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Ethology and veterinary practice: Animal behavior and human perception
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareIn previous articles, I've mentioned that we can say nothing about what an animal's behavior means unless we know the context in which is occurs. In the case of companion animals, a key contextual element is the owners' and others' emotional perception of those animals.
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Negotiating commercial leases: Location, location, location
Dale Willerton and Jeff Grandfield RetailFor many commercial tenants, negotiating a good lease or lease renewal against an experienced agent or landlord can be a challenge. While an entrepreneur focuses on marketing and managing, savvy real estate agents and brokers are specialized salespeople. Their job is to sell tenants on leasing their location at the highest possible rental rate.
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Negotiating commercial leases: Ask the right questions
Dale Willerton and Jeff Grandfield RetailFor many commercial tenants, negotiating a good lease or lease renewal against an experienced agent or landlord can be a challenge. While an entrepreneur focuses on marketing and managing, savvy real estate agents and brokers are specialized salespeople. Their job is to sell tenants on leasing their location at the highest possible rental rate.
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Ethology and veterinary practice: Feline maternal-human mismatches
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareLast month's brief opened with a scenario common to many practitioners: the client who rescues a kitten naively thinking that bottle-feeding will fulfill the kitten's maternal needs. Then, I looked at the opposite end of the feline nursing spectrum: the range of behavioral benefits conferred by a prolonged nursing strategy on kittens, queens and a population of free-roaming cats drawn together by a reliable food supply.
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Ethology and veterinary practice: More than mother’s milk
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareThis is the time of year when veterinarians, shelter workers and animal control folks often get more calls from kind-hearted people who lack ethological knowledge. This leads to a three-step process that can create behavioral problems for animals.
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Ethology and veterinary practice: Transport behavior-related trends
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareThoughts about the status of contemporary dog behavior elicits thoughts of Janus, the mythological two-headed god. Among his many duties, he stood in doorways with one face keeping an eye on what went on inside the home and the other focused on the world outside.
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Ethology and veterinary practice: Telltale signs of human fear
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareThink about normal and problem companion animal behavior. Of all the biological variables that contribute to it, which attribute has the greatest influence? Some would say the animal's species- and breed-specific genetic makeup has the greatest impact. Others might place more emphasis on maternal care or nutrition. Relatively few, however, will mention the quality of the biological and behavioral effects of the human-animal bonds (HAB) that form between an animal and the people with whom the animal lives and interacts.
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Ethology and veterinary practice: Human emotions and animal behavior
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareChanges in animal behavior often trigger human awareness of existing or impending animal medical problems. However, how a specific person responds to these behaviors depends on the quality of the bond between that person and the animal.
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Ethology and veterinary practice: Implications of Russian fox studies
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareMuch of what we know about the physiological and behavioral effects of domestication comes from the farm fox studies conducted by a Russian team of geneticists, led by Dmitre Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut. A mere 40 years and 30-35 generations of breeding wild foxes strictly for friendliness toward humans resulted in animals with behaviors closer to that of domestic dogs than their wild cohorts. More importantly, these studies offer four valuable insights for veterinary practitioners.
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Ethology and veterinary practice: Behavioral variations on an anatomical…
Dr. Myrna Milani Pet CareAs I learned more about the interaction of animal behavior, health and the bond, my disenchantment with the canine "sit" command steadily grew. Eventually, I eliminated it completely from my patients' behavioral repertoire. Then and now, it serves as another good reminder that there's no such thing as just a medical or behavioral or bond problem. Change one, and the other components will change.
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