Find out more about our Centre and the research we undertake in each of the areas below.

Laterality and Animal Welfare

Research has recently been secured from BBSRC to examine the relationship between laterality and animal welfare. Specifically, the project is exploring whether lateral bias, in the form of paw preference, can be used as a tool for assessing welfare risk, using the domestic dog as a model. Studies are investigating the association between motor bias and measures of physical/psychological well-being, and tests that measure emotional vulnerability.

Ultimately, the research will determine whether behavioural asymmetry can be used as a reliable, harmless and independent predictor of welfare risk in animals, offering a viable tool for the early targeting of vulnerable individuals.

Environmental Enrichment

The Centre is heavily involved in finding ways of improving the psychological well-being of captive animals through the implementation of scientifically tried and tested environmental enrichment schemes. Over the years, researchers have led the way in evaluating the efficacy of various types of sensory stimulation (auditory, visual, olfactory) and other enrichment schemes on the behaviour and welfare of animals housed in rescue shelters (dogs, cats), zoos (primates, cats, elephants) and on farms (pigs). Funding for this work has been provided by a variety of organisations including DEFRA, the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare and the British Psychological Society. The findings from the work have attracted prestigious research awards, informed policy and practice, and helped to improve the housing of animals kept in institutional settings.

Pets and Human Health

The notion that pets are good for us is by no means a new one; scientific evidence for a link between companion animals and human health, however, is still relatively sparse. Researchers at the Animal Behaviour Centre have thus been exploring the ability of animals to serve as social facilitators and act as mediators to stress. Studies have explored the effect of pets on people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME (funded by the Society of Companion Animal Studies) and the ability of dogs to serve as detectors of hypoglycaemia in people with Type 1 diabetes (funded by Diabetes UK).

Animal Olfaction

In addition to exploring the value of odours as a method of environment enrichment for captive animals (see above), researchers at the Centre have been investigating the tracking skills of domestic dogs and, more recently, prenatal olfactory learning in dogs and cats. This work has shown that dogs are proficient at following the correct direction of a human-laid trail, and can successfully following trails after only a small number of footsteps have been laid.

The olfactory acuity of the great apes is also the focus of research attention, exploring, for the first time, the importance of odour cues to one of our closest living cousins