Search Results (73)

Cat welfare assessment in Animal-assisted aervices (AAS) is necessary to ensure engagement in AAS does not impair welfare. An initial systematic search conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines revealed a complete lack of studies specifically addressing this topic. Consequently, a second-step search was performed, widened to the existing tools for monitoring cat welfare in general. Three scoping reviews using PRISMA guidelines were performed, focusing on the three principal fields of welfare assessment: health, behaviour, and physiology/endocrinology. Studies published on Scopus in 2011–2026, written in English and assessing feline (Felis catus) welfare were selected. A total of 2728 records were identified, of which 43 met the inclusion criteria (including 7 reviews and 1 scientific report); the methods used to assess cat welfare were summarized and discussed for their potential application in AAS. Although multiple tools are available, most are context- or disease-specific and some are not validated. Approximately half of the studies employed more than one indicator or method, with behavioural parameters being the most frequently used through questionnaires or scores. This work provides a practical framework to support veterinarians, handlers, and researchers in the selection of appropriate tools for cat welfare monitoring in AAS. Full article

This review analyzes the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) production and its contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A scoping review following PRISMA-ScR guidelines was conducted using the Web of Science (2020–2026), resulting in 225 included studies. Buffalo production is a multipurpose system that generates value through milk, meat, hides, manure, draft power, and animal-assisted services, with greater longevity than most livestock species. Economically, it supports income diversification, resource efficiency, and functions as a financial asset that can be sold to cover unexpected expenses. Socially, it enhances food security by providing nutrient-dense products, particularly milk with bioactive compounds associated with potential health benefits, and promotes women’s participation in livestock management and household economies. Environmentally, buffalo systems efficiently utilize low-quality forages, are adapted to marginal conditions, contribute to wetland conservation, and provide ecosystem services. These contributions align with several SDGs (1, 2, 5, 8, 12, 13, and 15). However, sector expansion is constrained by limitations in nutrition, management, veterinary services, and reproductive efficiency, as well as environmental challenges related to methane emissions and life cycle impacts. While global methane emissions from buffalo are lower due to their smaller population, emission intensity remains system-dependent and represents a critical challenge. In conclusion, water buffalo production represents a multifunctional and context-dependent system with significant potential to support sustainable development, although targeted innovations are required to improve productivity and address environmental challenges. Future research should integrate One Health and One Welfare approaches, develop long-term studies, and expand research under diverse experimental and field conditions to better characterize the potential health implications of buffalo-derived products. In addition, strengthening circular economy strategies, including region-specific diets to reduce emissions, remains a priority. Full article

Background: Poor mental health is prevalent among veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychiatric conditions. Canine-assisted interventions may improve psychological and social health in veterans. The parent study, a randomized controlled trial, revealed improvements in PTSD following both a service dog training program and an active control condition consisting of virtual dog training lessons. Thus, in the present post hoc secondary analysis, we analyzed both groups together (pooled arms) to examine gender-based differences in the effects of the altruistic service dog training programs on psychosocial outcomes. Methods: Veterans (N = 59) participated either in hands-on (with a dog and trainer) or virtual (no dog present) dog training programs over eight weeks and completed self-reported psychosocial measures before and after the program. Mixed-effect linear models were used to assess the interaction between time and gender on a series of psychosocial outcomes in the pooled sample. Results: The findings supported greater psychosocial improvements for female participants compared to male participants, including significant improvements in PTSD, perceived stress, and perceived physical health, and feeling greater closeness and lower avoidance in close relationships (ps < 0.05). The results revealed moderate to large effect sizes among female participants, suggesting meaningful clinical effects of the interventions (ds = 0.47–0.70). Conclusions: While the secondary analysis and small sample size limit causal inferences, the exploratory evidence suggests greater improvements in psychosocial health in female veterans after participating in the service dog training programs. Future research should tailor interventions to optimize the therapeutic effects for male and female veterans and identify other individual characteristics involved, such as combat exposure or post-traumatic stress symptom severity. Full article

Although recent studies report elevated rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Ukrainian refugees, data from military hospitals and rehabilitation centers within Ukraine remain scarce. Numerous studies have described that interactions with therapy dogs help mitigate PTSD symptoms by providing emotional support, reducing hypervigilance, encouraging social engagement, and facilitating physiological de-arousal. However, the potential role of dog-assisted interventions (DAIs) in therapeutic settings during ongoing conflict has not yet been investigated. In this study, saliva samples pre- and post- a 20 min DAI were gathered from soldiers and other military service personnel with diagnosed PTSD in Kyiv, Ukraine. Salivary cortisol was assessed as a biomarker to parallel acute physiological strain. The findings revealed a decrease in salivary cortisol from pre- to post-DAIs in both men and women. Of note, men exhibited higher salivary cortisol levels than women both pre- and post-DAIs. The present findings suggest that people with PTSD benefit from canine support due to reduced acute arousal in a war environment. Limitations include the small sample size and the lack of a control group. In order to mitigate against the high prevalence of psychophysiological distress in at-risk populations such as military personnel, further research is warranted. Full article

