Background

Despite increasing interest in the area, there are still surprisingly few reliable and resource-effective indicators of stress in dogs to monitor their welfare and wellbeing. Existing measures are time-consuming to collect, need relatively complex and costly equipment or can be ambiguous and difficult to interpret. Physiological measures have been criticized for being expensive whilst lacking stability and specificity. However, most concerning is their inability to differentiate between emotional states of contrasting valence (i.e. positive/negative) – a key requirement for effective welfare assessment. For example, increased cortisol/creatinine ratio might be observed when a dog experiences a new environment for the first time, this shows increased arousal. However, it does not reveal whether that experience was perceived as positive or negative