Second Edition of Behavior and Physical Health Integration in Companion Animals

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Companion Animals".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2024 | Viewed by 2150

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Departamento de Patología Animal, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50013 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: dogs; cats; behaviour; animal welfare; stress; comparative medicine: diseases in humans and animals; cognitive dysfunction; epilepsy; microbiota
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Departamento de Patología Animal, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Zaragoza, 50013 Zaragoza, Spain
Interests: dogs; cats; behaviour; animal welfare; stress; comparative medicine: diseases in humans and animals; cognitive dysfunction; epilepsy; microbiota
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Servicio de Etología y Medicina de Comportamiento Animal, Hospital Veterinario Universitario Rof Codina, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 27002 Lugo, Spain
Interests: dogs; cats; behaviour; animal welfare; stress; comparative medicine: diseases in humans and animals; cognitive dysfunction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the Second Edition of the Special Issue, “Behavior and Physical Health Integration in Companion Animals”, which seeks to explore the relationship between behavioral and physical factors in companion animals. Behavioral problems have been traditionally considered almost as a diagnosis of exclusion. However, behavioral and physical health are not separate but interdependent entities. Behavioral medicine increasingly considers a much more diffuse boundary between medical and ethological etiologies. In fact, a high incidence of comorbidities with medical conditions is detected in animals showing behavioral problems. Moreover, stress and even temperament may predispose some illnesses. The integration of these and other factors during veterinary consultation may provide a better understanding of behavioral problems and medical conditions, thereby improving the effectiveness of treatments. This Special Issue will showcase the latest research on the topic of integration of physical–behavioral health in dogs and cats, and we hope invitees will make a major contribution to the knowledge and practice relating to this topic.

Dr. Belén Rosado
Dr. Sylvia García-Belenguer
Dr. Ángela González-Martínez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • behavior
  • physical health
  • dog
  • cats
  • comorbidities

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 1902 KiB  
Article
Development of a Dog Health Score Using an Artificial Intelligence Disease Prediction Algorithm Based on Multifaceted Data
by Seon-Chil Kim and Sanghyun Kim
Animals 2024, 14(2), 256; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14020256 - 13 Jan 2024
Viewed by 1857
Abstract
Detecting aberrant behaviors in dogs or observing emotional interactions between a dog and its owner may serve as indicators of potential canine diseases. However, dog owners typically struggle to assess or predict the health status of their pets independently. Consequently, there is a [...] Read more.
Detecting aberrant behaviors in dogs or observing emotional interactions between a dog and its owner may serve as indicators of potential canine diseases. However, dog owners typically struggle to assess or predict the health status of their pets independently. Consequently, there is a demand for a methodology enabling owners to evaluate their dogs’ health based on everyday behavioral data. To address this need, we gathered individual canine data, including three months of standard daily activities (such as scratching, licking, swallowing, and sleeping), to train an AI model. This model identifies abnormal behaviors and quantifies each behavior as a numerical score, termed the “Health Score”. This score is categorized into ten levels, where a higher score indicates a healthier state. Scores below 5 warrant medical consultation, while those above 5 are deemed healthy. We validated the baseline value of the Health Score against veterinarian diagnoses, achieving an 87.5% concordance rate. This validation confirms the reliability of the Health Score, which assesses canine health through daily activity monitoring, and is expected to significantly benefit dog owners who face challenges in determining the health status of their pets. Full article
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