Automated recognition of equine–human interaction behaviors from video represents a significant challenge in computational ethology, with critical applications spanning animal welfare assessment, equine-assisted services evaluation, and safety monitoring in equestrian environments. Existing approaches to animal behavior recognition typically focus on single species in isolation, rely solely on facial expression analysis while ignoring full-body posture, or employ flat classification architectures that fail under the severe class imbalances characteristic of naturalistic behavioral datasets. Furthermore, no prior framework integrates simultaneous analysis of both human and equine body language for cross-species interaction classification. This paper presents a novel hierarchical classification framework integrating multi-modal computer vision features to distinguish behavioral states during horse–human encounters. Our methodology employs three complementary feature extraction pipelines: YOLOv8 for spatial relationship modeling, MediaPipe for human postural analysis, and AP-10K for equine body language interpretation. From 28 annotated interaction videos comprising 50,270 temporal samples across five horse breeds, we extract 35 discriminative features capturing proximity dynamics, body orientation, and species-specific behavioral indicators. To address severe class imbalance (18.3:1 ratio between affiliative and avoidant categories), we implement cost-sensitive gradient boosting with automatic class weight optimization within a two-stage hierarchical architecture. The first stage classifies interactions into three parent categories (affiliative, neutral, avoidant) achieving 73.2% balanced accuracy, while stage two discriminates six fine-grained sub-behaviors achieving 88.5% balanced accuracy (under oracle parent-category routing; cascaded end-to-end performance is 62.9% balanced accuracy due to Stage 1 error propagation, identifying parent classification as the primary bottleneck). Notably, our system achieves 85.0% recall on safety-critical avoidant behaviors despite their representation of only 3.8% of the dataset. Extensive ablation studies demonstrate that equine pose features contribute most critically to classification performance, while comprehensive cross-validation analysis confirms model robustness across diverse interaction contexts. The proposed framework establishes the first systematic multimodal cross-species behavioral assessment pipeline in human–animal interaction research, with direct implications for improving equine welfare monitoring and rider safety protocols. Full article

Animal-Assisted Services (AASs) are increasingly used in therapeutic, educational, and supportive contexts, raising growing concern for the welfare of the dogs involved. This study assessed dogs’ affective states during AAS sessions by establishing expert-derived behavioural thresholds and comparing these with field observations. Thirteen experts in canine behaviour, health, welfare, and AAS evaluated 19 behaviours across 11 fictional scenarios using an absolute scoring approach. Expert ratings were used to derive lower and upper frequency thresholds distinguishing excellent, neutral, and unacceptable welfare for behaviours associated with positive- or negative-affective states. Field data were collected over a two-month period from 837 AAS sessions involving 63 dogs, scored by trained professionals using the same ethogram. Stress-related behaviours were generally within the expert-defined acceptable ranges, although some dogs exceeded the upper thresholds for behaviours such as low posture or sniffing. In contrast, positive-affective behaviours—including play, voluntary lying down, and broad tail wagging—were observed infrequently and often fell below the expert-defined minimum thresholds. These findings suggest that while overt stress indicators are largely managed in AAS practice, opportunities for dogs to express positive-affective states may be limited. Integrating expert-derived behavioural thresholds into welfare monitoring may support evidence-based standards and safeguard canine welfare in AASs. Full article

Animal-assisted services (AASs) are increasingly integrated into healthcare, education, and social support settings. However, empirical evidence on the emotional well-being of participating dogs remains limited. This study investigates how dog, session, handler, and client factors influence dogs’ affective states during animal-assisted activities (AAAs), education (AAE), coaching (AAC), and therapy (AAT). A total of 837 sessions involving 63 dogs and 30 handlers were observed, with behavioural scoring and statistical analyses used to analyse the data. Principal Component Analysis then identified key affective components, including playfulness, comfort, anxiety, and uncertainty, which explained 45–61% of the variance. Session circumstances, as well as the characteristics of handlers, clients, and individual dogs—including age, experience, and gender—significantly influenced dogs’ responses. Specifically, older dogs were less playful but more settled, while experience was linked to positive affect in AAAs and AAT, but not in AAC. Female dogs demonstrated increased uncertainty and arousal in AAAs and AAE. The impact of session length varied by context. In AAC, unfamiliar handlers increased tension. Additionally, younger clients were associated with heightened uncertainty or tension in dogs across AAAs, AAC, and AAE. In light of these findings, optimising dog welfare requires matching dogs to suitable roles, attentive session planning, and managing workload. Full article

