In Part 1 of Episode 18:
Dr Mel Starling & Dr Kat Gregory chat with Dr Simon Gadbois about his work & research on dogs with roles as detection dogs - biomedical & conservation detection, & service dogs (PTSD) - their training, their deployment & ethics.
Get READY for Part 2!
Simon Gadbois
University Teaching Fellow, Dalhousie University
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Research Topics:
- Animal behaviour
- Animal learning
- Olfactory processing in Animals
- Neuroethology of action sequences
- Behavioural endocrinology of social behaviour and stress
- Canids
- Reptiles (Wood turtles and Ribbons snakes)
- Waterfowl as a teaching model in ethology
Research Interests
I study domestic and wild canids (wolves, coyotes, and red foxes). I have studied the behavioural endocrinology and social behaviour of wolves (socioendocrinology; with John Fentress and Peter McLeod) as well as food caching action sequences in red foxes, coyotes and wolves (with John Fentress and Fred Harrington). I am currently focussed on olfactory processing in canids and the applications of canine scent processing, particularly with wildlife conservation dogs (dogs trained to search and track species at risk, particularly Nova Scotian reptiles, i.e., Northern ribbon snakes, wood turtles) and dogs used for biomedical detection, diagnosis and assistance (for diabetes and anxiety/PTSD).
