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Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors

Sudden, loud noises are one of the most common triggers for fearful behaviors in dogs, and many companion dogs suffer from noise sensitivity. Existing research focuses on dramatic infrequent sounds (e.g., thunderstorms, fireworks). Anecdotally, and based on reports of undesirable behaviors in respon...

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Autores principales: Grigg, Emma K., Chou, Juliann, Parker, Emily, Gatesy-Davis, Anwyn, Clarkson, Sara T., Hart, Lynette A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8606548/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34820438
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.760845
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author Grigg, Emma K.
Chou, Juliann
Parker, Emily
Gatesy-Davis, Anwyn
Clarkson, Sara T.
Hart, Lynette A.
author_facet Grigg, Emma K.
Chou, Juliann
Parker, Emily
Gatesy-Davis, Anwyn
Clarkson, Sara T.
Hart, Lynette A.
author_sort Grigg, Emma K.
collection PubMed
description Sudden, loud noises are one of the most common triggers for fearful behaviors in dogs, and many companion dogs suffer from noise sensitivity. Existing research focuses on dramatic infrequent sounds (e.g., thunderstorms, fireworks). Anecdotally, and based on reports of undesirable behaviors in response to noises in the home, many common household noises may also be causing fear and anxiety in companion dogs. However, these responses have not yet been studied in home environments. We surveyed 386 dog owners about their dogs' responses to household sounds, and recorded dog behaviors and human reactions from 62 videos and compilations available on an online video sharing platform, featuring dogs reacting to common household noises. Numerous signs of canine fear and anxiety were reported by survey respondents and observed in the videos, in response to both daily, and irregular but “normal,” household noises. Responses were significantly stronger to sounds characterized as high frequency intermittent than to sounds characterized as low frequency continuous. Respondents appeared to underestimate their dogs' fearfulness, and the majority of humans in the videos responded to their dogs' behaviors with amusement; welfare concerns were rarely expressed. While these videos cannot be used to calculate actual prevalence of these issues, our data support that some owners are underestimating fearfulness in their dogs in response to household noises, and responding inappropriately to dogs' expressions of fear and anxiety. Better education is required for dog owners to accurately interpret canine body language, to both safeguard dogs' welfare and minimize development of anxiety-related behavior problems.
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spelling pubmed-86065482021-11-23 Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors Grigg, Emma K. Chou, Juliann Parker, Emily Gatesy-Davis, Anwyn Clarkson, Sara T. Hart, Lynette A. Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science Sudden, loud noises are one of the most common triggers for fearful behaviors in dogs, and many companion dogs suffer from noise sensitivity. Existing research focuses on dramatic infrequent sounds (e.g., thunderstorms, fireworks). Anecdotally, and based on reports of undesirable behaviors in response to noises in the home, many common household noises may also be causing fear and anxiety in companion dogs. However, these responses have not yet been studied in home environments. We surveyed 386 dog owners about their dogs' responses to household sounds, and recorded dog behaviors and human reactions from 62 videos and compilations available on an online video sharing platform, featuring dogs reacting to common household noises. Numerous signs of canine fear and anxiety were reported by survey respondents and observed in the videos, in response to both daily, and irregular but “normal,” household noises. Responses were significantly stronger to sounds characterized as high frequency intermittent than to sounds characterized as low frequency continuous. Respondents appeared to underestimate their dogs' fearfulness, and the majority of humans in the videos responded to their dogs' behaviors with amusement; welfare concerns were rarely expressed. While these videos cannot be used to calculate actual prevalence of these issues, our data support that some owners are underestimating fearfulness in their dogs in response to household noises, and responding inappropriately to dogs' expressions of fear and anxiety. Better education is required for dog owners to accurately interpret canine body language, to both safeguard dogs' welfare and minimize development of anxiety-related behavior problems. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8606548/ /pubmed/34820438 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.760845 Text en Copyright © 2021 Grigg, Chou, Parker, Gatesy-Davis, Clarkson and Hart. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Grigg, Emma K.
Chou, Juliann
Parker, Emily
Gatesy-Davis, Anwyn
Clarkson, Sara T.
Hart, Lynette A.
Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors
title Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors
title_full Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors
title_fullStr Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors
title_full_unstemmed Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors
title_short Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners' Interpretations of Their Dogs' Behaviors
title_sort stress-related behaviors in companion dogs exposed to common household noises, and owners' interpretations of their dogs' behaviors
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8606548/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34820438
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.760845
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