PhD proposal - dead line : May 31st

Thesis title: Equine welfare in animal assisted interventions
3 keywords: Welfare / animal assisted interventions with equine / ethology

Unit / team: Pegase, laboratoire éthologie animale et humaine, France

Supervisor’s name: Hausberger Martine & Grandgeorge Marine
Phone number: +2223235810
Email address:
martine.hausberger@univ-rennes1.fr
marine.grandgeorge@univ-rennes1.fr

Socio-economic and scientific context :
The project has important societal issues, i.e. human health and animal assisted interventions as well as animal welfare. The assumption here is that human welfare and animal welfare go hand in hand in all animal assisted interventions (AAI). AAI growth widely and concern more and more health facilities and animal professionals. AAI involve human health and / or animal health professionals. A wide audience is thus concerned which, besides these professionals, includes the clients and their families. In Brittany, many facilities, some of which are well-known, such as Kerpape, aim to use these interactions with animals to promote the well-being of the clients (physical recovery through horse riding, improvement of social skills thanks the link to animal). To date, however, scientific data are lacking, especially about the assessment of the impact of these practices. This remains important to promote best practices. Pegase team (EthoS) is internationally recognized for its expertise in the field of the human-animal relationships and the well-being of the horse. It will provide to the PhD candidate a perfect scientific environment to the success of the PhD.

Working hypothesis and aims :
This project is focused on animal assisted interventions with equines and raises questions about 1) the characterization of such practices, 2) the assessment of the well-being / bad welfare of equids involved in animal assisted interventions and finally, 3) the identification of the practices that affect this state of well-being / bad welfare of equines in order to establish the link between this state and the behaviors of horses with the clients.

Main milestones of the thesis :
1 / Characterization of AAI practices (Sept 18-Sept 19): direct observation study that permits assessment of the practices as well as their impacts on the welfare and behaviors of equines. Observations focus on the clients, the professionals and the equines, e.g. their management, their type of AAI, their state of well-being and their behaviours towards humans with or without disabilities. The study bases on validated indicators of the state of welfare in horses (e.g. Lesimple et al., 2016) as well as on standardized human-horse relationship tests (e.g. Hausberger et al., 2008).
2 / Impact of the welfare of the equine on the AAI sessions (sept 19-sept 20): specific study on centers evaluated as positive or negative for the welfare of the equine. Several parameters are evaluated: sequence of AAI sessions, equine behaviours and perception of the AAI sessions by the people (i.e. clients & professionals). We can objectively measure (1) the impact of the animal's welfare on its use in AAI as well as (2) parameters which impact, positively or negatively, the success of the AAI sessions, thanks to animal’s behaviours and the perception by the clients and professionnals (questionnaires). In addition, we take into consideration the type of horses and, in order to answer a frequent question, we compare AAI sessions with horses to AAI sessions with donkeys.
3 / Result analysis and writing (sept 20-aug. 21): during the last year, the PhD candidate does synthesis in which all the collected data allow an overview and is dedicated to the writing of scientific articles and the PhD manuscript

Scientific and technical skills required by the candidate :
The candidate must have an important background in ethology. Knowledge in EEG data processing, the behavior of the horse and / or the human will be appreciated. The candidate must be mobile across France (driving license is recommended), be autonomous, have no fear of big animals and speak French (or want to learn it).

3 publications from the team related to the topic (last 5 years):
Marine Grandgeorge, Yentl Gautier, Pauline Brugaillères, Inès Tiercelin, Carole Jacq, Marie-Claude Lebret, Martine Hausberger. (2017). Social rivalry triggers visual attention in children with autism spectrum disorders. Scientific Reports, 7(1):10029.
Hausberger, M., Fureix, C. & Lesimple, C. (2016). Detecting horses sickness: in search of visible signs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science,175, 41-49.
Séverine Henry, Carole Fureix, Rebecca Rowberry, Melissa Bateson, Martine Hausberger. (2017). Do horses with poor welfare show pessimistic cognitive biases? Naturwissenschaften, 104(1-2):1-15

National and international collaborations:
Numerous collaborations, see here : https://ethos.univ-rennes1.fr/partenaires

How to apply? Please send a CV, a letter of motivation and the names and contact information of at least two scientists available for reference to : martine.hausberger@univ-rennes1.fr & marine.grandgeorge@univ-rennes1.fr

Application deadline: May 31st 2018.