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  2. Congratulations and Open Thread

Congratulations and Open Thread

By jgoldman on August 7, 2010.

i-df3537ea500db902f374453540a9f60b-ZombieDog_3214thumb.jpgDear friend of the blog and frequent commenter the Dog Zombie just got her masters!!!!! She studies dog brains by pursuing DVM and MS degrees. One degree down, and two to go!

She writes (via email) that she was

a little worried that people would think "why do I care about something touchy-feely like whether hospitalized dogs are stressed?" But people did show up, and asked really good questions, so I gather that they were listening and absorbing. A lot of people told me I did a good job, so I presume that I did. Actual defense went fine. Really glad to be done :)

Personally I think it is tremendously important to know about the effects of hospitalization on dogs, both for practical/clinical purposes, but also in a broader sense because it helps us understand the complex effects of environment on biology and behavior.

So I thought we'd have a little blog party for her, here. Leave a note in the comments, and if you've got something you'd like to share as well, consider this an open thread.

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Brain and Behavior

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I, for one, would be intensely interested in hearing how stress affects hospitalized dogs. Circulating stress endocrines can affect most of the major body systems, including the immune system and systems for growth and repair.

AWESOME picture, Jason! Where did you find that? Thanks for the party :)

EcoPhysioMichelle: we don't really know anything about how stress affects hospitalized dogs specifically; part of the point I made in my thesis seminar was that we ought to be studying that. We do know a lot about how it affects humans and animal models, and I might could do a post on that, maybe with some speculation about dogs. I'd been thinking about it.