Deux sujets bien distincts aujourd’hui, mais qui se rejoignent dans leur quête d’autonomie ! Je parlerai du site et de certains problèmes techniques à résoudre dans la deuxième partie de ce billet. Pour ce qui est du sujet de la première partie, il part d’une d’une présentation que j’avais faite à l’hiver 2019 dans le cadre d’un cours sur le raisonnement pédagogique de l’enseignant à l’Université de Montréal. L’ayant redonnée dans une nouvelle mouture le…

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Funny animal pictures, wolf leaders, and barriers to being a vet - this month's Companion Animal Psychology news.By Zazie Todd, PhDMy favourites this month“You can’t be a vet” Veterinarian Dr. Navaratnam Partheeban on the difficulties for ethnic minorities who want to become a vet.  How to do food bowl bonuses to prevent food guarding (with video) in Don’t play with your dog’s food by Jessica Ring.“These discoveries are changing the way we think about wolves.” Wolf…

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The news that Health Canada has approved gene therapy Luxturna to treat blindness couldn’t come at a better time, as October is Blindness Awareness Month. You don’t have to look far to find other high impact research on blindness happening right here in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Molly Shoichet, University of Toronto (UofT), is a world renowned bioengineer with expertise in the areas of polymer synthesis, biomaterials design and drug delivery in the nervous system. Her…

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How kindness - in dog training, animal behaviour, on rehoming pets, and to others in our profession -  can change the world for dogs and cats.Photo: New Africa/ShutterstockBy Zazie Todd, PhDA revolution in dog training is well under way: a transition to kinder, reward-based methods instead of the aversive methods that risk fear, anxiety, aggression, and a poorer human-animal bond. The reason is simple: more and more people are learning that positive reinforcement is effective…

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Affordances are a key concept in cognitive science, first advanced by J.J. Gibson in 1966. As I explained in an earlier post in this blog, an affordance is an opportunity that an object offers to take action. A hammer, for example, offers the opportunity to be grasped by its handle, and a chair offers the opportunity to sit down. What is interesting about this concept of affordances is that the opportunity for action does not…

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Comme je l’écrivais il y a un mois, afin d’avancer un gros projet d’écriture, je me vois contraint de prendre moins de temps pour rédiger mes billets hebdomadaires dans ce blogue. Mais le merveilleux monde de la science, lui, ne ralentit pas pas pour autant. Me voilà donc à nouveau tenté de parler de choses fascinantes mais passablement compliquées en relativement peu de mots. Je succomberai donc, en me disant que c’est peut-être mieux que…

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 Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!Photo: Arthur Linnik/ShutterstockBy Zazie Todd, PhDIt is Thanksgiving here in Canada. In this strangest of years, I wish you and yours love, peace, safety, and good health. I am thankful to everyone who has supported this blog and my book, Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy. I am also thankful to each and every one of you for your dedication and care for companion animals and their people. And of…

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