Anxiety-related disorders and separation anxiety are
among the most common behavioural problems in domestic
dogs. Separation anxiety is diagnosed in 20&endash;40% of
dogs referred to animal behaviour practices. Problems
that occur when the owner is absent represent one of the
principal causes for the breakdown of the
human&endash;companion animal bond and lead to surrender
of numerous dogs to shelter.
The most common complaints are destructive behaviour
directed at the home, self inflicted-trauma,
inappropriate elimination, and excessive vocalisation
(whining, barking, or howling) only in the owner's
absence.
This information to gain a more comprehensive
understanding of developmental aspects of social
behaviour as well as social influences on behavioural
phenotype appears necessary. No detailed study has been
published that included filmed observations of the
behaviour of puppies home alone.
The aim of this exploratory pilot study was to
investigate which behaviours puppies exhibited when left
home alone within the initial weeks (0&endash;11 weeks)
following adoption, as well as describing variability and
temporal distribution of these behaviours.
Analysis of behaviours on tape showed that puppies
did not behave homogeneously but rather separated into
three distinct groups. Puppies were clustered based on
behaviours such as
playing and exploring or
exhibiting passive behaviours or
presenting lip licking, yawning, scratching,
orienting to the environment and vocalising.
Des troubles anxieux et la peur de la
séparation du maître sont deux des troubles
comportementaux les plus fréquents chez le chien.
Les vétérinaires retrouvent une
fréquence de 20 à 40% de chiens souffrant
d'anxiété de séparation. Les
difficultés se développent quand le
maître s'absente et sont la première cause
de rupture de l'attachement de l'animal à son
maître. Dans ce type de situation, les chiens ont
tendance à se blottir sous un abri
"protecteur".
Les plaintes les plus fréquemment
rapportées par les maîtres sont les
dégradations de la maison, des auto-mutilations de
l'animal, des déjections non
contrôllées, des aboiements, des pleurs
survenant uniquement pendant les absences.
Améliorer les connaissances sur ces
comportements et leur genèse évolutive
apparaît donc comme nécessaire. Aucune
publication sicentifique n'avait, jusque-là,
rapporté le comportement de chiots, laissés
seuls, grâce à une surveillance par un
système vidéo.
Le but de cette expérimentation pilote
était de déterminer quels comportements
avaient des chiots, laissés seuls, dans une
habitation après une période d'adoption de
0 à 11 semaines. L'étude inclue
également la temporalité et le contexte des
comportements.
L'analyse des films réalisés montre que
les chiots n'ont pas un seul comportement
spécifique mais qu'on peut établir une
classification en trois groupes de comportements,
à savoir:
jouer et explorer l'environnement
rester passif
se lêcher les babines, bâiller, se
gratter, émettre des vocalises
The history of medicine begins with
Hippocrates in
the fifth century BC. Yet until the invention
of antibiotics in the 1930s, physicians, in
general, did their patients more harm than
good.
David Wootton argues that for more than
2300 years physicians have relied on their
patients' misplaced faith in their ability to
cure. Over and over again major discoveries
which could save lives were met with
professional resistance.
And this is not just a phenomenon of the
distant past. The first patient effectively
treated with penicillin was in the 1880s; the
second not until the 1940s. There was
overwhelming evidence that smoking caused
lung cancer in the 1950s...
Nevertheless, D. Wootton seems to forget
that the first medicine is the physician
himself. The empathy already existed before
Hippocrate and has ever eased the
diseases.
David Wootom montre toutes les
misères endurées, au cours des
siècles, par les malades, hélas
souvent à cause des médecins,
si souvent réticents et lents à
intégrer le progrès des
sciences expériementales dans leur
pratique.
Il semble, néanmoins, oublier que
le premier médicament est le
médecin lui-même. L'empathie
existait déjà avant Hippocrate
et a toujours adouci les maux.
Adelie Penguins employ yawning as part of their
courtship ritual. Penguin couples face off and the males
engage in what is described as an "ecstatic display,"
their beaks open wide and their faces pointed skyward.
This trait has also been seen among Emperor
Penguins.
L'Encyclopédie
méthodique est
une entreprise de longue durée,
demi-séculaire, puisqu'elle s'étend de 1782
à 1832, pour aboutir à un monument de 210
volumes in-4°, 157 de texte sur deux colonnes et 53
de planches.
L'éditeur C.
Panckoucke
projetait de faire réécrire
l'Encyclopédie
de Diderot et d'Alembert, à une plus grande
échelle en l'augmentant de toutes le connaissances
de l'époque par les meilleurs auteurs.
This is the Ultimate Encyclopedia
and the largest of all great Encyclopedias and the most
important work published during the French Enlightement.
(1782-1832).
The Encyclopédie
méthodique was a reworking of the famous
Encyclopédie
of Diderot and d'Alembert, but on a much larger scale,
with important additions by the best minds of the day.
The publisher Panckoucke
called the work "un superbe ouvrage et la vraie
Encyclopédie"; it was to be "a book that would
make Diderot's work pale into insignificance, that would
encompass all of human knowledge"...
"Perhaps it is useful to
consider one of the strangest displays that can be seen
in many different mammalian species &endash; "yawning".
The purpose of yawning has been the subject of intense
speculation by a small group of scientists and I receive
monthly e-mail bulletins from a French-based society
dedicated to this subject (www.baillement.com). This is
indeed a curious behavioural display and is a beautiful
example of an involuntary expression that is pleasurable
and that we, as humans, use voluntarily to deliberately
communicate boredom. It is also highly infectious with
yawning, perhaps even more than smiling, being likely to
induce the same display in others that see you doing it.
Recent brain imaging studies have even suggested that
observed activation in the temporal lobe during
perception of yawning may actually be directly triggering
"imitation" of this behaviour."
