Automatisk vurdering av adferd på hund basert på spørreundersøkelser og videoer sendt inn av hundeeiere via nettdugnad.

A new and exciting project aims at developing tools for recording and analysing dog behaviour. The tools will be digital and based on both questionnaires and video analyses of dog behaviour. The goal is to create a basis for giving dog owners feedback regarding their dog?s behaviour, and as documentation for use in dog breeding programs. The majority of Norwegian dogs are family pets, and their ability to function well in human society is important. Family dogs lacking this ability are likely to have reduced welfare and can also cause limitations and restrictions for the owner in everyday life. The project will map behaviour related to positive welfare at different ages in different dog breeds. Further, it will study the link between variation in socialisation with development of specific behaviour in different breeds. Furthermore, standardised behaviour tests and video analyses will be developed to identify any differences within and between dog breeds. The project is a collaboration between Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) and the breeding organisations at Hamar, represented by the companies Aninova and Norsvin. It combines the fields of ethology, traditional breeding and digitalisation, and will potentially be able to contribute with important additional tools for responsible breeding in the Scandinavian dog population. All dog owners are invited to participate in the project by registering their dog in the dog-portal Biotail (www.biotail.no). Breed organisations will also receive specific inquiries. Over the course of 16 months, the PhD candidate has studied positive welfare, socialization, and stress coping strategies in dogs, as well as theory of neurobiology and genetics to further develop the theoretical basis relevant to the project and the surveys. The PhD candidate has held four webinars and seminars, including a start-up seminar for the full project group and other interested parties. In addition to weekly supervisory meetings, two meetings of the full project group have been held, as well as a meeting for brainstorming and idea development with the ethologists involved in the project. The first two surveys have been developed, and a final test is planned before they are published on Biotail. Furthermore, work on the last two surveys is underway, and the PhD candidate is working on planning the data analysis and writing the first article. The PhD candidate has also completed two of three months of his stay abroad at Linköping University in Sweden, where he has, in addition to working on his own project, built professional networks and participated actively in the academic community. During the last month in Sweden, the PhD candidate will participate in a course, which together with 4 previous courses make up 24.5 of the 35 ECTS required for the PhD. The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Counsel through Industrial-PhD funds and ethologist Kim Bjørnson is employed as a PhD-student. Supervisors at NMBU are Prof. Ruth Newberry and Prof. Peer Berg. The project?s contact person is Marte Wetten (Dr. Scient) in Aninova. You can read more about the project at www.aninova.no or send an email to marte.wetten@aninova.no if you have any questions. Join in contributing to tools for better dog welfare!

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De aller fleste hunder er familiehunder, og det er viktig at alle hunder fungerer sosialt sammen med mennesker. En hund som ikke fungerer sosial vil ha redusert dyrevelferd, samtidig som den legger store begrensninger for eier i hverdagen. Det er i Norge et relativt begrenset utvalg av hunder innen hver rase som blir testet gjennom organiserte mentaltester. For et avlsarbeid er dette en stor ulempe da et snevert utvalg av populasjonen får registreringer. Hovedmålet i prosjektet er å utvikle og validere verktøy for registrering og analyse av adferd på hund. Verktøyene skal være digitale, og de skal baseres på at hundeeiere selv gjør registreringer på egen hund. Målet med disse verktøyene er at de skal bli gode nok til å kunne brukes til rutinemessig datainnsamling på hunder for å dokumentere adferd. De innsamlede dataene vil tjene to formål: a) Legge grunnlag for å gi hundeeier en konkret tilbakemelding/score på sin hunds adferd og b) Som dokumentasjon til bruk i avlsarbeidet på hund (potensiell bruk av indekser på sikt). Prosjektet er et samarbeid mellom selskapene Norsvin SA og Aninova AS på Hamar og NMBU. Hamarselskapene utvikler tjenester og verktøy som skal tilrettelegge for ansvarlig avl på hund. Sammen med NMBU ønsker de derfor å se på muligheten for å utvikle verktøy for å registrere adferd på hund, ved at hundeeier selv observerer og registrerer sin hund. Prosjektet kombinerer fagområdene etologi, tradisjonell avl og digitalisering, og vil potensielt kunne bidra med viktige tilleggsverktøy for ansvarlig avl i den skandinaviske hunde-populasjonen.