Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research! This is the first journal to be dedicated to all aspects of veterinary behavioral medicine, one of the newest fields in veterinary medicine. It is my hope that, in addition to providing much-needed, peer-reviewed, up-to-date research, this journal will help legitimize this field as a serious academic discipline.
My first attempt in 1995 to convince a publisher to consider a journal in veterinary behavioral medicine was a complete failure. It was not until 2004 that any publisher deemed the field sufficiently established and large to warrant—and support—a stand-alone journal. Within that intervening decade, the field has exploded worldwide. There are now numerous organizations dedicated to veterinary behavior and behavioral medicine (eg, American College of Veterinary Behavior / ACVB [www.dacvb.org; www.veterinarybehaviorists.org]; American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior / AVSAB [www.avsab.us]; Companion Animal Behaviour Therapy Study Group / CABTSG [www.cabtsg.org]; European Society for Clinical Veterinary Ethology / ESCVE [www.escve.org]; European College of Veterinary Behavioral Medicine / ECVBM-CA [www.ecvbm-ca.org]; Australian Veterinary Behaviour Interest Group / AVBIG [www.avbig.org.au]). Additionally, 5 International Veterinary Behavior meetings have been convened so that those in the field can discuss their interests and research, and the proceedings from these meetings have been published, 4 with ISBN numbers.
Yet veterinary behavioral medicine is still struggling for professional and academic acceptance and saddled with a reputation for being “soft,” “touchy-feely,” and heavy on soliloquy and empathy, but short on data. Paradoxically, this reputation is despite the fact that data show that behavioral problems are still the most common reasons pets are lost through relinquishment or death from the average veterinary practice in the USA, Australia, and Canada (Houpt et al 1996, Salman et al 1998, Salman et al 2000, New et al 1999, Scarlett et al 1999, Scarlett et al 2002, Marston et al 2004). Precipitating problems can range from serious and pathological aggressions and anxieties to normal, species-typical behaviors that the client may find offensive (eg, pulling when on a lead, scratching to mark). Even when the problem is relatively minor, if there is an external, nonbehavioral justification for relinquishing the pet, the minor behavioral problem becomes the decisive issue (Shore et al., 2003). Both academicians and practicing veterinary surgeons are well aware of the extreme need for state-of-the-art care in veterinary behavioral medicine, and we all agree that patient care is paramount. Yet in a pattern that appears universal, veterinary schools and colleges in North America have been reluctant to put veterinary behavioral medicine into a full-time curriculum. This reluctance is despite the fact that the most common questions from clients involve their pets’ behaviors, and veterinarians routinely put behavioral training in the top 5 needs that they would like to see fulfilled at their alma mater (DVM Newsmagazine in-house survey, 2002).
One of the goals of this journal is to change the prevailing worldview. After all, compassion is rendered credible and actionable when solid data support it, allowing firm action and redress. The time has come to elevate veterinary behavioral medicine to a cutting-edge discipline. Because such change can occur only by establishing a paradigm founded not on clinical impression but on scientific method, the Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research will focus on all aspects of original research pertaining to the field. In doing so, one of the goals of this journal is to encourage an increase in the funding of research programs in the field and to increase the number of research-based academic programs in veterinary behavioral medicine at universities. It is only in such a context that the field can reach its potential.
This journal is not only filling a void, but it is entering a field characterized by voids; academic, research-based programs in this field are exceptional. Such programs exist in fewer than one third of all North American veterinary colleges and schools, and they are even more rare worldwide. There has been no net growth in full-time veterinary behavioral medicine positions and programs in American universities in the past 25 years. One wonders where—or if—the next generation of veterinary scientists in the field will be trained. This is a particular concern in emergent fields, because rigor in the scientific method cannot become a lifelong habit without the requisite training commitment and practice. Without such training, research cannot advance as the field advances, because there will be gaps in technical and theoretical knowledge that will hamper execution and funding efforts.
