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All those conferences sound completely AMAZING! I love that both dog urine and poo are totally appropriate topics for us to discuss in our conversations. All the other scientists are so jealous right now!
I hope you've been well since getting home again. We've just been through the longest heatwave ever recorded in Melbourne over the past fortnight (9 days over 30oC / 90oF in a row) and today it's finally cooled off, hooray! I haven't posted you the TimTams I promised you on Twitter yet, for fear they'd melt before leaving Australia!
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Speaking of heat, I made a heat map of canine welfare for one of my presentation slides at the recent RSPCA Australia Scientific Seminar. It was very colourful and looked like this (click to embiggen):
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| Cobb's colourful heat map, depicting perceived welfare levels of different dog types. |
Proceedings from the day, including my full paper, should be available early next week on the RSPCA Australia website.
I'll make sure to put a note up on Facebook when it does.
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| We wish we had a quick and easy indicator of animal welfare, but we don't! |
- the increasing expectation from the general public for transparency and best practice from industries using animals in work and sport;
- how we have traditionally measured animal welfare in science;
- I used working dogs as an example to talk through the life cycle stages (breeding/sourcing; raising/training; housing/healthcare and retirement/endpoints), exploring what we have learned through our recent research projects in regards to welfare, current practices and where there is room for improvement.
- I also spoke briefly about research currently under way that is using cognitive bias (often referred to as testing to see if animals are optimistic/pesimistic) as an indicator of canine emotions.
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| Yep, I actually used this image in my presentation (source) |
- I related the changing dynamic within animal welfare science from researching welfare outcomes (how do we understand and limit the bad stuff) toward studying affective states (how can we understand and promote the good stuff) to similar trends in other fields of research such as human positive psychology and education.
So now I'm home again and focussing my attention on writing up the results of the data analyses (from that online survey) into a paper. I want to submit the paper for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal. As you know, this can be a lengthy process.
I first have to draft the paper to a standard that I am happy with; then forward it to my PhD supervisors who may (probably will!) suggest changes and redraft. I then need to decide which journal to submit it to, and format the paper accordingly. There are lots of factors involved in selecting which journal to submit to, including impact factors.Then I will contact the journal and submit it for peer-review.
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| While scientific papers DO follow a formula (Abstract / Intro / Methods / Results / Discussion / Conclusion), they are not THIS formulaic! (source) |
After that, the paper will be reviewed, probably by two other scientists working in the same field, who act as peer-reviewers and provide feedback to the journal's editorial team about the suitability of my paper for publication in that journal. They may give me comments suggesting minor or major changes to the paper, or even say they don't think it belongs in that journal.
All up, it can easily take over a year from writing a paper to getting it published, sometimes closer to two years! Right now, I'm just focussing on step one -- get a draft completed!
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| Sam Gosling and I, obviously caught unaware, deep in thought. |
After his presentation, fellow Anthrozoology Research Group member, Tammie and I chatted with him further about his group's work into non-human (specifically DOG) personality as well, which was great. One of his PhD students just had a meta-analysis of personality consistency in dogs published through PLoS-ONE (hurrah for open access).
I look forward to talking some more about meta-analysis with you soon. It's a very exciting way of exploring existing data!
How's everything going with you? Any hot tips for getting my paper drafted for publication?
Mia
Further reading:
Fratkin J., Sinn D., Patall E. & Gosling S. (2013). Personality Consistency in Dogs: A Meta-Analysis., PloS One, 8 (1) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054907
Gosling S.D., Augustine A.A., Vazire S., Holtzman N. & Gaddis S. (2011). Manifestations of Personality in Online Social Networks: Self-Reported Facebook-Related Behaviors and Observable Profile Information, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14 (9) 483-488. DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2010.0087
Seligman M.E.P., Ernst R.M., Gillham J., Reivich K. & Linkins M. (2009). Positive education: positive psychology and classroom interventions, Oxford Review of Education, 35 (3) 293-311. DOI: 10.1080/03054980902934563
That graph of perceptions is very interesting! I guess it goes to show how some good marketing (guide dogs) can go a long way, and some public allegations (by Animals Australia and Pedigree Dogs Exposed) can also go a long way.
ReplyDeleteFor my dog who is a pedigree show dog AND a search (tracking) dog, I wonder where she fits!
Hi Tegan,
Deleteyou're right - it's really interesting data and I've been fascinated by the results the analyses have shown. The survey was completed by nearly 2,500 people (approx. half from Australia with the other half coming mainly from the USA, UK and Europe).
The point you make is a good one. I also wonder if people might value transparency in processes (as we see in dogs being trained and worked in very public roles, such as Guide Dogs) vs. dogs raised, trained and worked in more private conditions when ascribing a perceived welfare value.
What do you think of that line of thought?
The survey covered more scope than is represented in the 'heat map rainbow' image. I'm certainly looking forward to getting the paper ready, published and out for further discussion.
MC
Hi MC,
DeleteI think your privacy thing may be part of the issue. But guide dogs are trained with compulsion methods, which raises questions for their welfare, but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the heat map. Either people think compulsion methods are 'okay', or the guide dog industry has marketed themselves out of the problem.
But in 'public' show dogs are groomed and kept in cages at dog shows, to then be paraded around on a short leash, and put back in their cage. For some reason, people seem to think this is how the dogs live at home, too. What happens in private (being a 'pet' for many of the dogs!) is not recognised.
Sorry for delay in replying - just came across this again now. :)
Cheers,
Tegan
Wow, what a fantastic work. I really love it. I love it so much, that the greedy visual-data gnome in me wants more! Thanks !
ReplyDelete