TY - JOUR
T1 - Environmental enrichments and data-driven welfare indicators for sheltered dogs using telemetric physiological measures and signal processing
AU - Travain, Tiziano
AU - Lazebnik, Teddy
AU - Zamansky, Anna
AU - Cafazzo, Simona
AU - Valsecchi, Paola
AU - Natoli, Eugenia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/2/9
Y1 - 2024/2/9
N2 - Shelters are stressful environments for domestic dogs which are known to negatively impact their welfare. The introduction of outside stimuli for dogs in this environment can improve their welfare and life conditions. However, our current understanding of the influence of different stimuli on shelter dogs’ welfare is limited and the data is still insufficient to draw conclusions. In this study, we collected 28 days (four weeks) of telemetry data from eight male dogs housed in an Italian shelter for a long period of time. During this period, three types of enrichment were introduced into the dogs’ pens for one week each: entertaining objects, intraspecific, and interspecific social enrichment, by means of the presence of female conspecifics and the presence of a human. To quantify their impact, we introduce novel metrics as indicators of sheltered dogs’ welfare based on telemetry data: the variation of heart rate, muscle activity, and body temperature from an average baseline day, quality of sleep, and the regularity for cyclicity of the aforementioned parameters, based on the day-night cycle. Using these metrics, we show that while all three stimuli statistically improve the dogs’ welfare, the variance between individual dogs is large. Moreover, our findings indicate that the presence of female conspecific is the best stimulus among the three explored options which improves both the quality of sleep and the parameters’ cyclicity. Our results are consistent with previous research findings while providing novel data-driven welfare indicators that promote objectivity. Thus, this research provides some useful guidelines for managing shelters and improving dogs’ welfare.
AB - Shelters are stressful environments for domestic dogs which are known to negatively impact their welfare. The introduction of outside stimuli for dogs in this environment can improve their welfare and life conditions. However, our current understanding of the influence of different stimuli on shelter dogs’ welfare is limited and the data is still insufficient to draw conclusions. In this study, we collected 28 days (four weeks) of telemetry data from eight male dogs housed in an Italian shelter for a long period of time. During this period, three types of enrichment were introduced into the dogs’ pens for one week each: entertaining objects, intraspecific, and interspecific social enrichment, by means of the presence of female conspecifics and the presence of a human. To quantify their impact, we introduce novel metrics as indicators of sheltered dogs’ welfare based on telemetry data: the variation of heart rate, muscle activity, and body temperature from an average baseline day, quality of sleep, and the regularity for cyclicity of the aforementioned parameters, based on the day-night cycle. Using these metrics, we show that while all three stimuli statistically improve the dogs’ welfare, the variance between individual dogs is large. Moreover, our findings indicate that the presence of female conspecific is the best stimulus among the three explored options which improves both the quality of sleep and the parameters’ cyclicity. Our results are consistent with previous research findings while providing novel data-driven welfare indicators that promote objectivity. Thus, this research provides some useful guidelines for managing shelters and improving dogs’ welfare.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85184698522&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-024-53932-1
DO - 10.1038/s41598-024-53932-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 38336994
AN - SCOPUS:85184698522
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 14
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 3346
ER -