All About Puppies & Kittens

Prof. Daniel Mills

Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine

Professor Daniel Mills is a RCVS and European recognized specialist in veterinary behavioral medicine and CCAB-recognized clinical animal behaviorist. He is a practicing veterinary surgeon and academic who has specialized in the management of problem behavior and the human-animal bond for nearly 35 years. He heads up the Animal Behaviour Cognition and Welfare group within the Dept of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln, UK.

In 2004 he was the first individual to be recognized by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons as a specialist in veterinary behavioral medicine, and in 2016 was further recognized by them as the first individual to be granted Fellowship status for his contributions to this field. He was also Europe’s first professor of his discipline and has pioneered a scientific transformation of our understanding of companion animal problem behavior, through the pioneering development of a “psychobiological approach” to clinical animal behavior assessment. This is a synthesis of contemporary psychology and behavioral biology with neuroscience that facilitates a systematic, scientific framework for the assessment and management of problem behavior in animals. Much of his work is transdisciplinary and he has more than 200 full peer reviewed publications, and more than 60 books and chapters for academics, professionals and members of the public; since 2022, he has been listed within Stanford University’s global database as among the top 1% of cited scientists.

Dr. Amber Batson

Veterinarian

Amber Batson graduated from the Royal Veterinary College, London in 1999.

She started working in general veterinary practice straight from graduating, but quickly became aware that many consultations involved elements of behavior, which set her on a path of acquiring science-based behavior knowledge.

For many years she worked in practice whilst undertaking a number of behavior qualifications in dogs, horses and cats which became blended in with her veterinary work.

In 2007 she set up her own business, Understand Animals, with the aim to bridge the gap between up-to-date science and using that in a practical way to benefit animals and the humans they share their lives with.  Alongside working in clinical vet practice, her business provided education across the globe regarding animal behavior and welfare, as well as providing vet behavior consultations for clients and legal expert witness work.

Amber remains passionate about using science to support a pragmatic and empathetic approach to behavior issues in animals.

Dr. Robert Falconer-Taylor

BVetMed, DipCABT, MRCVS

Robert has worked in the veterinary profession for nearly 30 years, as a partner in an innovative small animal hospital group and as a locum. Alongside his role in day-to-day clinical medicine, Robert has also been very much involved in the management, communication, and education side of veterinary practice. During this time, he was directly involved in the conception and implementation of computerization into the profession. This included a cross-fertilization with the human healthcare system in the UK and the development of cross-platform coding and classification systems for disease identification, tracking and surveillance. This is now an integral part of the World Health Organization’s One Health initiative.

CURRENT ROLES

Academic Advisor for The Association of INTODogs community.

Scientific Advisor and Educator for the Pet Remedy Company (companion animal behavior & welfare).

Trustee and veterinary advisor for Springer Rescue for Scotland Charity.

International consultant to the pet industry (development and risk assessment of pet ‘toys’ targeted and promoting the welfare of pets and their relationships with their guardians. Development of practical and easy-to-use Mood State Assessment tools for dogs, cats and horses.

Active participating member of the social media-led ‘global companion animal community’

His current primary academic interests include companion animal cognitive science and emotionality, nutrition and its effects on behavior, and applied neurophysiology, pharmacology, and therapeutics in companion animal behavior therapy.

FORMER ROLES

Robert was also veterinary director and head of education of the Centre of Applied Pet Ethology (COAPE), the first organization in the UK to develop government-regulated courses to degree level specifically in companion animal behavior and training. COAPE also developed the renowned EMRA system used by behaviorists and trainers all over the world, now summarized in their book – EMRA Intelligence: The revolutionary new approach to treating behavior problems in dogs.

Dr. Maggie Roberts, BVM&S, MRCVS, graduated from the University of Edinburgh’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 1986 and spent the first half of her career in private companion animal practice, where she developed an interest in feline medicine.

She was appointed the first Cats Protection Veterinary Officer in 1997 with the aim of raising the standards of cat care across the charity.

After two years she returned to private practice as a partner at the Harbour Veterinary Group in Hampshire. However, she missed shelter medicine and came back to Cats Protection as Head of Veterinary Services in 2006.

