Lincoln Professor invited to Parliament

Professor Kerstin Meints, Professor in Developmental Psychology, had the honour to be invited to parliament as a speaker at the Power of the Human – Canine Bond event on Tuesday 21 January. This was organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Dog Advisory Welfare Group together with the Society for Companion Animal Studies and the animal support services charity Our Special Friends.

The event started in the afternoon at Portcullis House, with a drop-in session which gave all speakers the opportunity to brief MPs on their research and initiatives. This was followed by presentations in the Houses of Parliament.

Professor Meints outlined current evidence on benefits of the Human-Canine Bond and highlighted cutting-edge research on Dog-Assisted Interventions, Safe Human-Dog Interactions and Dog Welfare carried out in Lincoln by Psychology’s Lincoln Education Assistance with Dogs (LEAD@Lincoln) research team.

This invitation to the All-Party Parliamentary Dog Advisory Welfare Group was also a unique opportunity to promote the safety and welfare tools the team produced. The tools help to enhance safe and welfare-guided interactions between children, adults and their pet dogs. The tools are also beneficial for dog-assisted service providers and users and their service dogs. Further implementation was outlined.

The fully booked event was followed by lively discussion and informal meetings.

For further information, please contact:

Prof. Kerstin Meints, kmeints@lincoln.ac.uk;

For Lincoln Education Assistance with Dogs (LEAD@Lincoln), please see https://lead.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/

Story submitted by Kerstin Meints
kmeints@lincoln.ac.uk