*Boasts Lagos is ready for National Sports Festival

*Says we’re laying solid foundation for sustainable sports development in Lagos

During the week, our Deputy Sports Editor, Jacob Ajom had a brief chat with the Chairman of the Lagos State Sports Commission, Sola Aiyepekun, in his office located at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.

The LSSC boss spoke on a variety of issues, including the quiet reforms he has initiated for sports development in Lagos. Excerpts.

How has it been so far?

So far so good, plenty of challenges. When I look back and try to surmise how long we have been here, I realise that I haven’t worked up to a year, given the time loss during the pandemic months.

I started in 2019 and after five months, from March to somewhere around October, no activity. Having said that, it has been quite challenging but very interesting and quite productive as well.

The major issue this year is the National Sports Festival. In your opinion, should it go ahead?

It’s not my place to say. I was part of the committee set up by the Honourable Minister of Sports last year to look at the possibility or otherwise of holding the Festival.

As at that time, we all thought it should go ahead, and we were all prepared for the February date we had. Lagos State athletes had already gone to camp before the latest cancellation. I think the states want Festival to go ahead and the athletes, in particular, want it to go ahead.

READ ALSO: Re-inventing Nigeria’s lost glory in sports (2)

Remember, some athletes require the Sports Festival for qualification for the Tokyo Olympics, so there are very many benefits for it happening.

How prepared is Lagos?

As prepared as anybody else can be. We have been preparing for over a year now. We can only prepare as much as we know. So we are prepared and geared towards the new dates.

Would the problem of poaching have any effect on Team Lagos?

Not for me. This poaching thing has been on for a while. It really calls for a greater level of thinking as regards the format and content of the festival. Maybe that is what is required. But for us, even before I came here, I hear people saying Lagos is developmental. I like it.

For me, it means that we are freeing up talents, potential athletes that can represent states all over Nigeria. So, what we have put in place to do is to tighten that noose. If value has to be given to what we do, if you value development over competitions, then who doesn’t benefit more in the long run?

We have taken some decisions based on the questions we have asked and answers we have gotten and, I dare say, maybe, either before or after the festival we will start implementing our decisions and you will see the results.

How many sports will Lagos compete in?

When the time comes. The rules keep changing.

The size of your contingent?

One can’t be sure. You know what has been happening. Before the last date was announced, we were told to cut down the sizes, saying for team events only winners will come out of the zones. So whatever the rule says that is what will determine the size of the contingent.

Anyway, I don’t think its about the size, it should be about the quality of the contingent. What are you going for? Is it about taking a multitude of people and come back with a few medals or take quality, those ones that can give you a good return on your investment. A contingent you can be proud of.

With the festival being open, where the likes of Blessing Okagbare and Esse Brume will be competing for Delta State, how would that pose a threat to the ambition of Lagos winning the Festival?

I think that is rather an obvious question and answer. Okagbare is one of the best in the world in her events, so definitely, she poses a threat to everybody, not just Lagos.

But would that be fair to other states?

That is none of my business. If the rule permits her, then there is nothing I can do. The rules also define everything, including equity or whatever is fair play. If the rules permit her, then we should be ready to compete with whoever comes our way.

It could even be good for the young athletes to compete alongside some of the best in the world?

Maybe not. Maybe at this stage of their development, it maybe too early. It might depress them, if they lose so much. But you never can tell. That is where a good developmental programme comes in because the athletes at that level know what they are coming up against. It is when the rules keep changing that you cannot prepare your athletes for the future.

Does the new rule which permits established, elite athletes to compete at the festival negate the founding principles of the National Sports Festival?

Whatever founded the festival doesn’t really matter now. What are the current rules? I will put the question to you. What are the current rules?

If they permit an athlete like Okagbare, for instance, to compete for a state, then that is what rules and the people who decided it felt that was the best thing to do. Then everybody has to fall in line. It is not just Lagos state, all other states are affected too.

How prepared is Lagos for the Super Eagles return to Lagos after so many years?

The main thing is that Lagos has met the inspection requirement, We have a fantastic turf which we have been working on for the past one year. We tried four different kinds of grass seeds before we arrived at the current formula which we are using.

We had it tough at the beginning but now we have got it right. The technical inspection that was done by CAF passed it. So, we are ready.

Was the grass sourced locally or imported?

Most of it was imported. Like I said, different seeds were tried. But the planting, the grooming and maintenance have all been done in-house and that has given us another line of capacity development as you know that in Nigeria, groundsmen are very rare.

