Psychological Stress, Its Reduction, and Long-Term Consequences: What Studies with Laboratory Animals Might Teach Us about Life in the Dog Shelter

Abstract

There is a long history of laboratory studies of the physiological and behavioral effects of stress, its reduction, and the later psychological and behavioral consequences of unmitigated stress responses. Many of the stressors employed in these studies approximate the experience of dogs confined in an animal shelter. We review how the laboratory literature has guided our own work in describing the reactions of dogs to shelter housing and in helping formulate means of reducing their stress responses. Consistent with the social buffering literature in other species, human interaction has emerged as a key ingredient in moderating glucocorticoid stress responses of shelter dogs. We discuss variables that appear critical for effective use of human interaction procedures in the shelter as well as potential neural mechanisms underlying the glucocorticoid-reducing effect. We also describe recent studies in which enrichment centered on human interaction has been found to reduce aggressive responses in a temperament test used to determine suitability for adoption. Finally, we suggest that a critical aspect of the laboratory stress literature that has been underappreciated in studying shelter dogs is evidence for long-term behavioral consequences—often mediated by glucocorticoids—that may not become apparent until well after initial stress exposure.

Cortisol Levels of Shelter Dogs in Animal Assisted Interventions in a Prison: An Exploratory Study

“…Specifically, a gentle petting [ 56 , 57 ] and a play session mainly based on affiliative behaviors [ 58 ] are effective for the cortisol decrease. However, this effect seems to be temporary; the cortisol concentration returns to the basal level when the animals are brought back to the shelter [ 59 ]. On the contrary, in the present study we registered a significant decrease in the saliva cortisol baseline at the end of the AAI program, suggesting that the working activities with humans might have a long-term impact on the general stress levels of kennel dogs, not only a short-term effect measured at the end of each session.…”

The Neurobiology of Behavior and Its Applicability for Animal Welfare: A Review

“…Weak stimuli, in contrast, tend to cause habituation; that is a weaker response on the next occasion [ 123 ]. During animal-assisted interventions, sensitization is a key factor to unsuccessful training and education, where animals are exposed to several stressors and cannot cope cognitively or emotionally [ 139 ], predisposing them to long-term behavioral issues and negative human-animal interactions [ 140 ].…”

Nociceptive pain and anxiety in equines: Physiological and behavioral alterations

“…Because the HPA axis is associated with long-term effects, it is involved in secreting the corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) in the hypothalamus, where corticotropes are stimulated by CRH to trigger the release of the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) in the pituitary gland, or hypophysis which, in turn, stimulates the secretion of corticosteroids such as cortisol and corticosterone from the adrenal cortex [ 20 , 103 , 104 ]. These steroids then trigger catabolic processes of glycolysis, lipolysis, and gluconeogenesis [ 105 , 106 ].…”