Development of a pilot human-canine ethogram for an animal-assisted education programme in primary schools – a case study

Abstract

Animal-assisted interventions (AAI) have received increased research and practice interest in Hong Kong. The physical and psychological well-being of trained animals in AAI has been advocated in Hong Kong, but it has not been assessed objectively to evaluate animal welfare. This paper describes the development of a pilot ethogram (i.e., The CARing Kids ethogram) to assess human-dog interaction in an animal-assisted humane-education programme. The ethogram aims to measure the stress responses of a ‘reading dog’ to which the participants were instructed to read a storybook and with which the participants interacted throughout the six sessions of the programme. A scoping review of existing ethograms was conducted, and relevant coding items were extracted to form the basis of the current programme-specific ethogram. Three coders analysed the frequency and duration of the canine stress behaviours when interacting with students and handler in the programme. An in-depth interview with the handler was then conducted to obtain additional information on the dog as a reference for comparing the school and home settings. The interrater reliability of the CARing Kids ethogram was 80%. Chi-square analyses were conducted to explore the changes of behaviours in the canine, students, and handler across the sessions. The results indicated that students had increased interactive behaviours in later sessions (X2(2) = 34.40, p < 0.01). No significant changes of pooled stress related canine behaviour (X2(2) = 2.75, p = 0.25) and handler behaviour (X2(2) = 1.24, p = 0.54) were observed. The study outlines the development of an ethogram that accessed both human and canine behaviours during the AAI. Although the analysis is limited by being a single-subject case study, it is the first attempt to apply an ethogram to capture the human-animal dynamic interaction in an animal-assisted education programme in a Hong Kong primary school setting. This pilot study has significant practical implications for developing future AAIs and advocacy work for animal welfare in Hong Kong. The results of this study and the methodology to analyse the behaviour of a reading dog, students, and handler may shed light on how to enhance the welfare of service animals in AAI.