Survey evaluation of dog owners’ feeding habits in a household setting and comparison of FDA hygiene protocols on dog bowl bacterial contamination as evaluated by total aerobic cell counts.

In-home pet food handling and food dish hygiene practices can have adverse health impacts for both humans and pets. Safe food and dish handling guidelines are not easily evidenced for pet owners. The study was designed to investigate dog owners’ feeding habits and evaluate the impact of the Food and Drug Association (FDA) hygiene protocols on dog food dish contamination. Procedures and surveys were approved by NCSU-IACUC and -IRB. Pet feeding and food dish hygiene data were collected from 417 dog owner surveys and 68 food dish swabs. Total aerobic cell counts (TAC) were performed on 68 dishes and randomly assigned into Group A (FDA pet food handling and dish hygiene guidelines), Group B (FDA pet and human food handling and dish hygiene guidelines), or Group C (no guidelines). Hygiene protocols were instituted in-home for 1 week, followed by a second TAC and follow-up survey. Survey from dog owners-households indicated: 4.7% were aware of FDA pet food handling and dish hygiene guidelines; 36% have individuals < 13 years old and/or immunocompromised; 43% store dog food 0-5 feet from human food; 34% wash their hands after feeding; and 33% prepare their dog food on human food preparation surfaces. The hygiene protocols followed by Groups A and B resulted in significant decreases in food dish TAC (P<0.001; 1.40; p =0.026; 0.604, respectively), as compared to Group C ( p =0.373). Hot water (>160F) washing decreased TAC ( P p =0.005) over cold/lukewarm water. In the follow-up survey, 8% of Group A and B respondents reported likely to adhere to protocols long-term. This study suggests a need for pet food handling and dish hygiene guideline education to minimize bacterial contamination of dishes, especially in high-risk households.

AMAΛΘΕΙA: A Dish-Driven Ontology in the Food Domain

We present AΜAΛΘΕΙA (AMALTHIA), an application ontology that models the domain of dishes as they are presented in 112 menus collected from restaurants/taverns/patisseries in East Macedonia and Thrace in Northern Greece. AΜAΛΘΕΙA supports a tourist mobile application offering multilingual translation of menus, dietary and cultural information about the dishes and their ingredients, as well as information about the geographical dispersion of the dishes. In this document, we focus on the food/dish dimension that constitutes the ontology’s backbone. Its dish-oriented perspective differentiates AΜAΛΘΕΙA from other food ontologies and thesauri, such as Langual, enabling it to codify information about the dishes served, particularly considering the fact that they are subject to wide variation due to the inevitable evolution of recipes over time, to geographical and cultural dispersion, and to the chef’s creativity. We argue for the adopted design decisions by drawing on semantic information retrieved from the menus, as well as other social and commercial facts, and compare AMAΛΘΕΙA with other important taxonomies in the food field. To the best of our knowledge, AΜAΛΘΕΙA is the first ontology modeling (i) dish variation and (ii) Greek (commercial) cuisine (a component of the Mediterranean diet).

Chapter 10 - Attiéké-garba – good to eat and think about. Social distinction and challenging hygiene standards in the Ivorian urban context

Garba has become a food mainstay in Abidjan and several major cities in Côte d’Ivoire, while also being a select food dish in popular food outlets throughout the country. Nutritionists claim that garba is harmful to health, yet it is ‘worth thinking about’ in terms of challenging food hygiene standards. Garba is nevertheless a hallmark of the rich and diversified Ivorian food heritage, while the wealth of terms currently used to describe it reflects changes in the cultural landscape within which it is eaten. Garba is also ‘worth thinking about’ because the spaces where it is produced and consumed are also venues where social categories take shape: “Tell me where you eat your garba and I’ll tell you who you are”.

Evaluation of whisker stress in cats

Objectives The aim of this study was to determine if cats fed from a commercially advertised whisker-friendly dish vs their normal food dish would spend more time at the food dish, eat more and drop less food. Methods Forty indoor cats were enrolled in the study. Owners fasted their cats for 12 h and fed them their normal measured amount of dry food in their normal dish. Owners filmed their cats eating for up to 5 mins, and measured how much food was eaten and dropped from the dish. Owners then switched to feeding their cats from a whisker-friendly dish for a 7-day transition period. Following this transition, owners were instructed to fast their cats for 12 h and then feed them their normal food from the new dish and film them eating, as previously described. The following day the owners offered food in both dishes to determine their cat’s preference. Results No evidence was found that eating from the whisker-friendly dish increased the amount of time spent eating ( P = 0.8), decreased the amount of food dropped ( P = 0.9) or increased the amount of food eaten ( P = 0.7). The estimated probability for the cats to prefer the whisker-friendly dish was 0.74 with a 95% confidence interval. Conclusions and relevance Cats fed from a whisker-friendly dish did not spend more time eating, drop less food or eat more food in a 5-min period. Some cats appeared to prefer the new whisker-friendly dish over their normal food dish. Overall, food dish-associated whisker stress did not affect the eating habits of the study cats.