Animal-assisted services (AAS) involve providers working in partnership with specially trained animals to deliver therapeutic, educational, and supportive benefits that promote human well-being. Although research shows dog-assisted AAS benefits recipients, little is known about handlers’ motivations and how this work impacts handlers and their dogs. This study explores why individuals engage in AAS with their dogs and the relational benefits and challenges involved. A convenience sample of adult AAS handlers was recruited through various organizations via newsletters and social media. Participants (N = 247), predominantly older, white, and highly educated women, responded to three open-ended survey questions. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, which revealed several interconnected themes. Handlers described profound joy, pride, and purpose derived from sharing their dogs with others, and an enhanced capacity to support recipients. Participants reported using AAS to augment professional roles, to pay forward acts of kindness, and to enrich their dogs through social interaction. While overwhelmingly meaningful, this work also involves challenges, underscoring the need for organizational support for AAS teams. Training programs should equip handlers to recognize signs of animal stress, navigate demanding contexts, and engage in proactive conversations about rest, retirement, and loss. Normalizing these experiences may promote handler well-being and sustain ethical, relationship-centered AAS practice. Full article

Animal-Assisted Services (AAS), together with art therapy, represent an innovative resource in prisons, promoting the emotional and relational well-being of inmates. This pilot study evaluated the effectiveness of an integrated protocol of Animal-Assisted Services and art therapy, with a focus on the selection and monitoring of dogs included in AAS. Forty-two male inmates from a prison in southern Italy were involved. The year-long intervention included weekly group activities with three trained AAS dogs chosen by their personality profiles. The dogs’ well-being was monitored at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the program; data was also collected on the occurrence of critical events for the inmates. The results showed that the dogs maintained a stable profile of psychological and physical well-being and good behavioral regulation, while the inmates showed a significant reduction in critical events. In conclusion, the integrated approach tested, based on the careful selection of dogs, activities tailored to the needs of inmates, and continuous monitoring, proved effective in ensuring animal well-being and promoting improvement in prison conditions. Full article

Children diagnosed with autism face many barriers to learning. Animal Assisted Services and Interventions (AAS/AAI) have been adopted to support children within schools. The Dog Mentor is a UK-based organisation that provides training for handlers and assesses dogs to be integrated within schools. It adopts a rigorous and continuous training package and ensures the safety and welfare of all involved by adopting a whole school approach. This research uses content analysis to understand the types of activities and outcomes in The Dog Mentor programme, as established by teachers and dog handlers, across 58 schools. Teachers and dog handlers perceived that The Dog Mentor successfully supported children with autism, using a variety of sessions. This variability is seen as a benefit as it enables the intervention to be tailored to meet the needs of the students. Handler-reported benefits include creating a calm environment, promoting engagement, and supporting learning. Improved self- and emotion regulation, mental health, and resilience were also noted by the handler reports. Future research needs to investigate these perceived benefits using quantitative data, as well as look into outcomes relating to the dogs supporting others with bereavement and trauma. This topic was briefly mentioned by two of the schools, but there was not enough data to understand the impact in depth. Full article

Socialisation with humans and willingness to interact with them are essential traits for animals involved in animal-assisted services (AAS). This study examined whether goats without prior intensive socialisation with humans may show predispositions to AAS in terms of sociability towards people. Ten goats underwent four tests: (1) acceptance of human approach and touch, voluntary approach to (2) a passive and (3) an active human, and (4) a novel sound fear test. Tests 1–3 were conducted with the caretaker and a familiar neutral person, and 4 with the neutral person. The goats generally accepted being approached and touched but showed little interest in interacting voluntarily with humans. Goats’ responses did not differ between the caretaker and the neutral person (p > 0.05). In the fear test, goats escaped less often and returned more quickly after the sound playback when a human was present (p < 0.01). Female goats exhibited higher sociability towards humans. Overall, the goats demonstrated some predispositions to AAS, such as tolerance of human contact and a tendency to perceive humans as a source of support during stress. However, these traits alone are insufficient for participation in AAS. Additional training is needed to increase the goats’ willingness to initiate interactions with people. Full article

