Ethogram
How can we possibly measure
The additive joy of a creature
When words do not express?
How can we mind the pain
Of legged patient whose tails
Turn toward us to confess?
The Science of animal welfare
Grapples in tables & graphs
When faced with the absurd
Decisions of life or death
In the heartbreaking choice—
Ethogram**, a most beautiful word!
Scanning folds above the eyes,
A lurch from behind the ears,
Discerning the hairs raised on the back
Expert Guidance appears
To marry our Intuition, for which
Treatment (or not!) to bushwhack
It is our nature to love
To protect our furry family
Our responsibility to let them live
Ethical dilemmas contort &
Confuse disposition of heart
Of the life we planned to give
With no advanced directive
Of what our creatures would choose
Compassionate gift of deliverance
In news of the Ethogram lifts—
We don’t carry the vulnerability alone
Nature transcends; merging with our cognizance
**e·tho·gram
/ˈēTHəˌɡram,ˈeTHəˌɡram/
nounZOOLOGY
noun: ethogram; plural noun: ethograms
a catalog or table of all the different kinds of behavior or activity observed in an animal.
Origin
1930s: from Greek ēthos ‘nature, disposition’ + -gram1.
Ethograms are used extensively in the study of animal welfare science. Ethograms can be used to detect the occurrence or prevalence of abnormal behaviours (e.g. stereotypies,[5][6] feather pecking,[7] tail-biting[8]), normal behaviours (e.g. comfort behaviours), departures from the ethogram of ancestral species[9] and the behaviour of captive animals upon release into a natural environment.
