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     WASHINGTON, D.C. (PRWEB) AUGUST 19, 2015

The Human Animal Bond Research Initiative (HABRI) today announced it has awarded a $13,000 grant to the Association for Human-Animal Bond Studies for a new study, Listening EARS: How Does Reading to Rabbits Affect Reading Skills of Third Grade Students?, to uncover how reading aloud to a non-threatening presence, like a classroom rabbit, helps improve students’ reading skills.

“The human-animal bond can lessen the stress young children can feel when taking on challenging tasks in the classroom, like reading aloud,” said Dr. Annie Petersen, Ed.D., Principal Investigator in the Listening EARS study. “This study will provide us with a valuable tool to understand and act on the benefits of small animals to student learning and development.”

By utilizing small animals already present in classrooms (e.g. rabbits and guinea pigs), it is predicted that classroom interactions with an animal will improve 3rd grade students’ oral fluency and reading comprehension, two essential measures of academic success.

“HABRI is committed to studying the impact of companion animals on child health and development,” said Steve Feldman, Executive Director of HABRI. “This new research will contribute to the growing body of scientific evidence that demonstrates the benefits of pets in the classroom.”

The 12-month study will use the 2015-2016 school year to examine two groups of 50 3rd grade students from the same elementary school; one receiving Listening EARS three times a week for 20 minutes and the other will receive usual instruction. Teachers and school administrators will also be interviewed as well as focus groups conducted with students to gather qualitative data, which will be analyzed via content analysis.

Founded by sponsors Petco, the American Pet Products Association, and Zoetis, the HABRI Foundation maintains the world’s largest online library of human-animal bond research and information; to date has funded more than half a million dollars in innovative research projects to scientifically document the health benefits of companion animals; and informs the public about human-animal bond research and the beneficial role of companion animals in society. For more information about the HABRI Foundation, visit http://www.habri.org.

The Association for Human-Animal Bond Studies is a research-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization comprised of professionals in the fields of animal welfare, education, child development, and public health. The Association strives to explore the complex relationships between people and animals through scientific research. For more information, please visit http://www.animalbondstudies.org.

Presented by Rachel O’Connor, ISAZ conference, University of Vienna, Austria                               University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

Human expectations can greatly affect the human-companion animal bond, sometimes putting companion animals at risk for relinquishment.  Understanding potential adopters’ expectations will benefit animal sources in developing relevant screening and educational programs that can assist in managing adopter expectations and can inform prior knowledge.  The intention of this research was to explore the associations between adopter lifestyle and animal-care knowledge with expectation of companion-animal ownership prior to adoption.

The type of animal of interest during the adoption process appears to play a significant role in adopters’ expectations of their future dog or cat.  As a result, shelters should pay particular attention to the expectations of dog owners, ensuring that the individual’s expectations are realistic at the time of adoption.  In addition, it may be valuable for shelters to focus on raising the expectation of people planning to adopt a cat in terms of the effort required and the emotional benefits that can be gained.  It would be beneficial for animal sources to explore potential adopters’  individual expectations for an adopted companion animal in order to identify and allocate educational resources that are specific to each adopter’s needs.  Understanding adopters; expectations will help animal shelters better match, educate, and prepare adopters for their lieves with their adopted companion animal.

Authors: Alison Selaey and Nickie Charles

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What_Do_Animals_Mean_to_You?

Poster presented by Pauleen Bennett and Scott O’Hara, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia – ISAZ 2013

Research Examining relationships between humans and companion animals has focused on dogs and cats.  However, many other species are kept as companions, including parrots.  Parrots lack many of the “cute” and “cuddly” features that are believed to have promoted pet ownership throughout humans’ evolutionary history.  They are, however, described on numerous internet sites as being wonderful companions.

In this project, we examined parrot owners’ perceptions of parrots and compared these with the perceptions of other companion animal species.  We also examined whether parrot owners are psychologically attached to their pets.  Over 1,000 adult participants (86% female) completed on online survey that was distributed internationally.  We modified the Comfort from Companion Animals Scale to assess perceptions of parrots, dogs, doves, and goldfish and asked participants to complete the Lexingon Attachment to Pets scale in relation to various companion animal species.  Parrot owners perceived parrots to have excellent companionship qualities, equal to or better than dogs.  Non-parrot owners, in contrast, perceived parrots to have better companionship qualities than goldfish, but no where near the standard they perceived dogs to offer.

Participants who owned parrots reported being more enthusiastic about initially acquiring their pet, they spent more time planning and preparing for its arrival than owners of other species, and they were just as strongly attached to their birds as were owners of other species.  People who owned multiple pets tended to be more strongly attached to their parrots than to other animals, although the effect size was fairly small.

Attachement to a pet parrot was not correlated with various psychological outcomes, including loneliness, perceived stress and general wellbeing.  The results indicate that perceptions of animal companions may vary with experience, and that parrots may, for some people, provide a level of companionship equivalent to that provided by more popular pets.