Although the approach is not a traditional one, it is my hope that this journal can play an essential and contributory role in the continuing training of those who wish to pursue research in the field. I have made a personal commitment to this approach, in part because my focus on research and writing has taken me away from teaching veterinary students, a loss I feel daily. One way I can help shape the next generation of thinkers is to provide the critical guidance that is common for those in graduate programs supervised by excellent advisors, but that is rare for those who pursued medical degrees without further postgraduate work. In this effort I am joined by a group of extraordinarily talented editorial advisory board members. The charge to the editorial board has been not only to review the papers rigorously and fairly, but to help the authors to produce a better product and better arguments. This is a labor-intensive approach, but in this new journal within a new—and often suspect—field, we must achieve the highest standard.
The editorial advisory board is more than adequate to this task. All members appear in the major science citation indexes, and they have a combined total of more than 500 citations in Pub Med alone! With specific goals in mind, we asked a diverse group of academicians and specialists to become members of the journal’s editorial board. The intent was to find representation from those who are in private practice but who also focus on research or have been trained within rigorous graduate programs, and those whose primary focus is research. For the latter group, an effort was made to enlist the support of a wide range of academicians, including those whose primary focus is basic research; those who focus on veterinary behavioral research conducted within a veterinary context; and those whose research combines behavior with other fields, including welfare and genetics. An introduction to the members of our editorial advisory board should convince the reader that this is a team that is equal to the novel and important challenge of moving a field and a paradigm forward.
•Claude Beata is a charter diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Behavior Medicine - Companion Animals (ECVBM-CA) who specializes in behavioral concerns of companion animals, on which he has authored numerous books. He is cofounder and president of Zoopsy, an association of recipients of the French Behavior Diploma (www.zoopsy.com).
•Bonnie Beaver is executive director of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB) and past president of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). She is a professor at Texas A&M University and the author of over 150 scientific articles and 9 books. Her particular interests focus on behavior and welfare concerns of both large and small animals.
•Tony Buffington, a Professor of Clinical Nutrition at the Ohio State University, is a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (ACVN) whose research interests have focused on the associations between diet and chronic urinary conditions, primarily in cats, both as an animal model for human disease, and because of the behavioral and welfare concerns of cats. Tony has published over 75 peer-reviewed papers and numerous textbook chapters.
•Walt Burghardt is a member of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB) and executive director of the International Working Dog and Breeding Association (www.iwdba.org). Since 1995 he has been the Chief of Behavioral Medicine and Military Working Dog Studies for the Department of Defense, Military Working Dog Veterinary Services, at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He is also a reserve officer in the US Air Force and serves in the USAF Force Protection Battlelab, a “think tank” concerning military working dog use.
•Rachel Casey is a lecturer in companion animal behavior and welfare and deputy director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol. She is a diplomate of the ECVB-CA, and has published widely on topics ranging from the reasons people choose and keep certain pets to true behavioral pathologies in dogs and cats.
•Sharon Crowell-Davis was one of the founding diplomates of the ACVB and is a professor of veterinary behavior at the University of Georgia, College of Veterinary Medicine. She has a joint appointment in the section of neurobiology and behavior in the psychology department. She is the author of dozens of research papers, numerous text book chapters, and the textbook Veterinary Psychopharmacology.
•Tiny de Keuster is a practitioner in Ghent, Belgium, where she focuses on behavioral issues. Tiny earned a diploma in behavioral medicine (Comportementaliste Vétérinaire Diplômée des Ecoles Nationales Vétérinaires de France). She has been coordinator of the Public Health Task Force on dog bites in Belgium in 2001, a task force that has been responsible for numerous publications regarding dog bites and children. In 2004, Tiny started The Blue Dog Project, which aims to address dog bite prevention in families with young children.
