Applied Animal Behavior & Welfare Lab at Virginia Tech

06/20/2026

Our School of Animal Sciences also has a poultry welfare researcher! Dr. Leonie Jacobs studies how to improve the lives of poultry (and sometimes even fish). She and her students have offered a chicken welfare workshop in the Summer Enrichment Experience through the Center for Rural Education. Her program has been a hit and has run multiple years. Our personal chickens have participated and love the enrichment they receive while the 7th and 8th grade students learn about chicken behavior and happiness. Check out a story from a few years ago (time flies!) on this fantastic program.

Leonie Jacobs, Associate Professor in the School of Animal Sciences, led a workshop to help rural middle school students participating in the Summer Enrichment Experience at Virginia Tech (SEE VT) learn about chicken behavior and how to tell if a chicken is happy.

06/18/2026

I had such a great time on the ABA on Tap podcast! We found so much interesting common ground with issues in ensuring our learner, whether human or nonhuman animal, has choice and control in our training settings, as well as how to effectively apply our science. Part I is linked and Part II is in the comments. We covered:
Reinforcement in the Wild: How to identify what actually functions as a reinforcer for dogs and horses.

Shelter Science: Interventions that reduce stress and increase adoption rates through evidence-based practices.

Human-Animal Bond: The behavior-analytic perspective on why we (and our pets) do what we do.

Humane Training: Moving beyond "jargon" to practical, compassionate care for all species.

ABA on Tap is proud to present Dr. Erica Feuerbacher (Part 1 of 2):Grab a cold one and pull up a chair! In this episode of ABA on Tap, we’re joined by Dr. Erica Feuerbacher, BCBA-D, to explore the fascinating intersection of behavior analysis and ...

06/12/2026

We offered a class on training shelter cats this past semester, spearheaded by Dr. Lisa Gunter! It was a great success and you can learn more at the link with Dr. Gunter's interview!

Students at Virginia Tech spent the past semester successfully training 14 shelter cats.

06/09/2026

New paper alert! Our second paper on our community-based spotted lanternfly (SLF) detection dog work has just come out. We found that dogs that had passed our initial assessments were much more successful than human searchers at detecting SLF egg masses. We collaborated with the Drs. Hall and Aviles-Rosa in the Canine Olfaction Lab and Dr. Mizuho Nita here at Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Read the open access paper here!

05/24/2026

We were well represented at the School of Animal Sciences Annual Research Day, with Rebecca Thompson, Yasmeen Gomez, and Yhakira Gray all giving excellent presentations of their work. Rebecca Thompson and Yasmeen Gomez even earned awards for their poster and lightning talks, respectively! Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

05/14/2026

Congratulations to Kara Barth on successfully defending her Master's research looking at the effects of reggae music on vocalizations in dogs kenneled in a veterinary clinic. Kara was a student from the Anthropology program at Carroll College and was so glad to get to continue to work with her as a graduate student. Thanks to her other committee members Dr. Leonie Jacobs and Dr. Ben Hart. OMALS - Virginia Tech Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

05/09/2026

Congratulations to Yhakira Gray for successfully defending her Master's thesis looking at the stability of dogs' preferences for different food items. Yhakira worked with us as an undergraduate MAOP Scholar and continued on as a graduate MAOP Scholar. She was involved in a variety of classes as a teaching assistant, working with dogs at the shelter, and helping conduct several research projects. We look forward to seeing what she does next! Thanks as always to her other committee members Dr. Lisa Gunter and Dr. Robin Foster. Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

05/05/2026

Grassroots science starts with a great nose!

We are recruiting citizen scientist dog-and-handler teams for a new study here at the Applied Animal Behavior and Welfare Lab at Virginia Tech, training dogs to detect Pierce's Disease. We are currently looking for teams in the Blacksburg and Front Royal areas, but we are also collecting contact information from teams across the country for future studies - simply fill out the form, and you will be contacted if a project comes to your region.
Naïve dogs and experienced scent-work or working dogs are all welcome. Please note that signing up does not guarantee a spot, but it gets you on our radar. Follow the link below to express your interest, and we will be in touch!
https://forms.gle/6GkptHeyZZJPLBJG9

Thank you for your interest in our research! We are a team of researchers at Virginia Tech studying how dogs can contribute to real-world detection tasks. We maintain a list of interested dog-owner pairs who may be contacted about upcoming participation opportunities. Joining this list does not comm...

05/03/2026

Congratulations to Jenni Pfafman for successfully defending her Master's research on noise phobia in dogs. Jenni's research included investigating which behaviors owners found problematic for them or the dogs, which predicted owners were likely to seek help for their dogs, and correlations with other behaviors. Excellent work, Jenni! And thanks also to her other committee members, Dr. Courtney Sexton and Dr. Rachel Gilchrist. OMALS - Virginia Tech Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

05/01/2026

Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca Thompson for successfully defending her doctoral dissertation looking at behavioral and physiological methods for assessing pain in horses. Dr. Thompson's creative research investigated how different assessments can help us identify pain, pain's potential impact on noise sensitivities in horses, and whether horses show clinical pain-related symptoms after exposure to the Lyme-causing bacterium, among many other studies she has conducted! We are so proud of her and look forward to seeing all the good she continues to do for horses and their owners! Thanks also to her committee members, Dr. Lucy Bergamasco, Dr. Robin Foster, and Dr. Virginia Buechner-Maxwell. Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences