Stress and cancer in dogs : Comparison between a population of dogs diagnosed with cancer and a control population : a pilot study

It is widely accepted that psychological stress and mental illness can compromise the function of the immune system. Clinical and epidemiological studies on humans recognized that specific psychosocial factors, such as stress, chronic depression and lack of social support are risk factors for the development and progression of cancer. Unfortunately, most of the animals studies on this subject are based on laboratory tests performed on mice. This retrospective cohort study aims to analyze the relation between stress and tumor in pet dogs, by evaluating and comparing the stress level in two groups of 69 dogs each, balanced for sex and age: the oncologic group consists of dogs diagnosed with cancer and the control group consists of healthy dogs. Our results show that, before the cancer diagnosis, more dogs in the oncologic group faced changes in their household and routine as opposed to the control group (p<0.05). More dogs of the oncologic group than the control group also showed signs of stress and anxiety, before the cancer diagnosis (p<0.05). As reported by their owners, these included attention seeking, hiding without a specific reason, following the owner around the house, hyper-vigilance, fear of fireworks and gunshots, biting, aggression towards other dogs, licking and chewing excessively parts of their body. Our results are aligned with the evidence from human research, indicating that dogs with cancer are significantly more likely to have shown signs of stress compared to the control dogs during their life

Measuring dairy cow welfare with real-time sensor-based data and farm records: a concept study

Welfare assessment of dairy cows by in-person farm visits provides only a snapshot of welfare and is time-consuming and costly. Possible solutions to reduce the need for in-person assessments would be to exploit sensor data and other routinely collected on-farm records. The aim of this study was to develop an algorithm to classify dairy cow welfare based on sensors (accelerometer and/or milk meter) and farm records (e.g. days in milk, lactation number). In total, 318 cows from six commercial farms located in Finland, Italy and Spain (two farms each) were enrolled for a pilot study lasting 135 days. During this time, cows were routinely scored using 14 animal-based measures of good feeding, health and housing based on the Welfare Quality® (WQ®) protocol. WQ® measures were evaluated daily or approximately every 45 days, using disease treatments from farm records and on-farm visits, respectively. WQ® measures were supplemented with daily temperature-humidity index to account for heat stress. The severity and duration of each welfare measure were evaluated, and the final welfare index was obtained by summing up the values for each cow on each pilot study day, and stratifying the result into three classes: good, moderate and poor welfare. For model building, a machine-learning (ML) algorithm based on gradient-boosted trees (XGBoost) was applied. Two model versions were tested: (1) a global model tested on unseen herd, and (2) a herd-specific model tested on unseen part of the data from the same herd. The version (1) served as an example on the model performance on a herd not previsited by the evaluator, while version (2) resembled a custom-made solution requiring in-person welfare evaluation for model training. Our results indicated that the global model had a low performance with average sensitivity and specificity of 0.44 and 0.68, respectively. For the herd-specific version, the model performance was higher reaching an average of 0.64 sensitivity and 0.80 specificity. The highest classification performance was obtained for cows in poor welfare, followed by cows in good and moderate welfare (balanced accuracy of 0.77, 0.71 and 0.68, respectively). Since the global model had low classification accuracy, the use of the developed model as a stand-alone system based solely on sensor data is infeasible, and a combination of in-person and sensor-based welfare evaluation would be preferable for a reliable welfare assessment. ML-based solutions, even with fair discriminative abilities, have the potential to enhance dairy welfare monitoring

Efficacy of a diet containing caseinate hydrolysate on signs of stress in dogs

The purpose of this randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trial was to evaluate 3 the efficacy of a diet containing caseinate hydrolysate (CH) on signs of stress in 2 4 groups of dogs (defined as Anxious and Non-anxious) using physiological (serum 5 cortisol and lysozyme, N:L ratios and heart rate) and behavioral parameters. 6 From an initial group of 40 female Beagle dogs, ranging in age from 10 months to 4 7 years (mean = 1.47 years; SD = 0.53) belonging to a dog colony, 32 were selected for 8 this study according to their level of anxiety. A group of 16 Anxious dogs and a group 9 of 16 Non-anxious dogs were identified. 10 A baseline period, aimed to obtain reference values of investigated parameters, 11 preceded the experimental phase. Both groups (Anxious and Non-anxious) were divided 12 into a treatment group, which received the diet containing CH, and a control group 13 which received a placebo diet (PD). Anxious CH and PD groups were balanced for 14 anxiety level. Each dog was evaluated 3 times a day at 4 weeks intervals (T1-T2-T3). 15 Each evaluation lasted 2 days and involved a Reactivity Evaluation Form (REF), a 16 blood sampling, heart rate recording and a 10 min behavioral video recording. Results 17 from REF scores showed that while at T1 Anxious dogs had significantly higher scores 18 (Mann-Whitney test: P<0.001) compared to Non-anxious dogs, no difference was found 19 between Anxious dogs fed with CH diet and Non-anxious fed with PD or CH diet at T3. 20 Behavioral observations evidenced some signs of improvement in Anxious dog fed with 21 CH diet. Cortisol level significantly decreased in Anxious dogs fed with CH diet 22 (Friedman test: P<0.05). Individual differences in physiological measures of stress 23 responses may have contributed to the large variability, making interpretation of these 24 measures difficult. These results suggest that CH may be used as a functional ingredient 25 alleviating stress in dogs

Efficacia della L-Teanina nel trattamento delle fobie specifiche nei confronti dei rumori nei cani : Risultati preliminari = Efficacy of L-Theanine on noise phobias in dogs : Preliminary results

Introduzione e scopo del lavoro Il trattamento delle fobie dei rumori forti prevede la terapia comportamentale e, talvolta, un supporto farmacologico. Questo studio si propone di stabilire l\u2019efficacia dell\u2019associazione di L-Teanina, sostanza naturale derivata dalla pianta del t\ue8, e terapia comportamentale nel trattamento di tali disturbi e valutare eventuali conseguenti variazioni del livello di cortisolo ematico. Materiali e metodi 20 soggetti con fobia specifica nei confronti dei rumori sono stati selezionati attraverso una visita comportamentale e, successivamente, suddivisi in due gruppi (\u201cANX\u201d e \u201cNOANX\u201d). Per 63 giorni, il gruppo \u201cANX\u201d ha ricevuto una terapia comportamentale associata alla somministrazione di L-Teanina, il gruppo \u201cNOANX\u201d ha ricevuto solo la terapia comportamentale. Tutti i soggetti sono stati sottoposti a prelievo ematico, prima e dopo la terapia, per la valutazione del livello di cortisolo ematico. Ai proprietari \ue8 stato chiesto di compilare, due volte a settimana, un questionario contenente un elenco di sintomi riferibili allo stato di fobia. Sono stati effettuati due controlli telefonici per valutare l\u2019adesione alla terapia. E\u2019 stata effettuata un\u2019analisi statistica dei dati raccolti. Risultati e discussione Entrambi i gruppi hanno evidenziato una riduzione statisticamente significativa dell\u2019intensit\ue0 dei sintomi fobici e solo il gruppo \u201cANX\u201d ha mostrato un decremento dei comportamenti ansimare, salivare, leccarsi le labbra, sbadigliare, richiamare l\u2019attenzione del proprietario, vocalizzare, esibire comportamenti compulsivi. Ci\uf2 suggerisce che L-Teanina potrebbe essere utile nel trattamento delle fobie nei confronti dei rumori nei cani. Non \ue8 stata rilevata alcuna differenza nelle concentrazioni di cortisolo ematico