Profile

I am a vet who does research into clinical behaviour problems in dogs and cats. My research at the moment involves developing new ways to measure the emotional state of dogs, so whether they see things positively or negatively. This can be very difficult to recognise in animals, because obviously unlike with people you can’t ask an animal how it feels! But whether an animal is feeling positive or negative is very important when assessing their welfare and how different situations might affect them. I am also looking at how different personality types might react to situations differently and how we can best go about treating animals with fear responses, for example to fireworks. The dogs are all patients at the behaviour clinic and we ask them to do different tasks such as seeing how they react in a room they haven’t been in before, seeing how they react to being taught a new command and seeing how they respond to treatment. My research in the past has included looking at urinary tract disease in cats and how stressful events, such as going to the vet practice, or a cattery, might have an impact on these cats. I also teach veterinary students and veterinary nursing students and I see dogs and cats at the University of Bristol’s behaviour clinic who have behaviour problems, such as aggression in dogs, or spraying in cats.

My typical day might include me seeing owners with their animals who have a behaviour problem, taking a full history of the problem and how it has developed, and then giving them practical and written advice on how to treat the problem. I might then do some training sessions with dogs and video how they respond for my research, look at these videos using a computer programme to measure what behaviours they use and then input this data into a statistical programme to analyse. My day also tends to involve lots of tea, chocolate and gossip!