Applied Veterinary Ethology

Explore horse special behavior within herd dynamics, including flight response, mutual grooming, vocalization and communication, flehmen response, head tossing, and social hierarchy guiding bonding and dominance.

Explore common equine stereotypic behaviors or vices such as cribbing, weaving, stall walking, and head tossing caused by stress, boredom, or confinement; include rolling and flehmen as welfare indicators.

Identify stereotypic behaviors and vices in horses, cribbing, weaving, and stall walking caused by stress and confinement. Learn flehmen cues and discomfort signals from tack or irritants to inform management.

Observe a mare in estrus displaying signs such as urination and tail lifting to attract a stallion. Note stallion behaviour around mares, including territorial and protective actions and flehmen.

Describe mare gestational behavior and physical changes during pregnancy, highlighting the typical 11-month duration, early mild changes, nesting, restlessness, and waxing teats as labor nears.

Explore cows' complex social behavior, including bonds, maternal instincts, vocalizations, body language, memory, and leadership that shape herd dynamics and communication.

Explore camels' desert adaptations, including spitting as a defense, drinking up to 40 gallons, and water conservation. Learn how humps store fat not water, cud chewing, thermoregulation, and mating vocalizations.

Explore sheep ethology, including flocking, grazing patterns, leadership dynamics, maternal behavior, flight responses, memory, problem solving, and social recognition.

Understand lab animal behavior across species and environments, noting stereotypic actions like pacing and freezing as stress signals, and rodent nesting, exploration, play, and self-mutilation indicators.

Explore the surprising intelligence, memory, and problem solving, and social complexity of pigs. See how they root with their snout, vocalize, wallow in mud to cool, and form pecking orders.

Explore unique dog behavior and strengthen bonds by interpreting tail wagging, head tilting, sniffing, digging, howling, and other signals to understand emotions and foster trust.

Explore how birth, growth, and reproduction drive behavior patterns and management needs, and how attentive handling and behavioral principles enhance productive offspring and milk, meat, or eggs.

Explore how domestic animals communicate through visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and electrical signals, and learn to prevent aggression by diagnosing and managing communication breakdowns for welfare and productivity.

Identify how dominance-related aggression shapes social hierarchies in farm animals, explain how mixing and overcrowding disrupt the pecking order, and present humane management strategies to protect welfare and productivity.

Explore how animals perceive time through circadian and ultradian rhythms, using activity, sleep patterns, and memory to detect normal versus abnormal stereotypic behavior.

Explore how six interacting factors—genetic, prenatal organizational and adult activational hormones, anatomy, experience, and environment—shape sexual behavior in domestic animals.

Explore how hormonal priming, neural stimulation, and neonatal cues drive maternal behavior in domestic animals, detailing estrogen and progesterone roles, oxytocin, cervical stimulation, and parity effects.

Discover how early life shapes adult dog behavior by detailing neonatal, transitional, and juvenile development, the vital socialization window, and how missed exposure leads to fear and aggression.

Explore main learning types in animals, habituation, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, discrimination, imprinting, and memory types, and apply them to understand fear, exposure, and desensitization in veterinary practice.

Understand the objectives and anatomy of the hoof, and the materials, tools, and techniques of horse shoeing. Identify faults causing laminitis and injuries, and how protection and traction help.

Classify medicine forms and apply safe, effective drug administration across horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, and cats using oral, parenteral, topical, inhalation, and rectal routes.

Explain cattle dentition, including the absence of upper incisors and canines, a lower incisor cutting against a dental bath, and the temporary and permanent dental formulas used for age estimation.

Address kicking during milking by identifying pain or handling issues and correcting milking technique, and reduce sucking with adequate feeding, navel feeders, and anti-sucking devices plus enrichment.