Landmark learning by the Ozark zigzag salamander Plethodon angusticlavius

Although salamanders have been shown to respond to classical conditioning, spatial learning has been largely unstudied. We tested whether salamanders could learn to locate foraging areas by using landmarks. We trained 10 salamanders Plethodon angusticlavius to use landmarks (small rocks) to locate patches within the arena containing food (blackworms Lum-briculus variegatus). At the corners of each square testing arena were four plastic dishes, one containing blackworms and the other three empty. A rock was placed in front of the dish containing blackworms, and the location of the food-dish was randomly chosen for each training trial. A control group was also trained to feed on blackworms in the presence of a rock, but the rock was positioned randomly among the four dish locations so that the rock was not a reliable landmark for the worms. Although the length of the training period for individual salamanders varied (22–38 trainings per individual), the mean number of trainings for salamanders in the control and experimental groups was equal (30 training trials). During testing, no blackworms were present to eliminate any visual or chemical cues emanating directly from the prey. Individuals trained with the rock landmarks spent significantly more time in the area of the landmark than did control salamanders.

When pigeons in motion lose sight of their food: behaviour on visible displacement tasks revisited

In traditional visible displacement tasks, animals view an object as it is moved out of their sight, but either the object moves behind an occluder or an occluder moves in front of it. Here we present a more ecologically realistic visible displacement task for pigeons ( Columba livia (Gmelin, 1789)) in which it was the animal that occluded the object, a food dish in this case, by virtue of its own motion. In a branched maze, pigeons had visual access to food, which they would lose from view as they moved through the maze. A within-subject design was used whereby the task was presented first in descending order of difficulty (i.e., decreasing memory load owing to the opening of (i) gaps and (ii) windows in the walls of the maze), and followed 10 months later by an ascending order. When the food was visible at all times through windows and gaps, pigeons would make turns in the maze that would bring them closer to the food (i.e., they chose the shortest route above chance levels). In general, they failed to do so when the food was lost from view, but there was one exception at the end of the study (the second time that there were gaps but no windows): there was a significant tendency for the last two turns that brought the bird out of the maze to be the shortest route to the food. The pigeons may have learned to take advantage of opportunities to lighten their memory load.

Food Dominance in Dogs: Effects of Chlorpromazine and D-Amphetamine

Effects of chlorpromazine and d-amphetamine on food dominance were studied in 18 purebred dogs over a 10-wk. period. Dominance was determined by time spent at a common food dish. Trials were conducted each week with no drugs to determine the dominance relationships, followed by each dominant and submissive member receiving either saline, d-amphetamine, or chlorpromazine. New pairings were created on the following week with a total of 72 pairings and 144 drug treatments. Dominance (dominant or submissive) was a function of particular pairings. Amphetamine altered dominance relationships only when administered to the dominant animal. Chlorpromazine altered the dominance relationship only when administered to the submissive animal.

Effect of Alcohol on Conflict Behaviors

40 Charles River (cd) rats were trained to run down a 15-ft. alley and bar press for food in a 2 × 2 analysis of variance design with alcohol and control treatments and two conflict-producing methodologies. In Exp. 1, conflict was induced by shocking S when it bar pressed; in Exp. II, when S touched the food dish. After approach-avoidance conflict was established, half the Ss in each experiment were injected intraperitoneally with 2.0 cc/100 gm. body weight of 1.0 gm. alcohol/Kg. and half with an equitonic control dextrose solution. When Ss were returned to the alley with shock off, 5 alcohol and 1 control Ss in Exp. I and 4 alcohol and 2 control Ss in Exp. II resolved the conflict to resume running, bar pressing and eating. Analysis of variance revealed that alcohol was significant in determining distance run. Compared with controls, alcohol-treated is ran farther and more frequently touched the dish and the bar. Data support the thesis that alcohol attenuates conflict in rats and suggest that more discrete dependent variables, such as bar pressing, temporally and spatially mote closely associated with the conflictful goal, may be less significantly affected by alcohol than grosser measures of conflict such as running.