Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
If you'd like to earn continuing education credit for RACE, CAWA or NACA, please view this recording on Maddie's University: university.maddiesfund.org/products/maddies-insights-early-life-stressors-and-the-behavior-and-physiology-of-rescue-kittens-on-demand
Maddie's® Insights are monthly webcasts with practical tips based on current research to help pets and people.
Program host: Sheila Segurson, DVM, DACVB, Director, Shelter Solutions at Maddie's Fund
Guest speaker: Jennifer Vernick, DVM is a Behavioural Medicine Resident at Atlantic Veterinary College, UPEI.
Across species, early-life stressors, such as inadequate nutrition, maternal separation, unreliable access to shelter, threats/abuse, and disease, profoundly affect brain development and behavior. Research has shown these stressors can impair cognitive, emotional, and social functions as well as alter the body's stress response systems, particularly the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In kittens specifically, early nutritional stress and maternal separation have been linked to learning deficits, abnormal fear responses, increased aggression, and altered play behavior.
At the end of this webinar, you will :
- be able to identify several different examples of early life stressors
- understand why hair cortisol concentration (HCC) may be useful to measure
- be able to provide potential reasons for high and low HCC
- understand why relative telomere length (RTL) is measured
- be able to provide potential causes for shortened telomeres
- be able to provide examples of how early life stressors were associated with the behaviours that rescue kittens displayed during testing
Visit Maddie's Pet Forum to comment, follow a discussion or ask questions: https://maddies.fund/InsightsMarch2026
If you'd like to earn continuing education credit for RACE, CAWA or NACA, please view this recording on Maddie's University: university.maddiesfund.org/products/maddies-insights-early-life-stressors-and-the-behavior-and-physiology-of-rescue-kittens-on-demand
Maddie's® Insights are monthly webcasts with practical tips based on current research to help pets and people.
Program host: Sheila Segurson, DVM, DACVB, Director, Shelter Solutions at Maddie's Fund
Guest speaker: Jennifer Vernick, DVM is a Behavioural Medicine Resident at Atlantic Veterinary College, UPEI.
Across species, early-life stressors, such as inadequate nutrition, maternal separation, unreliable access to shelter, threats/abuse, and disease, profoundly affect brain development and behavior. Research has shown these stressors can impair cognitive, emotional, and social functions as well as alter the body's stress response systems, particularly the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In kittens specifically, early nutritional stress and maternal separation have been linked to learning deficits, abnormal fear responses, increased aggression, and altered play behavior.
At the end of this webinar, you will :
- be able to identify several different examples of early life stressors
- understand why hair cortisol concentration (HCC) may be useful to measure
- be able to provide potential reasons for high and low HCC
- understand why relative telomere length (RTL) is measured
- be able to provide potential causes for shortened telomeres
- be able to provide examples of how early life stressors were associated with the behaviours that rescue kittens displayed during testing
Visit Maddie's Pet Forum to comment, follow a discussion or ask questions: https://maddies.fund/InsightsMarch2026