We have learned some hard lessons along the way but they are good lessons that would stand us in a good stead in the long run.

So Lagos can now offer some technical assistance to other states in terms of pitch development?

I won’t say that. We will do our own first. This is only one stadium out of about four that we have in the state. Let us see how it goes. The main test is now as it(the pitch) is going to be used more often. That is when our maintenance capacity would be tested.

There is a difference between when it is being used, how you are going to recover after use and so on. Those are things we still have to learn. We are not at that stage we can commercialise our services yet.

Will there be fans, when the Eagles come to play in Lagos?

We hope so. A request has been made by the NFF to CAF and we are waiting for the response. But definitely it won’t be anything near capacity. Maybe 40% capacity.

How is the level of work at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena (formerly called Onikan Stadium)?

The Arena was a major Covid-19 isolation centre. Now the facility and equipment have been removed but still under the responsibility of the ministry of health. After everything, the work will continue and it will be completed. The stadium is about 75 to 80% ready. Only a few things left to be done and it will be usable again.

There was a plan by the last administration to build sports facilities across the zones in the state. How far has this been pursued?

The governor made a couple of campaign promises and for obvious reasons we have slowed down and have been unable to fulfill all of them. But now, the intensity has stepped up to keep those promises; we have done a couple of inspections and some areas highlighted; areas where facilities can be put up and the type of facilities they would need.

What has been the major challenge since you assumed office?

We have spent about a year in office and the major challenge has been Covid-19, and it is still on because there are still restrictions to large gatherings. We have to be very creative on things we can achieve and prioritise even more, what we can achieve, which is why in the long term, bringing the Super Eagles back to Lagos is a major and significant step in that direction.

READ ALSO: Youth Ministry opens supplementary application for business grant

Secondly and most significantly, we are in the process of re-inserting sports back into schools. From next term, there will be a pilot programme, and from next session, school sports in Lagos will be back fully in the educational curriculum and we have had meetings with the ministry of Education and partnership with the Honourable Commissioner for Education and SUBEB who handle the primary schools. We are ready to organise competitions at this level. We have indeed, moved very far.

The structure has to change. All over the world, sports is run as a multi-billion Dollar industry but here it is still being run as an aside. In many developed countries, sports contribute to the GDP but here, there is not even a policy for sports in the country.

So it behooves on us, as a leading state in the country, to take the bull by the horns and establish the fundamentals. For instance, we have begun work on a sports policy, the draft will soon be ready. This is part of the fundamentals because if you don’t create the fundamentals, how can sports be sustainable?

We have had numerous sports policies in the past but the major problem has been implementation, as every new government jettisons the former’s policies and initiates its own. What is the guarantee that what you are trying to do now would survive the test of time?

I can’t speak for the future. But more importantly, I said something about fundamentals. Just like when the governor spoke with me, he asked what my vision was for Lagos sports. I told him, “my vision is to build the foundation for a sustainable sports industry in Lagos.”

The question I will ask is, if there were numerous policies in the past, how were they implemented? How far were they driven to become policies? You know I can write a policy on a paper but were they put into law in a way that people had to obey for them to become policies?

Not a single one of them was passed by any legislative arm of government. After writing a policy, which is academic, the next stage is to back it up with law. You give it a legal muscle to stand the test of time.

When you do those fundamentals, no matter who comes afterwards, he must do what the law says. That is what we intend to do. Whenever the Lagos Sports Policy is ready, we will legalise it.”

Vanguard News Nigeria

I’m waiting for cinematographer Michael Seresin to ring. His flight from London was on time, but he has yet to make it to the home phone at Waterfall Bay in the Marlborough Sounds. I fill in the time scripting the day he first saw Waterfall Bay: untouched bush, pristine waters, the homesick New Zealander returning to his beautiful homeland.

Not quite right. In fact, that scene wouldn’t even make it to the cutting room floor.

Seresin all but erupts when I greet him with a fatuous “welcome home”.

“No! This is not my home. I’m back, that’s all.”

Seresin, who grew up in Wellington but left in the early 1960s, established an international career as a cinematographer, lives in Europe and definitely does not call New Zealand home.

Yet he is laird of all he surveys at Waterfall Bay and owns the famed Seresin vineyard in Marlborough’s Wairau Valley. He has probably spent millions of dollars developing the Seresin Estate and its many enterprises.

In 2009 he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours list, recognising his contributions to film and wine.