Maggie was made Director of Veterinary Services and then Director of Feline Welfare as her portfolio of teams expanded and she had responsibility for the strategic development of  the charity’s work on cat welfare, cat behavior, veterinary services, neutering, research, advocacy and education.

She has worked and volunteered overseas including Malawi, Australia and Portugal.

Maggie has been a trustee of the Feline Advisory Bureau (now International Cat Care) and Raystede Centre for Animal Welfare. She has recently been appointed the independent chair of the Microchipping Trade Association.

Her professional interests are feline medicine and behavior and shelter medicine. She is a founder member of the Shelter and Charity Veterinary Association and the co-editor of the BSAVA Manual of Canine and Feline Shelter Medicine. She was the recipient of the BSAVA J A Wight (aka James Herriot) Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to the welfare of companion animals in 2013.

Maggie has recently set up Advovet Consultancy Services to use her experience and professional knowledge to improve standards in companion animal charities and other related organizations.

She lives in West Sussex with a rescued black cat called Ross, who is master of the house.

B.A. Hons, PCT- A, PCBC-A, CAP3, CTDI, DN-FSG2, DN-CPCT, CWRI

Louise is a Partner and Faculty Member of DogNostics Career Center and Board Member of The Pet Professional Guild. Louise has constantly built on her knowledge and furthered her education in the field of force-free, rewards based, science-based pet training. The creator of the DogNostics’ Dog Trainer Certification Program, Louise has presented at conferences internationally and has gained a reputation for expertly teaching and training humans and canines at her own establishment, The DogSmith of Estepona, in Southern Spain, where she offers a wide range of both group and private classes and pet dog services.

Suzanne Clothier has been working with animals professionally since 1977, with a deep, broadly varied background of experience. She is well respected for her humane, practical and sensible Relationship Centered Training (RCT™) approach to dogs and the people that love them.

She has taught throughout the US and internationally on a variety of topics. Her thoughtful, effective tools and materials have been put to use by every day pet owners, and by trainers, breeders, veterinarians, academics, in guide & service dog organizations, and in animal assisted therapy. She serves as a consultant to guide & service dog schools.

Regarded as an innovative trainer with exceptional observation skills and a broad range of knowledge, Suzanne is always in demand as an exciting, informative and entertaining speaker capable of making complex topics easily grasped and practical. Her works includes:

• CARAT™ – a novel temperament assessment & scoring system
• The Enriched Puppy Protocol™ – Program for early puppyhood development, birth to 9 weeks
• RAT™ (Relationship Assessment Tool) – dog/human relationship dynamics assessment
• FAT™ (Functional Assessment Tracking) – this app looks at functional assessment of individual dog
• CCC™ (Connection, Cooperation & Control, with Cindy Knowlton) – a puzzle based training program
• Your Athletic Dog: A Functional Approach  — gait & movement assessment

An award winning author of videos, books, and numerous articles, Suzanne’s writings have appeared around the world in countless languages from Danish to Japanese. Her book, Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships With Dogs (Warner, 2002) has received widespread praise from every corner of the dog world, including twice being included in The Wall Street Journal’s list of Top 5 Dog Books. 

She is a member of PPG and IAABC. A long time German Shepherd breeder, Suzanne lives on an upstate New York farm with husband John Rice, and their considerable animal family.

  [email protected]   SuzanneClothier.com

Karolina Westlund helps pet lovers and animal professionals get happier animals that thrive in the care of humans. She grew up pining for a kitten for several years, and pestering her parents until they gave up. The green-eyed black half-siamese cat that she got for her seventh birthday became a true friend who lived to be 21 years old, but an easily startled cat who often went into hiding when there were visitors.

Karolina had grand ideas about becoming a field biologist, but that never came about – the closest she got was working as a trekking travel guide in France and Madeira. Instead she majored in Ethology and developed a passionate interest in animal welfare seen through a multidisciplinary lens, including Behaviour Analysis and Affective Neuroscience. She is now an Associate Professor of Ethology at the University of Stockholm, mostly teaching how behavior management can be used to improve animal welfare.

She offers live seminars, free online webinars and masterclasses in addition to more extensive online courses, as well as the occasional blog post or scientific publication on the topic of enrichment, animal training and wellbeing. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with her husband, two kids, and, hopefully soon, another cat.

