Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Animal Studies Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Animal Studies

Classifying Dogs’ Facial Expressions: Implications For Human Cognitive Social Evolution And Cross-Species Communication, Lauren Mitchell Apr 2022

Classifying Dogs’ Facial Expressions: Implications For Human Cognitive Social Evolution And Cross-Species Communication, Lauren Mitchell

Symposium of Student Scholars

Facial expressions have been considered outward expressions of internal behavioral states. There is evidence that both dogs and humans subscribe to the social learning theory to acquire contextual information from past experiences in connecting facial expressions to behaviors. Previous research has shown that people are able to read dog facial expressions; however, the research is inconsistent on whether this behavior is innate or learned, as well as if this ability extends to dogs of different facial morphologies. The goal of this study was to understand the extent of humans’ ability to read facial expressions of dog breeds with different facial …


The Effects Of Olfactory Enrichment On Shelter Dog Behavior, Madison J. Pattillo, Lauren N. Mitchell, Jessica A. Catchpole, Allison L. Martin Aug 2021

The Effects Of Olfactory Enrichment On Shelter Dog Behavior, Madison J. Pattillo, Lauren N. Mitchell, Jessica A. Catchpole, Allison L. Martin

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Shelter environments are stressful for dogs due to loud noises and unfamiliar surroundings. Previous research showed that exposure to some scents resulted in reductions in activity and vocalizations in shelter dogs. We investigated the effects of two calming (lavender and vetiver) and two stimulating (lemon and rosemary) essential oils on crate position and active, resting, and stress behaviors. There were 8, 5-min observations conducted each week per dog, split between baseline and scent exposure. Our analysis using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test found that dogs exposed to lavender (n = 13), lemon (n = 10), rosemary (n = …