He is famously grumpy about our negativity, or as he puts it, “the way we moan and piss on all the time”.

Seresin calls London home.

He initially wanted to “do the wine thing in Italy”, where he has another home.

“I have friends in Tuscany in the wine business, and admittedly they live in a castle but it’s all about hospitality. One night there might be 100 people for a dinner complete with a string quartet, another night there might be only four of us, but there is always great wine and food.”

Seresin redirected his dream to New Zealand when he realised he didn’t know enough about winemaking to tackle owning such a business in Italy.

He is the accidental owner of Waterfall Bay. “In the early 90s I was in the area looking for land for a vineyard and I bought it as a gift for a woman I loved. When we saw it, she said she had never seen anything so lovely.”

The site included an old house, camping ground, community hall and acres of bush.

In 1992 he bought land in the Wairau Valley just out of Blenheim and planted his first vineyard. He might protest he is no businessman but Seresin Wines is now recognised worldwide for its biodynamic practices and excellent wines.

Waterfall Bay now boasts a house of startling architectural beauty, a bushclad landscape that has an untouched appearance that indicates many man-hours of careful bushwork, and a “boatshed” that long ago shrugged off its community hall garb.

It is fragrant with the scent of natural timbers, boasts leather sofas, custom-made tables, a broad and welcoming verandah and a kitchen designed by chef Peter Gordon.

Once a year, the building becomes the focal point of the Waterfall Bay Wine & Food festival, with a chef transported to this unique corner of the Marlborough Sounds.

This is the 12th year of the Waterfall Bay event. The list of attendant chefs includes Peter Gordon, Geoff Lindsay, Anna Hansen, Melissa Perello, Hamish Brown and Guillermo Brahimi. In a few days’ time, Liza Shaw of A16 restaurant in San Francisco will catch a water taxi from Picton and arrive in her new workplace.

Seresin is a perfectionist. He has a knack of finding those whose with better-than-average skills to work for him – for example, the beautiful dry stone walls of Waterfall Bay are the work of Welshman Alan Evans, who offered to repair the piles of the old hall and went on from there.

About a year ago, he discovered that a chef whose food he had admired when she cooked at London’s Kensington Place restaurant was living in Blenheim. Marcia Chang-Hong is now what she calls “the cook for Seresin’s” and it is she who handles the annual problem of sourcing produce and ingredients for the week of lunches and dinners.

“We like to source everything locally, so sometimes I have to tell the chefs that no, this or that might not be possible.

“We can’t source wild Atlantic salmon for instance, but last year, when the chef wanted the flowers of ginger plants, I was able ring around and find them.”

Michael Seresin is quoted on the Serensin’s website:

“The introduction of grapes and wines to a region increases the availability of good food and wine and enhances the culture of an area. I hope in some small way that Waterfall Bay contributes to this.”

Today he is more reflective. “Yes I think that is still right. It is hard sometimes to get the numbers we need, but the people here take ownership and we all work to get it right.”

He is going to hate this, but that sounds to me like a typical New Zealand businessman-farmer – and good host.

---

Food and Wine Festival Waterfall Bay Food & Wine Festival , February 11 to 14.

Chef Liza Shaw, assisted by three chefs, two kitchen hands and four front-of-house staff, presents a menu she says “shows the influence of southern Italy regional cuisine”.

Dinner Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

Lunch Sunday, fully booked for Monday.

For reservations , email [email protected]

---

The Press

• Twitter
• Whats App
• Reddit
• Email

MORE than 17,000 earthquakes have been recorded in the south-west of Iceland, in the Reykjanes Peninsula, during the past week.

People living in the area have been advised to be extra careful due to dangers of landslides and rockfall.

Many of the larger earthquakes have even been felt in Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavik (where over half of the population lives), which lies only 27km away.

This has led to heightened concerns about the effects of even larger earthquakes and also of a possible eruption from the Krýsuvík volcanic system in the area.

South-west Iceland has a track record of centuries of calm, which we know can be broken by turbulent periods of intense earthquake activity accompanied by volcanic eruptions.

It looks like we are entering the next turbulent period.

The most recent earthquake swarm is in fact the latest in a period of significantly heightened seismic activity that started over a year ago.

The shaking of the Earth is the most obvious manifestation of the release of huge amounts of energy.

But magma has also been quietly accumulating nearer to the surface – and when this happens there is increased likelihood of the surface breaking and the volcanoes erupting.