Lorna Winter

Trainer and Behaviourist (Dip CABT)

Lorna qualified as a Trainer and Behaviourist (Dip CABT) in 2008 through the Centre of Applied Education (COAPE) which has one of the longest and most well-established histories as a top educational service provider in the industry developing ground-breaking tools such MHERA™ and ESTA™.

Lorna volunteered to be on the committee of the COAPE Association back in 2014 and is currently the Chair of the association (CABTi) and she also represents the CABTi Association as a Director for the UK Dog Behaviour and Training Charter.

Lorna is also co-founder of the UK’s #1 and USA’s #2 Dog Training app – Zigzag, which was established in early 2022 after running a successful trial with the Puppito app since mid 2020. Recognizing that many dog families don’t (or can’t) undertake official training with their dogs via in person training, and many online options were very misleading and rooted in outdated methods, Lorna was passionate about finding a way to provide great education, in a fun and engaging way, using science led and positive fear free methods, that could reach people no matter where they lived in a format that was easy and familiar for them – in an app!

Since launching Zigzag, the app has reached hundreds of thousands of dog families across the entire globe, providing not just personalized training & life skills programs, but 24/7 instant help through highly qualified training experts.

Lorna is also leading the work at Zigzag on collaboration with The University of Lincoln, leveraging Zigzag’s access to dog families, to provide much needed research and new insights into puppy and dog development and behavior.

Lorna also led the work with the University of Lincoln to provide the world’s first (patent pending) Separation Related Issues Assessment tool launched in 2024, which was built based on the latest research published in 2020.

Lorna lives with her utterly adorable Norfolk Terrier Herbie and her husband John.

Kristyn Vitale, PhD, CAAB

Cat Behavior, Science, & Training

Dr. Kristyn Vitale is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist and an expert in cat behavior and cognition. Vitale received a Master of Environmental Science from Miami University (USA) where she studied free-ranging cat social behavior and a Ph.D. in Animal Science from Oregon State University (USA) where she studied cat social cognition and cat welfare. During her graduate career she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a Visiting Research Fellow at Kyoto University (Japan).

Vitale’s research interests include cross-cultural comparisons of human-animal interactions, factors that impact animal social behavior, human-animal attachment relationships, animal learning and training, and ways to improve the welfare of captive and companion animals.

Vitale’s main area of expertise is focused on cat social behavior, human-cat interactions, and the impact of life experiences, such as cat training and socialization classes, on cat cognition and the cat-human relationship.

She has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Current Biology, Animal Cognition, and Applied Animal Behaviour Science and published academic book chapters in textbooks such as the Clinical Handbook of Feline Behavior Medicine and Feline Behavior and Welfare. Kristyn is also an active public speaker and is frequently invited to speak to professional and academic audiences as well as public audiences of all ages. Her work has been internationally featured in media outlets such as Science and National Geographic and in film documentaries such as How the Cat Conquered the World (ARTE France) and Inside the Mind of a Cat (Netflix).

She is currently an Assistant Professor of Animal Health and Behavior at Unity Environmental University (USA) and the founder of Maueyes, a science education and behavior consulting business focused on cat behavior, cat science, and cat training.

Zazie Todd, PhD brings trust, kindness, and cookies to the human-animal relationship. She is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. Her third book, Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog, will be published in October 2024. Todd is the creator of Companion Animal Psychology blog and has a column at Psychology Today. She has a PhD in Psychology, is an honours graduate of the prestigious Academy for Dog Trainers, and has an Advanced Certificate of Feline Behaviour (with Distinction) from International Cat Care. Originally from the UK, she lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and one cat.

I am an Assistant Professor of One Welfare in the Department of Clinical Studies at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC; University of Guelph, Canada). Originally from British Columbia, Canada, I earned a BSc in Geography from the University of Victoria and an MSc in Applied Animal Biology from the Animal Welfare Program at the University of British Columbia. I completed a PhD in Epidemiology and Companion Animal Behavior in the Department of Population Medicine at OVC, studying the impacts of socialization and early experiences on fear behavior in foster kittens.

