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Lina Roth

Associate Professor, Docent

Seeing the world from the animal’s perspective.

Presentation

Originally, I am a sensory biologist and have previously studied colour vision in lizards and horses, as well as how domestication has affected the vision of chickens and dogs (Roth & Lind 2013; Lind et al. 2018). Currently, I am focusing on welfare aspects and the fascinating behavioural interactions between dogs, horses, and their owners.

Lina Roth med hunden Trixie.

Dogs have lived alongside humans for over 15,000 years, and unsurprisingly, they contribute to increased welfare and better health for us. Many have likely heard the saying "like owner, like dog" which humorously reflects how we can resemble our dogs. However, the fact is that dogs and humans living together can also develop similar health problems. Recently, we demonstrated that dogs mirror their owners in long-term stress, but we observed this connection primarily with herding dogs, which have long been selected for collaboration with humans. Hunting dogs and primitive breeds did not show this as clearly (Sundman et al. 2019; Höglin et al. 2021). Recently, I have also become interested in dogs that have to change owners, something that has increased significantly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, in collaboration with Hundstallet, we have shown that rehomed dogs can recover from the stressful rehoming procedure and form very strong bonds with their new owners (Sulonen et al. 2024).

Horses have also lived with us for thousands of years, and their importance is reflected in the fact that equestrian sports are one of the largest leisure activities in Sweden. Horses live under different conditions than dogs, and here we are investigating how their daily lives, training, and stabling affect their behaviour, their relationship with their owners, and their stress levels. We have recently shown how this horse-human relationship differs from the dog's relationship with its owner. For horses, even a stranger can serve as support in stressful situations (Lundberg et al. 2020), and if given the choice, the horse does not significantly differentiate between its owner and a stranger. This contrasts with dogs, who prefer their owners and reminds us to be cautious in generalising research results from dogs to horses. We need to learn more about the horse’s perspective on its relationship with humans.

Links

Research gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lina_S_V_Roth

Thesis

Publications

2024

Cornelia Sulonen, Jenny Löf, Per Jensen, Karolina Lasses, Elvar Theodorsson, Helena Quist, Lina S. V. Roth (2024) Behavior, long-term stress and relationship to owner in relinquished dogs Frontiers in Animal Science, Vol. 5 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Jasmine Heurlin, György Barabas, Lina Roth (2024) Behavioural synchronisation between different groups of dogs and wolves and their owners/handlers: Exploring the effect of breed and human interaction PLOS ONE, Vol. 19, Article e0302833 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2023

John ORiordan, Lina Roth (2023) Rescue dogs show few differences in behavior, cognitive abilities, and personality compared with non-rescue dogs Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, Vol. 68, p. 42-47 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

2022

Renate Larssen, Lina Roth (2022) Regular positive reinforcement training increases contact-seeking behaviour in horses Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Vol. 252, Article 105651 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Enya van Poucke, Amanda Hoglin, Per Jensen, Lina Roth (2022) Breed group differences in the unsolvable problem task: herding dogs prefer their owner, while solitary hunting dogs seek stranger proximity Animal Cognition, Vol. 25, p. 597-603 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
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Rehomed dogs recover well

Rehomed dogs recover and can build very strong bonds with their new owners is the conclusion of our latest publication in Frontiers.

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Long-term stress in dogs linked to the owner-dog relationship

The relationship a dog has with its owner is related to its stress level. This is the conclusion of a newly published study from LiU. The results also suggest that the link between stress and the owner’s personality traits differs between dog breeds.

Social interaction in horses can impact long term stress levels

Resarchers at LiU found that

Research group