On March 3, concern rose sharply as a type of earthquake activity characteristic of the movement of magma was detected, indicating that an eruption might be imminent.

The Civil Defence and other authorities have held press conferences, closed roads and heightened visual surveillance of the area above the potential eruption site.

Of course, magma may move in the crust and then stop, but it is always wisest to plan for an eruption and then to scale back if nothing happens.

Huge uncertainties

The problem is that the last time south-west of Iceland experienced such a turbulent period of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions was in the 1300s – when there was no equipment to monitor seismic activity.

There were also far fewer people around, which means that we don’t really know what signals there were before eruptions occurred. So there are huge uncertainties.

However, Iceland has a world-leading network for monitoring seismic and volcanic unrest, and an excellent track record of anticipating eruptions and of maintaining the safety of its population.

So if an eruption did happen, chances are all will be well.

An eruption in this area will be nothing like the highly disruptive explosive eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, or the much larger explosive but much less disruptive explosive eruption of Grímsvötn in 2011.

Eruptions in south-west Iceland are of a fluid rock type called basalt. This results in slow-moving streams of lava fed from gently exploding craters and cones.

In Iceland these are warmly called “tourist eruptions” as they are relatively safe and predictable, and offer the opportunity for many hundreds of people to witness a magical natural spectacle – the creation of new land.

In the past, tourists have flocked to Iceland to witness such eruptions, but at present there is a five-day quarantine period for tourists entering Iceland due to the pandemic.

At the current area of unrest, there are no nearby habitations – it is reassuringly remote.

Lava streams flowing away from the area are very unlikely to damage any property on predicted pathways, but if the lava makes its way to the sea, it will cut off a few roads.

International impact?

The biggest concern internationally about a volcanic eruption in Iceland is disruption to air travel.

Not only can winds carry ash clouds swiftly towards western Europe (as we saw with the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010), but ash clouds can get high into the atmosphere and into the stratosphere where commercial airlines travel across the busy Atlantic flight corridors.

But the volcanoes in south-west Iceland tend not to produce much ash, and so the risk to disruption of international air travel is considered very small.

Should an eruption start, flights would be halted automatically at the Keflavík international airport, which is only 22km away, until a fuller evaluation has been carried out.

The wind direction has a major effect here, and given that the prevailing wind is from a westerly direction and Keflavík sits on the western side of this south-west peninsular, winds would be expected to carry any ash away from Keflavík.

The crucial effect of wind direction was highlighted beautifully in 2010 when Keflavík airport remained open while airports across Western Europe were closed for weeks.

While current COVID-19 restrictions on entering Iceland will prevent hordes of tourists from traveling to see a potential eruption, there will be plenty of Icelanders traveling to observe it.

They have a quirky saying in Iceland “whilst in most countries people usually run away from volcanic eruptions, in Iceland we usually run towards them”.

This article was originally written for The Conversation by Dr Dave McGarvie, Volcanologist at Lancaster University.

In other news, an incredible satellite image captured the erupting Krakatoa volcano spewing debris into the air last year.

It recently emerged that prehistoric humans survived a volcanic super-eruption 70,000 years ago that triggered a ten-year winter.

And, a deep sea volcano blast created a new Pacific island last November.

Are you concerned about volcanic eruptions? Let us know in the comments!

---

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at [email protected]

---

Chimpanzees are one of our closest relatives and their lives are in peril because of human intrusions into their homes and lives. A new book edited by chimpanzee experts Drs. Lydia Hopper , Assistant Director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes , and Stephen Ross , Director of the Center, called Chimpanzees in Context: A Comparative Perspective on Chimpanzee Behavior, Cognition, Conservation, and Welfare is a comprehensive summary of what we know about these remarkable animals and provides information that is essential in developing conservation protocols. It’s my pleasure to offer an interview with the editors of this forward-looking collection of essays by people who know the subject well. ^1,2,3

Why did you compile the essays for Chimpanzees in Context ?

Chimpanzees in Context is actually the latest in a series that has resulted from a set of conferences held in Chicago. In 1986, Jane Goodall, with her colleague Paul Heltne, organized a meeting to coincide with the publication of her influential book The Chimpanzees of Gombe . Their idea was to bring together scientists from all the different long-term chimpanzee field sites to share what they’ve learned. Jane describes the meeting as a “game changer” for her: It was the catalyst for her activism work, which she has done so admirably for decades now. These meetings have been held roughly every 10 years and represent an ongoing opportunity to refresh our commitment to understanding chimpanzees and to finding ways to conserve and care for them. Moreover, each of the three previous meetings resulted in the publication of edited volumes, sharing the work from the meetings: Understanding Chimpanzees , Chimpanzee Cultures , and The Mind of the Chimpanzee . The third meeting was hosted by Lincoln Park Zoo and so it was our honor to again host the fourth meeting in the series in 2016. In doing so, it was inevitable that we would also publish an edited volume. Chimpanzees in Context is that book.

