by Liz Roderick
Two weeks ago, Dr. Nancy Dreschel decided to visit Monmouth University to speak about her research on the world of animals. She is a professor at Penn State University
where she teaches Companion Animal Science. Essentially, she gets to live out
her days studying the bonds and interactions between people and their pets.
She’s worked with everything from dogs and cats, to horses. One of her main
interests is in the bond between Service Dogs and their people. She actually
did a study with sniffing dogs and their trainers to see how stressed both
parties were on a practice run versus the field test. She’s also looked at dog
stress levels during thunderstorms, and how human presence can help dogs that
are afraid! In her research, Dr. Dreschel often uses measures such as heart
beat and cortisol (the “stress hormone”) to gauge stress levels. Her work is
fascinating because it looks more deeply at human-animal bonds than any other
work I’ve read, and it is done in such creative ways. Having Dr. Dreschel speak
here was truly and honor!
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