Are dogs nocturnal plus#

Small dogs had higher levels of both activity and cortisol than large dogs. Certainly, dogs with extreme behaviors are likely to be identifiable on admission, but dogs whose initial fear and anxiety overcomes their normal behavior will tend to mellow with time. Houpt, VMD, PhD, DACVB, James Law Professor Emeritus, Section of Behavior Medicine at Cornell University.

Presumably a dog would be better behaved after a good night’s sleep,” comments Katherine A. “This study indicates that behavior testing should be delayed, or perhaps repeated, because you don’t want to delay the dog’s adoption. Nocturnal activity had dropped a bit as well. This made me wonder if dogs who had not been kenneled were curled up, hoping to hide, while owner turn-ins were pacing and hoping their people would return quickly.Īfter 12 days at the shelter, the dogs had started to settle in and were producing less cortisol. Interestingly, dogs who had been kenneled previously were more active than dogs who had not. Not surprisingly, the shelter dogs showed more activity and cortisol on the first two days in the shelter compared to at-home dogs and to their own results done later. They also had visual behavioral assessments. Dogs were weighed on the three designated days. Urine was collected free-catch on a walk in the morning or off the kennel floor if necessary. That meant for this study, researchers had a basic idea about some shelter dog behaviors at night.įor activity, the dogs wore an accelerometer attached to a comfortable harness. Seventeen dogs who were adopted were also checked after being in their new homes for at least 6 weeks.Īn earlier study at Cornell showed that shelter dogs were not bothered by lights being left on at night and tended to rest for a little less than an hour, then get up, adjust their position, and lie back down. Dogs in the shelter were checked on days one and two, then day 12. When possible, intake history included whether the dogs had ever been kenneled. Twenty of the shelter dogs were owner-relinquished, while nine were strays.

I freely admit, my first thought (having worked for two years in a shelter myself), was how well-funded and well-staffed this shelter in The Netherlands was! Background for the StudyĪny dogs with health problems, at age extremes (under a year or over 13 years) or showing obvious behavior issues were excluded from the study.

Are dogs nocturnal plus#

To do this, they compared activity levels and urinary cortisol/creatinine ratios plus body weight between 29 shelter dogs and 29 pet dogs living at home. A recent study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science looked at the nocturnal activity and cortisol levels of dogs in shelters as potential indicators of their ability to adapt and settle into a shelter environment.