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DVD Companion to The Equid Ethogram

Elkanah Grogan and Sue McDonnell
Equine Behavior Lab, New Bolton Center
University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine


The Equid Video Ethogram DVD
   

One of the long-term goals of our behavior lab is to improve science-based knowledge of horse behavior available to biologists, veterinarians, animal scientists, horse enthusiasts, and the general public. One specific objective is to develop and publish equid ethograms.  These are  annotated catalogs describing behavior sequences and their various elements. To date we have published two ethograms in the scientific literature, each on a specific class of behavior. The first was on intermale agonistic behavior among bachelor stallions (McDonnell and Haviland, 1995) and the second on play behavior (McDonnell and Poulin, 2002).  In 2003, a book version including all classes of behavior, entitled The Equid Ethogram: A Practical Field Guide to Horse Behavior (McDonnell, 2003), was published in a style that is user-friendly for both academic and lay audiences.

As a companion to the book, we are developing an interactive DVD that follows the layout of the book. This allows viewing of high quality digital video clips with quality audio for each book entry. The DVD format can be played on computers with DVD-ROM drives or on inexpensive stand-alone DVD players, making it accessible to a wide audience.

            Original video samples were obtained from our semi-feral pony herd at New Bolton Center and from resident research and clinical cases. Canon GL1 and XL1s digital camcorders and a NiteMax night vision viewer were used. The beta version is being produced in-house using Adobe Premiere Pro for video processing, Adobe Encore DVD 1.0 for DVD design, and TMPGEnc Plus 2.5 for video encoding. It will be ready for circulation to equine ethologists worldwide for review by the end of August 2004, so that the mass produced version is available by January 2005 for inclusion with the 2nd edition of the book.


 

This is a Dorothy Russell Havemeyer Foundation project.


Kana Grogan is a native of Chester County who received a BS in Animal Science from the University of Delaware in 2004.  She has been the Havemeyer Summer Research Assistant since summer of 2001.  In that position she has served as the semi-feral herd manager, as the research and clinical “gal Friday,” and as the lab photographer.  She has also conducted a number of preliminary studies, assisted with the completion of  Havemeyer summer student projects, and assisted with mentoring projects.  She has made major contributions to the ethogram book project and is managing the video ethogram project. Recently Kana has focused her interest and efforts on our cognition studies.