Cat Behavior, Science, & Training
Photo from Kristyn Vitale
Kristyn Vitale has always owned cats. As a child, she used to watch them and wonder what was going on in my cats’ heads. Kristyn feels that her curiosity about how cats see the world led her to a career path where she could explore how cats think directly by measuring their behavior.
Although Kristyn’s dream was to work with cats, there were so few opportunities for this line of work that she decided to instead study Zoology, which she felt would allow her to work with animals in some capacity. During her undergraduate studies, she met the late Dr. Penny Bernstein, a professor who studied cat behavior. “When I saw that someone had made a career out of studying cat behavior I decided this was the route I wanted to take,” Kristyn said.
With cats being the number one companion animal in several countries, but very few people…
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Speaker: Kristyn Vitale
When: September 19, 2017
Time: 8:00 PM EDT (Midnight UTC)
Cost: $25.00
Where: Online Webinar, Register at: www.e-trainingfordogs.com
In this cat behavior and cognition webinar, Kristyn Vitale will discuss the current science behind cat behavior and ways to utilize this knowledge in applied settings to improve cat welfare and strengthen the human-cat bond. Even though domestic cats are one of the world’s most popular companion animals, coexisting with humans for thousands of years, many questions remain unanswered about cat behavior, cognition, and the human-cat bond. Although science has much more to learn about cats, several applied benefits exist from future research in this area. Currently, pet cats outnumber dogs by almost 10 million in the US alone and millions of cats live in shelters or are free-roaming outdoors. Over 3.4 million cats enter already crowded shelters each year and of those surrendered by owners, approximately 27% are surrendered due to behavioral issues or incompatibility between cat and owner.
The talk will cover a variety of topics including:
Speaker: Kristyn Vitale
When: Thursday 9/22/2016 @ 6:00 PM
Where: SafeHaven Training Center, Tangent, OR
Cost: Suggested donation of $5 at the door per guest.
Although domestic cats are one of the most popular companion animals, outnumbering even dogs by almost 10 million in the US alone, relatively little scientific research has been conducted with cats. Many questions regarding cat behavior, especially their social behavior with humans, remain unanswered. With over 3.4 million cats entering already crowded shelters each year, many applied benefits exist from research into the human-cat bond. This talk will cover our scientific understanding of cat behavior and provide enrichment and training tips to help improve cat welfare and strengthen the human-cat bond.
It’s a Friday evening in the Oldfield Animal Teaching hospital, and while most of the faculty has checked out for the weekend, Ph.D. research fellow Kristyn Vitale Shreve finds herself in the classroom with a few students. Some are sitting nicely in chairs, but others are jumping on desks, wandering the room or sniffing each other. These “students” are kittens between four and eight months old, accompanied by their owners to Shreve’s six-week training and socialization course….
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