Animal-assisted services (AAS) depend on volunteer handler–dog teams, yet the emotional and relational impacts on volunteers when their therapy dog dies or retires remain largely unexplored. This study examines AAS volunteers’ experiences following the death or retirement of their therapy dog partner. An online, anonymous cross-sectional survey was administered between January and June 2025. A total of 247 individual responses were analyzed. Over half of survey participants (56%) had lost a therapy dog to death, and 36.6% had retired a dog. Although most volunteers who resumed AAS with a new dog reported excitement and renewed purpose, many experienced sadness linked to their previous partner. Retirement decisions were primarily driven by dog welfare concerns and were often experienced as an ambiguous loss. Social constraints were common; participants frequently perceived minimization or discomfort from others when attempting to discuss their grief. In conclusion, therapy dog death and retirement represent significant emotional and relational losses for AAS volunteers. Organizational practices, including anticipatory retirement planning, welfare-centered guidelines, recognition rituals, and structured support during successor-dog transitions may help mitigate distress and foster healthy adjustment. Findings are discussed in relation to theory-informed, practical implications for animal-assisted service practitioners and organizations. Full article

Virtual assistants in academic environments often lack comprehensive multimodal integration and specialized role-based architecture. This paper presents NAIA (Nimble Artificial Intelligence Assistant), a robust artificial intelligence framework designed for multi-role virtual academic assistance through a modular monolithic approach. The system integrates Large Language Models (LLMs), Computer Vision, voice processing, and animated digital avatars within five specialized roles: researcher, receptionist, personal skills trainer, personal assistant, and university guide. NAIA’s architecture implements simultaneous voice, vision, and text processing through a three-model LLM system for optimized response quality, Redis-based conversation state management for context-aware interactions, and strategic third-party service integration with OpenAI, Backblaze B2, and SerpAPI. The framework seamlessly connects with the institutional ecosystem through Microsoft Graph API integration, while the frontend delivers immersive experiences via 3D avatar rendering using Ready Player Me and Mixamo. System effectiveness is evaluated through a comprehensive mixed-methods approach involving 30 participants from Universidad del Norte, employing Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2/TAM3) constructs and System Usability Scale (SUS) assessments. Results demonstrate strong user acceptance: 93.3% consider NAIA useful overall, 93.3% find it easy to use and learn, 100% intend to continue using and recommend it, and 90% report confident independent operation. Qualitative analysis reveals high satisfaction with role specialization, intuitive interface design, and institutional integration. The comparative analysis positions NAIA’s distinctive contributions through its synthesis of institutional knowledge integration with enhanced multimodal capabilities and specialized role architecture, establishing a comprehensive framework for intelligent human-AI interaction in modern educational environments. Full article

Background: Only a limited number of studies have investigated objective indicators to assess donkey welfare during Animal-Assisted Services. Objective: The present research follows a single-subject design and its objective is to evaluate the neurovegetative indicators of the well-being of a donkey through spectral analysis of the R-R signal in the frequency domain. Methods: The experimental protocol of the Animal-Assisted Therapy project involved one donkey, previously selected through behavioral protocol evaluation, and ten patients with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Spectral analysis of the R-R signal in the frequency domain was performed, providing objective data on the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems of the donkey (before, during, and after the sessions). Results: The significance of the variations, both statistically significant and not, supports the hypothesis that the affiliative human–donkey interaction within the context of AAS is associated with modifications in the neurovegetative components of the donkey involved in AAT. Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of objective and non-invasive monitoring tools to detect early signs of discomfort in donkeys involved in AAT, supporting the development of selection and management strategies that safeguard animal welfare. Full article

Animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) or Services (AAS) may cause stress in participating dogs, making the selection of suitable individuals essential to prevent strain. Different non-standardized approaches currently exist to assess dogs’ suitability for AAIs. This preliminary study aimed at evaluating two combined tools, a behavioural aptitude test (SuiTe) and an ad hoc revised questionnaire incorporating C-BARQ, for pre-screening dog suitability for AAIs, also in relation to salivary cortisol measured by enzyme immunoassay in N = 38 dogs. Dogs’ behavioural responses to environmental and social stimuli were scored on an X-Y scale and classified by two independent evaluators as suitable (S), pending suitability (P), or unsuitable (U). Non-parametric tests were performed (p < 0.05). Results indicated significant differences between dogs classified as S or P versus U, both in SuiTe valence scores (higher in S and P) and in separation, attachment, and fear/anxiety behaviours assessed by the questionnaire (higher in U). However, suitability in the SuiTe was lower than that assessed by caregivers through an open question. Our study highlights the complexity of this assessment and the limited awareness of caregivers regarding the situations their dogs face every day. Future analyses will refine this multiparametric approach within a One Welfare perspective, ensuring the welfare of both animals and humans involved in AAIs. Full article