentially worldwide. Alongside this there is an increasing demand for veterinary prepurchase examinations. It's important for all equine veterinarians to be familiar with how to perform these examinations in order to best advise their clients. Aim ...

Dogs may be relinquished to shelters and are unlikely to be adopted if they engage in problem behavior. A successful way to eliminate problem behavior is through training techniques based on behavioral principles. Obedience training with the use of positive reinforcement has been successful in...

Previous studies have found that infrequent targets can reduce dogs' vigilance. The purpose of this study was to develop a laboratory model to evaluate the effects of infrequent targets on dogs' search behavior and performance. Dogs (n = 18) were trained to detect smokeless powder in an automated...

This study sought to enhance current dog training practices by determining whether a finding from human motor skill learning research, the contextual interference (CI) effect, could be replicated in a trick-training paradigm with companion dogs. In humans, research shows that practicing skills in...

Detection dogs have demonstrated reduced performance in operational settings when required to search in an environment where few to no target odors are present. This study's purpose was to increase detection dog accuracy using noncontingent reward (NCR) and Pavlovian stimuli associated with reward. ...

Prior work has demonstrated canine search behavior and performance declines when challenged with infrequent target odors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether performance could be maintained in a low target odor prevalence context by explicitly training dogs through progressively...

This special issue contains 11 articles that provide insight into factors influencing canine welfare, methods for evaluating dogs' preferences and the reinforcing effectiveness of stimuli, trick learning and retention, concept learning, and scent detection performance under sparse reinforcement...

An equine case study that analyses the development of long-term equine food aggression towards humans and creates a bespoke behaviour modification plan following the Humane Hierarchy and Least Intrusive Minimally Aversive principles using scientific evidence.

Dropping (penile tumescence) in male horses has been related to the provision of food rewards but it is unclear why horses display this behaviour. The objective of this observational study was to characterize dropping in relation to other behavioural indicators. Trainers submitted videos of their...