How did you select the contributors?

As for the previous three books, many of the contributing authors were speakers at the 2016 meeting, although we invited additional contributors to offer a comprehensive perspective and to ensure that we gave voice to the next generation of scientists, to get a first-hand view of what is happening “on the ground,” so to speak. The majority of authors are chimpanzee experts and whose work represents a range of disciplines. Importantly, the aim of our book is to understand chimpanzees “in context”–as part of, and in relation to, the rest of the natural world. Therefore, we have included several authors who study other species, and whose research specialties in dolphins, birds, or bonobos, for instance, provides a critical point of comparison to best understand chimpanzees.

How does your book relate to your backgrounds and general areas of interest?

One of the really nice things about this book is that it so elegantly fits with the ethos of our research center at Lincoln Park Zoo: the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes. Since 2004, the Fisher Center has sought to conduct meaningful, multidisciplinary research on behavior, cognition , conservation, and welfare. We focus on using high-quality science to better our understanding of primates and to leverage that science to affect change for these species. Our extensive collaboration with Chimp Haven , the largest chimpanzee sanctuary in the world, represents the first such zoo-sanctuary collaboration. And, for over a decade, we have partnered with the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project that conducts critical conservation science work in the Republic of Congo. This demonstrates the breadth of efforts that are being conducted on behalf of chimpanzees by scientists everywhere, including those at Lincoln Park Zoo.

The other key component of the book that reflects our work is the comparative perspective it brings. Jane Goodall was very adamant that the focus of the first meeting, held in 1986, be on chimpanzees. And this continued with the next two meetings. But with the fourth meeting, we felt it was important to pull the lens back a bit. As scientists, we value this comparative perspective and virtually every project we conduct at the Fisher Center is done with a multi-species approach where we work on studies of chimpanzees, but also with gorillas and Japanese macaques. Additionally, our field site in Congo is characterized as one of the rare places on the globe where there are sympatric populations of gorillas and chimpanzees seen interacting with each other.

Who is your intended audience?

Chimpanzees in Context is definitely aimed toward a specialized audience–those who are interested in chimpanzees. Our primary audience is scholars and professionals studying and working with chimpanzees, but we also hope it will be of interest to those who, more generally, thrive on learning about science, ecology, and cognition and how this information can be applied to the care for and conservation chimpanzees.

What are some of the topics that are woven into your book and what are some of the major messages from you and your contributors?

The book offers a broad and comprehensive view of our current understanding of chimpanzees and opens with a foreword by Jane Goodall. In the first few chapters, the contributing authors share fundamental research on chimpanzee development, aging, sociality, and behavior, all presented in comparison to what we know for other species, such as bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, and even dolphins. In subsequent chapters the authors explore how we study chimpanzee behavior and cognition. These lead up to chapters that focus on some of the richest aspects of chimpanzee cognition: communication, cooperation, and tool-use. These are all “hot topics” in the current study of chimpanzees and so these chapters offer a great opportunity to hear about what the latest findings are, how those ideas have been synthesized, and where we think such research is headed in the future.

The book ends with a very deliberate shift to applied research. There are four chapters focused on aspects of caring for chimpanzees in captive settings and leveraging science to promote wellbeing, while the final three chapters present the threats facing wild populations of chimpanzees in Africa and efforts to conserve them. It was important to us to wrap up the book in a way that helps guide our future practices in primatology, conservation, and care.

How does your book differ from others concerned with some of the same general topics?

There are few species in the world that are studied as much as chimpanzees. As a result, there is a fantastic amount written about them from all sorts of different perspectives, but most books focus either solely on chimpanzees, or on a single topic. Chimpanzees in Context is unique in its breadth, and also in the compilation of both basic and applied perspectives. Furthermore, as this book is one in a series, one of the great opportunities with this book is that we’re given an opportunity to continue a legacy, while also updating our understanding and helping to ensure this species is around for a long time.

What are some of your current projects?