My research interests include applied animal welfare and behavior, with a focus on the behavioral development of companion kittens and cats and the human-feline bond. Using a One Welfare framework, my research merges quantitative and qualitative methods, incorporating the perspectives of kitten caretakers to improve animal welfare and maintain strong human-animal relationships. I have collaborated with the BC SPCA, RSPCA New South Wales, and UC Davis, and have sat on the boards of the Animal Welfare Foundation of Canada and the Toronto Zoo Animal Care and Research Committee.

Melissa Taylor

CBCC-KA, CSB-C

Melissa Taylor, CBCC-KA, CSB-C is the Behavior and Training Manager at Friends For Life
(FFL) Animal Shelter, a progressive animal welfare organization in Houston, Texas. At FFL,
Melissa heads a comprehensive, animal-centered behavior program which includes in-house
animal care, community outreach, and inter-shelter consultation. Melissa has logged more than
twenty years in shelter animal behavior, starting with an internship at the ASPCA’s Animal
Behavior Center in New York City. She developed a lasting love for cooperative care from
training livestock and wildlife as the coordinator of the Behavior and Training Department at the
Houston SPCA, and applies the same principles to the dogs, cats, exotics, and humans she
works with now at Friends For Life.

Melissa is happiest when she has a chance to use data to create innovative projects to improve
the lives of shelter animals and the people who care for them. For example, she started the
Fraidy Cat Program to reliably shape and generalize prosocial behaviors in undersocialized
cats. Melissa’s non-compulsive, choice-based training and behavior modification program is
associated with a 67% drop in the number of long-stay dogs at Friends For Life.

Over the course of her career, Melissa has focused on the development of shelter programs
related to animal behavior. She has partnered with other shelters locally and around the world to
start behavior volunteer, fearful cat socialization, enrichment, and animal-centered staff training
initiatives.

Melissa was awarded the 2022 Member of the Year Award by the Association For Professional
Dog Trainers due to her work as co-chair of the APDT Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Committee examining the experiences of BIPOC members of the professional dog training
community. She is passionate about the role that social justice issues play in the advancement
of animal welfare.

Dr. Christine Calder

DVM, DACVB

Dr. Calder has lived and practiced veterinary medicine in both New Jersey and Maine for many years. In addition to general practice, Dr. Calder spent time as part of the behavior service at San Francisco SPCA and in Community Practice as part of several veterinary school teaching hospitals. As a general practitioner, she always had an interest in animal behavior and in 2016, she finished a residency with the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists becoming a Diplomate with the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (DACVB) in 2017. In addition to her own behavior referral practice, Dr. Calder is the Chief Behavior Officer for Cattle Dog Publishing and a Vets at VIN Consultant. She has a special interest in education and the preparation for veterinary students to help them be “Day One” ready for practice.

Dr. Lisa Radosta

DVM, DACVB

Dr. Lisa Radosta will do a kickoff session on Zoom via Facebook live at noon (ET) on May 20, 2025.

Dr. Radosta graduated from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in 2000. She completed a residency in Behavioral Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. During her residency, she was awarded the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists Resident research award two years in a row.

She is a sought after speaker nationally and internationally. She is a coauthor of the Handbook of Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat; Blackwell’s Five Minute Veterinary Consult, Decoding your Cat, Canine and Feline and Small Animal Pediatrics and From Fearful to Fear Free, the ultimate guide for fearful dogs. She is the editor of the 4th edition of Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat.

She has authored research articles published in the Journal of Applied Animal Behavior Science, Journal of Veterinary Behavior and The Veterinary Journal and written review articles for Advances in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, Compendium, NAVC, Veterinary Team Brief, Clinician’s Brief and AAHA Newstat. She has served on the Fear Free Executive Council and the AAHA Behavior Management Task Force.

She has been interviewed for many publications including Cat Fancy, Dog Fancy, Palm Beach Post, NAVC Clinician’s Brief, Sun Sentinel, WebMD, AAHA trends, Real Simple, Good News for Pets, DVM 360 and AAHA News Stat. She has appeared on Lifetime television, Laurie Live, local news in southeast Florida, Mitch Wilder’s Amazing Pet Discoveries, Nat Geo Wild, Animal Planet, Steve Dale’s Pet Talk and Dogs, Cats and Scapegoats.