Lateralised behaviour as a predictor of welfare risk in the domestic dog, Canis familiaris

预测动物对不良福利的易感性的能力将使在个体福利受到损害之前采取干预措施。许多研究都集中在发现不良动物福利，然后采取改善行动。然而，很少有研究试图设计能够检测福利风险的措施，即动物在特定环境或情况下的反应。这项研究的目的是评估是否有可能通过使用运动偏侧性或偏向性的新测量方法来预测动物的福利风险，在人类中通常被称为“手性”。惯用手性，即主要使用一只手，作为一种可观察到的大脑功能指标已经被研究了很多年。直到最近，人们还认为惯用手是人类独有的。然而，现在我们知道，许多动物明显倾向于使用身体的一侧而不是另一侧。事实上，在各种各样的物种中，都记录了以爪子偏好、游泳方向和突破的形式出现的行为不对称。最近，有人提出运动偏好与动物福利之间可能存在关联，左肢偏好的动物比右肢偏好的动物更容易受到压力和幸福感降低。如果这种关联得到证实，那么行为不对称将被用作衡量福利风险的一种简单、廉价、重要的是非侵入性的方法。该项目将首次研究行为偏侧化与福利风险之间的关系，特别关注家养狗。全球成千上万的狗经常暴露在紧张的环境中（例如犬舍住房，服从训练，运输），在许多情况下导致福利受损。找到一种可靠的、无害的、一致的方法来预测哪些动物可能对这些压力源的应对能力较差，这将是非常有价值的，它使预防措施得以实施，使动物能够在早期阶段更好地应对周围环境，或者不被置于可能损害其福利的环境中。研究表明，狗的行为不对称表现为对爪子的偏好。然而，这种运动偏差和压力易感性之间的联系实际上被忽视了。该项目将以爪子偏好的形式评估运动不对称的潜力，以评估福利风险，调查运动偏见与身体和心理健康测量之间的关系，以及测量情感脆弱性的测试。我们将研究在暴露于已知压力源（在本例中为犬舍）时，爪子偏好与犬福利测量之间的关系，并研究“爪性”与行为问题表现之间的相关性。这项研究将确定以爪子偏好的形式表现出来的行为侧化是否可以作为动物福利风险的可靠、无害和独立的预测指标，为早期瞄准脆弱个体提供一个可行的工具。事实上，在几乎所有脊椎动物中都可以看到运动偏差，这意味着我们将能够制定指导方针，将运动偏差作为许多不同动物物种福利风险的检查。

The ability to predict an animal's susceptibility to suffer from poor welfare would enable interventions to be undertaken before the individual's well-being is compromised. Many studies have focused on the detection of poor animal welfare and then undertaken ameliorative action. Far fewer studies, however, have attempted to design measures that can detect welfare risk, i.e., how the animal may respond in particular circumstances or situations. It is the aim of this research to evaluate whether it is possible to predict the welfare risk of an animal through the use of the novel measure of motor laterality or bias, often termed 'handedness' in humans. Handedness, the predominant use of one hand, has been studied as an observable measure of brain functioning for numerous years. Until recently, it was assumed that handedness was unique to humans. It is now known, however, that many animals show a significant preference to use one side of their body more than the other. Indeed, behavioural asymmetries in the form of paw preferences, swimming direction and breaching, have been recorded in a wide variety of species. Recently, it has been suggested that there may be association between motor bias and animal welfare, with left-limb preferent animals being more vulnerable to stress and reduced well-being than animals showing a right-sided motor preference. If this association were to be proven, then it would enable behavioural asymmetry to be used as a simple, inexpensive and, importantly, non-invasive, measure of welfare risk. This project will examine, for the first time, the relationship between behavioural lateralisation and welfare risk, focusing specifically on the domestic dog. Thousands of dogs around the globe are exposed on a regular basis to stressful situations (e.g. kennel housing, obedience training, transportation), in many cases resulting in compromised welfare. Finding a reliable, harmless and consistent measure that can predict which animals are likely to cope poorly with such stressors would be immensely valuable, enabling preventive measures to be put into practice that allow the animal to cope better with its surroundings at a very early stage, or not to be placed in situations that may compromise its welfare. The dog has been shown to display behavioural asymmetry in the form of paw preferences. However, the association between this motor bias and susceptibility to stress has been virtually overlooked. This project will evaluate the potential of motor asymmetry in the form of paw preferences, to assess welfare risk, investigating the association between motor bias and measures of physical and psychological well-being and tests that measure emotional vulnerability. We will examine the relationship between paw preferences and measures of canine welfare during exposure to a known stressor (in this case kennel housing) and examine the correlation between 'pawedness' and the exhibition of behaviour problems. The research will determine whether behavioural lateralisation in the form of paw preferences 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. The fact that motor biases are seen in virtually all vertebrates means that we will be able to develop guidelines for the use of motor bias as an examination of welfare risk for many different animal species.