A recent blog post from Psychology Today’s Decoding your Pet series, written by Dr. Emily Levine. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/decoding-your-pet/201604/why-does-my-dog-bite-me-when-he-approaches-me-be-petted

This piece by Lynn Miller for PetMD includes tips on how to introduce a new cat to a resident cat from Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist Dr. Megan Maxwell and others. http://www.petmd.com/cat/training/evr_ct_how-to-introduce-cats

A study published this month in Scientific Reports examines impulsivity across Border Collies and Labs bred either for show or for work. Abstract Impulsiveness describes the inability to inhibit behaviour in the presence of salient cues. Trait-level impulsivity exists on a continuum and individual differences can be adaptive in different contexts. While breed related differences […]

Spring Trainer’s Ring 2016 Laura Monaco Torelli Spring is here! What a fun time of year for us and our pups to get out and stretch our legs after a long winter. This is also the season for puppies to suddenly spring up, and show up, on our radar as veterinary and training professionals. With […]

Dr. Jaak Panksepp is our keynote speaker! The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB) is excited to announce our keynote speaker for this year’s Behavior Symposium is Dr. Jaak Panksepp, neuroscientist, psychobiologist, and author of the well known text Affective Neuroscience and other texts on biological psychology.   Don’t miss this great speaker, as well as […]

Short course has been announced: Zoo Animal Behavior. The American College of Veterinary Behaviorists Resident’s short course has been announced for August 4th, 2016 in San Antonio. This year the main topics will be Zoo Animal Behavior presented by Liz Stelow, DACVB along with a morning of Exam Review and evening of Case Reports.  The […]

Hello everyone! My name is Brittany Thomas. I am a licensed veterinary technician at Animal Medical Center of Middletown in Louisville, Kentucky. I am currently working on transitioning the practice to become more Fear Free. I teach puppy socialization classes, and am currently studying to become a veterinary technician specialist in behavior. I am honored and […]

A study published this month demonstrates that dopamine is involved in learning under both positive and negative reinforcement contingencies. A summary of this research, conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, is provided here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/uops-bsn022916.php U of Penn’s original release of the study is here: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2016/02/dani/ And the original paper is available here: http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(16)30063-8 Really cool […]

The most recent AVSAB/UCD webinar is now available! Topic for the discussion and instructions for accessing it are presented. Direct link is: http://ucdavisvetmed.wcea.education/searchOnlineTraining#/training/162056 Users will need to sign in (or register if this is their first visit) but this only takes a moment. 10% discount code (for AVSAB members only – not for distribution to […]

A brief report titled Behavioral Assessment of Child-Directed Canine Aggression by Reisner, Shofer, and Nance (2007) provides some demographic data on child-directed dog bites that include bite circumstances and dog characteristics. In their 2007 paper titled Behavioral Assessment of Child-Directed Canine Aggression, Reisner et al. report case data obtained from dog owners whose dogs had […]