•Jaume Fatjó has been responsible for the animal behavior clinic at the Barcelona School of Veterinary Medicine since 1995, where he is an associate professor of ethology and animal welfare. He is a diplomate of the ECVBM-CA and focuses his research interests on aggressive behaviors in both domestic and wild canids.
•Sarah Heath is a diplomate of the ECVBM-CA and an honorary lecturer in small animal behavioral medicine at Liverpool University Veterinary School, where she also holds monthly behavioral clinics in addition to seeing patients in her private specialty practice. Sarah is a coeditor of the BSAVA Manual of Canine and Feline Behavioural Medicine.
•Moisés Heiblum is on the faculty of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where he is the director of the Behavior Service. His research focuses on ethology in clinical settings. He is currently the coordinator of the scientific committee of the Mexican Small Animal Veterinary Association (AMMVEPE).
•Katherine Houpt, a diplomate of the ACVB, is James Law Professor of Animal Behavior and the director of the animal behavior clinic at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University. She is the author of the textbook Domestic Animal Behavior and of hundreds of papers and chapters in the field of animal behavior and animal welfare.
•Soraya Juarbe Diaz is a diplomate of the ACVB and has a private specialty practice in Florida. She has been an adjunct assistant professor of veterinary behavior at the University of Florida, and an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee. She has published widely on a variety of large and small animal behavior topics.
•Frode Lingaas is a professor of animal genetics at the University of Oslo Veterinary College. Frode publishes extensively on porcine and canine genetics, in the latter case focusing primarily on heritable neurological conditions. Frode is responsible for the first paper ever published on mapped genes in dogs, and he has extended his research interests to include heritability of canine behavioral conditions and of behaviors in working dogs.
•Xavier Manteca Vilanova is an associate professor at the School of Veterinary Science in Barcelona, where he teaches animal behavior and animal welfare. Among his many degrees is a graduate degree in applied animal behavior and animal welfare from the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of a textbook on small animal behavioral medicine, and he publishes extensively in the international peer-reviewed literature.
•Paul McGreevy is one of only two specialists recognized by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons as specialists in veterinary behavioral medicine. His research and writing focus at the University of Sydney is on behavior and welfare in domestic animals. In 2000 he was the co-winner of the Prince Laurent Prize, the most prestigious international prize for animal welfare scientists. He has published 4 books and more than 70 peer-reviewed publications.
•Adam Miklosi is on the faculty of Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary. His research focus is cognition in dogs. In collaboration with his colleagues in Budapest, Adam has published over a dozen papers on canine cognition and on comparative measures of cognition in other species, setting the standard in the field.
•Daniel Mills is a professor at the University of Lincoln in the UK. He is the first specialist in veterinary behavioral medicine to be recognized by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Daniel’s research group at Lincoln focuses on applied animal behavior issues ranging from the neurobiological basis of control of stereotypic behavior to the scientific basis of animal training. He has published extensively and coedited the BSAVA Manual of Canine and Feline Behavioural Medicine.
•Niwako Ogata completed a diploma in applied animal behavior and animal welfare in Edinburgh after graduating from veterinary school at Nippon Veterinary and Animal Science University. In addition to running her own behavior clinic in Osaka, Japan, she is pursuing a PhD in molecular genetics at the University of Tokyo. Niwako speaks nationally and internationally on the focus of her research, behavioral problems and canine behavioral genetics.
•Maria Cristina Osella is a member of the faculty at the University of Torino, where she runs the Master’s program in clinical ethology. Her publications range from pharmacology to genetics of aggression to investigating the behavioral effects of cancer treatment. Cris is a diplomate of ECVBM-CA.
•Clara Palestrini is a diplomate of the ECVBM-CA and is now a researcher at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Milan. Clara is a founding member of the Italian Society of Specialists in Applied Ethology (AISEAB). Her research interests focus on separation-related problems in dogs and cats, with an emphasis on attachment bonds.
