Haverbeke A, Diederich C, Depiereux E, Giffroy J M
Laboratory of Anatomy and Ethology of Domestic Animals, University of Namur (FUNDP), 6 rue Muzet, 5000 Namur, Belgium.
Physiol Behav. 2008 Jan 28;93(1-2):59-67. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2007.07.014. Epub 2007 Aug 3.
This paper's primary objective is to analyse the physiological (cortisol) and behavioral responses of military working dogs (MWD). Dogs (N=27) were submitted twice to environmental challenges (challenge 1 and 2, 20 days in-between) composed of social (training), visual (mobile toy car) and auditory (air blast) stimuli. Cortisol levels decreased back to the baseline after the second challenge. The behavioral observations showed that these MWD were more active, and presented less stereotypic behaviors (pacing, manipulation of the environment) during both visual challenges, whereas half low posture was observed during the first but not during the second visual challenge. The present study shows that this group of MWD still has an adaptation capacity to an environmental challenge (return to baseline of the cortisol levels, a higher posture during the second than at the first challenge). These results are encouraging and indicate that the dogs might have a diminished welfare (i.e. stereotypic behaviors), but are not chronically stressed.
本文的主要目的是分析军犬（MWD）的生理（皮质醇）和行为反应。犬只（N = 27）两次接受由社交（训练）、视觉（移动玩具车）和听觉（气爆）刺激组成的环境挑战（挑战1和挑战2，间隔20天）。第二次挑战后，皮质醇水平降至基线。行为观察表明，这些军犬在两次视觉挑战期间更加活跃，表现出较少的刻板行为（踱步、对环境的操控），而在第一次视觉挑战期间观察到半低姿态，第二次视觉挑战期间未观察到。本研究表明，这群军犬对环境挑战仍具有适应能力（皮质醇水平恢复到基线，第二次挑战时的姿态高于第一次挑战）。这些结果令人鼓舞，表明犬只可能福利有所下降（即出现刻板行为），但并未长期处于应激状态。