The release of Chimpanzees in Context allows us to focus on our next book, which, although also centered on chimpanzees, will be quite different. It will be a collection of introspective essays from those who have dedicated their lives to studying chimpanzees. This includes well-known primatologists, like Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal, but also other individuals who, despite not being so well known, are equally dedicated to chimpanzees, such as Raven Jackson-Jewett, the attending veterinarian at Chimp Haven, David Koni, a Congolese research assistant studying chimpanzees in the Republic of Congo, and Lilly Ajarova, formerly the executive director of Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda. So many people are interested in studying, caring for, or conserving chimpanzees and we wanted to share the origin stories from those who have lived that dream. Chimpanzee Memoirs should be out next year from Columbia University Press.

How Ethology Can Help Improve End of Life Care for Animal Patients: Part 1 in a 3 Part Series

Pain is arguably the most important clinical and ethical issue in end of life care for companion animals. Research suggests that many companion animals—perhaps numbering in the millions—are not being treated for pain or are being treated inadequately. [i] A significant portion of missed diagnoses, misdiagnoses, undertreatment, and overtreatment likely can be tied to incorrect behavioral assessments, particularly on the part of pet owners but also, perhaps, on the part of veterinarians.

Pain is a quintessentially personal experience. Indeed, the most common medical definition of pain is “what the person says it is.” A large body of research has explored how the experience and expression of pain can be influenced by gender , age, past experiences, and cognitive priming . Even individual personality can influence how people experience and express pain. For example, people who rate high on “ extraversion ” are more likely to express their experience of pain yet may, at the same time, experience pain less intensely than introverted individuals. People who score high on “ neuroticism ” have higher emotional stress responses to pain than those who score low. [ii] A similar dynamic appears to be at work in nonhuman animals, with individual personality shaping the experience and expression of pain. (Personality can be understood as individual differences in behavior that remain stable over time.) This has important implications for the assessment and effective treatment of animal pain.

Although research into pain and personality in nonhuman animals is still in its early stages, initial results are intriguing. In a 2014 study, Ijichi et al. found preliminary evidence that behavioral indicators of pain in horses may not accurately indicate the level of tissue damage, and that horses’ behavioral response to pain varied in relation to personality. [iii] Lush and Ijichi conducted a similar study in dogs in 2018, using the Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire—Revised[iv] to measure personality and the Short Form Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale to measure pain.[v] They found “noticeable individual variation in both behavioral and physiological responses to pain triggered by the same procedure.” [vi (p. 66)]

They also found that behavioral indicators did not correlate with physiological responses and concluded that “behavior may not indicate when an animal was experiencing poor welfare and that individuals respond differently to the same procedure.” Extravert animals scored higher for behavioral expression of pain; more introverted subjects were less likely to exhibit pain-related behaviors. Although the actual pain response may have been the same, the behavioral expression was different. We may thus be more likely to underestimate, and also under-treat, the pain experienced by an introverted animal patient. (In humans, introverts are also less likely to adopt active coping responses. Might the same be true in other animals?)

It has long been assumed that observable signs of pain, such as those measured in pain scales like Colorado State University’s pain scales for dogs ( chronic and acute ) and cats ( acute ) are reliable indicators not only of the presence of pain but also of the severity of pain being experienced. Such behavior-based scales are used to identify whether analgesic drugs are helping and at what dosage. The welfare implications of incorrect assessments of pain are obvious: if we underestimate, pain may not be treated effectively; if we overestimate, we may use too high an analgesic dosing, leading to adverse effects, and may also possibly resort to euthanasia prematurely. [vii]

The emerging science of animal personality is vitally important to end of life care, not only in accurately assessing pain but in monitoring how patients respond to treatments, how quality of life may be impacted by disease or lost mobility, and so on. The better pet owners and veterinarians understand each individual animal, the more effectively they will be able to tailor care to that individual’s needs. Several good personality assessment tools for dogs and cats are available online.

Brian Hare’s Dognition Assessment Tool and Amanda Jones’ Dog Personality Questionnaire are two good validated tools for assessing dog personality. Research into cat personality lags behind dog personality research, and we are still waiting for validated tools, but Litchfield et al.’s “ The ‘Feline Five’: An exploration of personality in pet cats ( Felis catus ) ” provides important groundwork and validated tools will undoubtedly be available soon. A number of unvalidated cat personality are available (for example here ); these can still be useful because they encourage cat owners to observe their animal more closely.

These tools could be used by owners to help build a base of knowledge about canine or feline behavior in general and might nurture a style of close observation and attunement.