•Simon Platt is a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine in Neurology (ACVIM-N) and of the European College of Veterinary Neurology (ECVN). He heads the neurology unit at the Animal Health Trust in Newmarket, UK. He is coeditor of the new BSAVA Manual of Canine and Feline Neurology.
•Lynne Seibert is a diplomate of the ACVB who has conducted extensive research on behavior and behavioral problems in psitticines. She owns a private behavior specialty practice and is an adjunct faculty member at Antioch University in Seattle, and at the College of Veterinary Medicine, the University of Tennessee.
•Kersti Seksel is president of the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) and president of the AVBIG. Kersti is a diplomate of the ACVB and a registered specialist in animal behavior, one of only two Fellows of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists in animal behavior. She has published and taught widely, and she travels regularly to China to teach veterinary behavior. She is also the tutor in the distance education course in behavioral medicine for the Post-Graduate Foundation in Veterinary Science in Australia.
•Kenth Svartberg is currently at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Anatomy and Physiology in Uppsala, Sweden. Kenth’s research focuses primarily on individual behavioral difference in animals, with an emphasis on dogs. He and his colleagues take a combined approach by studying the ethology, physiology, and genetics of their research subjects and have thus far worked with dogs, goats, and silver foxes. He and his wife Niina also run a small publishing and educational company, with the aim of increasing the general knowledge of dog behavior and training among dog owners.
•Tom Wolfle is a diplomate of both the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine (ACLAM) and of the ACVB. As part of his US Air Force service, he focused on dogs and primates as models for human stress, particularly as it pertained to spaceflight. Following a stint in the Public Health Service, he was director of the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research at the National Research Council, National Academy of Science. He currently is a member of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, a volunteer at the National Blackwater Wildlife Preserve, and, with his wife Jackie, he directs the County’s Pets on Wheels program.
•Seong Chan Yeon is an associate professor at the Korea National Research Resource Bio-Acoustics Center in the Laboratory of Surgery and Behavior at Gyeongsang National University. He has published numerous articles, including a body of work on acoustic analysis of dog and cow vocalizations.
I am sure that this unique and hard-working group of people will help to distinguish this journal and move the field of veterinary behavioral medicine in more rigorous and scientific directions. There is no other field that so integrates the findings of so many specialties. Accordingly, it is incumbent upon the editors and contributors to this journal, on whom its success or failure will rest, to impose science on a field that has often and long resisted its advance and to begin to truly understand the neurobehavioral pathology of problems in domestic animals.
Toward this end, this journal will feature original clinical and basic research papers, review papers, case reports, case series, commentaries, editorials, letters to the editor, and a dynamic roundtable discussion section, all of which are discussed in the Guidelines for Authors. The roundtable discussion, in particular, seeks to elevate the type of discourse found all too often in listservs and anecdotal reports to the level where the scientific thought process can operate. The goal with the roundtable discussion section will be to continually remind us that only when we ask what we truly need to know in order to understand something can we seek to do so. We will also have a section called “In Brief: Practice and Process,” which seeks to forge more links across the practice and research spectrum. “In Brief” will feature submissions by the editorial board and those they recommend on common behavioral issues about which practitioners ask, and about techniques and approaches used in different types of research. The hope is that those who come from a research background will learn to appreciate the practical issues facing many who read their articles, and those who come from a more patient-oriented approach will learn to appreciate the nuances and intrigue of key aspects of research. These types of cross-fertilization approaches are missing elsewhere, and yet they may be essential for the future of veterinary behavior.
Fundamentally, veterinary behavioral medicine is about two things: (1) pushing the frontiers of neurobehavioral genetics and modern ethology to their limits to learn about variability in behaviors of companion animals, and to learn how best to address that variability in a world that is becoming increasingly complex for pets; and (2) using this new knowledge to become more humane. It is my hope that as this journal moves forward, it will succeed in both of these missions, and that in the process it will provide an intellectual home for readers from related disciplines. Such an outcome will raise both our standard of thought and our standard of care.
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