Simon Gadbois • Wildlife Ethology & Conservation Canine Lab

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Seminars with Simon Gadbois, PhD

Simon Gadbois did a PhD in animal behaviour and non-invasive behavioural endocrinology in the 90’s with Drs John Fentress and Peter McLeod at the Canadian Centre for Wolf Research (1974–2007). His PhD dissertation focussed on lupine socioendocrinology (Canis lupus) but he also worked on other projects in motor behaviour sequences in red foxes, coyotes, wolves (with Drs John Fentress and Fred Harrington), spatial cognition in pigeons (with Dr. Werner Honig), and olfactory learning in rats (with Drs Vincent LoLordo and Richard E. Brown).
In the past 15 years he has focussed on research with sniffer dogs as the common denominator: Reptile conservation (using dogs as research assistants to find the species-at-risk), non-invasive surveys of coyotes with canines (via scent-marking information), and working with sniffer dogs in biomedical applications (early detection of diseases, alert dogs). He also worked with a few fish species in olfactory learning (zebra fish), social communication (elephant nose fish), and behavioural ecotoxicology (mummichogs).
Simon Gadbois integrates ethology, experimental psychology and neuroscience in his research on domestic and wild canids. He favours a synthetic approach that includes a strong focus on the importance of motivational factors in working dogs (and canid behaviour in general) as well as a post-cognitivist approach (including a zoosemiotic approach) to behaviour and information processing in dogs.
In 2006 he founded the “Canid Behaviour Research Lab” now the “Wildlife Conservation Canines and Ethology Lab” at Dalhousie University where dozens of Border Collies (and other working breeds - mostly from working lines) set paw as volunteer research assistants and experimental participants.

Conditions:

• I am now requiring to have my airfare fully paid within a week (7 days) of buying the tickets.
• I am now also requiring to get half of my fee paid 24 hours before I speak.
• I will insist on getting direct flights from Halifax to destination when possible, and avoiding connecting through the US (unless that is the destination).
• I will typically want to get to the destination at least 24 hours before the start of a seminar.
• No obligation to produce lecture notes or slides, especially not in PowerPoint or Keynote. PDF or formatted text files can be shared. I do not use PowerPoint (and less and less Keynote) for creating presentations. Most of my recent presentations require a web browser (with or without WIFI, I just need to know in advance if WIFI is not available).
• If there is an agreement that such notes will be provided, then:
  • the notes may be available only the day of the talk, and,
  • the notes may not be available in “slide” format, at least not PowerPoint or Keynote as I am transitioning to Deckset (using Markdown).
• Talks can be in English or French.
  • Notes, if available will be at the very least in English, and if the talk is in French, the notes may be offered in French but this is not guaranteed.

Important

I encourage contact with the audience, before, during, and after my talks.