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Abstract: Vaginal examinations are routine procedures on dairy farms to diagnose pregnancy or puerperal diseases. Cows express their discomfort in certain situations with discrete behavioural reactions. These reactions can be described in their occurrence and extent. Although there is evidence that human contact is potentially stressful for cows, the impact of vaginal examinations on animal welfare has not been evaluated. Therefore, we hypothesized that (1) cows show discomfort before and during vaginal examination with different behavioural reactions, (2) these reactions can be semi-quantitatively scored and (3) the examination with a Metricheck device is less invasive than an examination with the gloved hand. In experiment 1, the behaviour of 10 cows during vaginal examination was videotaped and analysed. In total, 15 different behavioural reactions were identified. Based on these observations, a numerical rating system was created. The avoidance reactivity score (ARS) includes evasive reactions, which are scored on a 4-point scale, and signals of discomfort, scored with 1 point each. In Experiment 2, evasive reactions of cows were videotaped and scored by two observers and three times by the examiner. The inter- and intra-repeatability was 0.70 and 0.87, respectively. In experiment 3, vaginal examinations of 30 cows were videotaped and scored with the ARS by four observers and three times by one observer. The inter- and intra-observer repeatability during examination was 0.44 and 0.81, respectively. In experiment 4, 435 vaginal examinations were conducted either with the gloved hand (group GH) or the Metricheck device (group MD). Behaviour before and during examination was scored. The median ARS increased from 1 before (IQR: 1–2) to 3 during examination (IQR: 2–4) and cows in the group MD showed less avoidance reactions compared to cows in the group GH (P <0.05). Parity, days in milk, vaginal discharge or repeated examinations did not influence the ARS. Our study provides evidence that vaginal examinations cause stress in cows. Furthermore, we demonstrated that behavioural reactions can be assessed with a score. Substantial inter-observer and substantial intra-observer repeatability proves that the ARS can be applied in practice. The ARS – although imperfect – might be a useful tool in the field and in research to estimate a cow''s stress level. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Dogs can be trained for various odour detection tasks, and have been used to search for explosives, drugs or cancer biomarkers. However, there are only a few studies that have attempted to train dogs for oestrus detection using vaginal fluid, milk or urine of cows. In this study, seven dogs were trained utilizing special training equipment to discriminate oestrus against dioestrus scent in vaginal fluid, urine and milk of dairy cows. We set out (1) to determine the length of the learning phase of dogs using vaginal discharge to identify cows in oestrus, (2) to prove that dogs can generalize oestrus specific odour of cows and are not limited to an individual cow scent in oestrus, and (3) to study if dogs can identify oestrus specific odour in urine and milk, after they have been trained with vaginal fluid. Our results demonstrate that dogs can be trained for oestrus detection with vaginal swabs or urine of cows using special laboratory equipment within 52 positive reinforced contacts to the target scent. The dogs were correctly identifying the oestrus sample with a maximum accuracy of 80.3%. They could verify this accuracy in a blinded test situation testing novel samples. The dogs in this study were able to detect oestrus in urine and milk samples spontaneously, after being trained with vaginal fluid samples. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Numerous scientific studies show the increasing importance of trained scent detection dogs in a wide field of application. Methods used for testing scent detection dogs are heterogeneous and therefore susceptible for potential bias. Nevertheless, no accepted quality standards or adequate guidelines for performing scent studies and testing dogs have been published in the peer-reviewed literature yet. Therefore the objective of this systematic review was to evaluate publications on scent dog studies including test procedures and to identify methodological issues that could potentially bias or confound the study outcome. Using the databases Pubmed ( www.pubmed.gov ) and CAB ( http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com ), a systematic literature research was conducted on 23th July 2015 to find studies on scent detection work in dogs. Additional studies were recruited through a supplementary hand search. After a specific exclusion process, 54 studies were left for the final evaluation. Factors potentially influencing the outcome of scent detection studies with trained dogs were identified. We critically analyzed how the authors discussed potential flaws. Finally, we were able to condense the information into a best practice standard for scent dog studies regarding the target odour, type of scent detection task and experimental set-up, samples used for training and testing, test design, dog trainer and training procedure and used dog breeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient and accurate estrus detection is a key management factor determining acceptable reproductive performance in dairy herds. Previous studies have shown that dogs can differentiate between vaginal mucus samples of cows in estrus and vaginal mucus samples of cows in diestrus with an accuracy between 40.3% and 97.0%. We set out (1) to develop a specific training protocol for training dogs to identify cows in estrus from the feed alley and (2) to determine sensitivity and specificity of trained dogs to detect cows in estrus. Six dogs were trained by means of positive reinforcement to detect cows in estrus from the feed alley following the training protocol. Four of those dogs participated in the final test after an average training time of 50 h per dog. Overall, they correctly identified positive cows as being positive in 23 out of 32 cases (i.e. sensitivity of 71.9%) and falsely classified positive cows as being negative in nine cases (28.1% type II errors). Out of 128 cases 119 were correctly classified as true negative cows (i.e. specificity of 93.0%) and in nine cases negative cows were falsely identified as positive cows (7.0% type I errors). Further research is warranted to develop an optimized training protocol that allows training estrus detection dogs for practical use within an appropriate time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many species, scales are used to classify discomfort and stress (e.g., facial expression/pain scales). Although a significant number of vertebrates used for scientific purposes are chickens, a corresponding scale for birds has not yet been established. We developed a Stressed Chicken Scale ( SCS ) to investigate whether it is possible to assess discomfort in a chicken by its body posture. A selective review with additional handsearch was conducted to find suitable parameters for visual stress assessment. Seven potential body signals were identified: Tail and head position, eye closure, beak opening, leg and wing position, and plumage fullness (ruffled or fluffed up feathers). The SCS was evaluated for interobserver reliability with veterinary students (n = 20), using randomized pictures of stressed and unstressed chickens in lateral view (n = 80). Observers were able to identify the body signals on the pictures after a brief training session. Agreement scores for interobserver agreement ranged from κ = 0.31 (fair agreement) for eye closure to κ = 0.78 (substantial agreement) for beak opening. We found that the number of body signals displayed in a stressed expression had an impact on observers' overall assessment of the chickens, for example, chickens were more likely to be rated as stressed if more than 4 signals indicative of stress were present. We conclude that the 7 individual body signals can be used to identify discomfort in chickens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Dogs have been used in a variety of scent detection tasks for hundreds of years. However, methodological differences in the design of studies concerning canine scent detection make it difficult to directly compare and to evaluate their results. We set out to (1) evaluate the quality and comparability of published literature concerning canine scent detection according to criteria of evidence-based medicine and (2) to determine the influence of the testing system on the outcome of a scent detection task considering two different testing systems. For the systematic literature evaluation we retrieved 31 studies. After applying specific exclusion criteria 14 studies were left for final evaluation. A check list detailing relevant information about the study design and the training and testing process was used. Our results demonstrate many differences in methodology and a high variability of the results of those studies leading to diversity in respect to relevant quality criteria. For the second part of our study seven dogs were trained by means of positive reinforcement to detect black tea (LIPTON Earl Gray, Unilever Deutschland GmbH, Hamburg, Germany) as target scent in two different testing systems, a testing platform and a scent detection board. Our data show that using an optimized training strategy high sensitivity (92.1%) and specificity (97.4%) can be achieved in a short time. Sensitivity and specificity for the detection of a target substance (i.e. black tea) was similar for the two testing systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]