Currently available tests are time-consuming, complex, or costly – sometimes all three. This limits the feasibility of testing and may lead to misdiagnosis of stress and inappropriate interventions which can severely impact welfare and cause problem behaviours to worsen.

There are low-cost tests available that claim to identify ‘stress’ in dogs but in fact only measure levels of excitability or arousal (which go up in both negative and positive stress states).

Our test solves this problem by providing a solution that is rapid, easy to use and interpret, and cost-effective. It can differentiate between positive and negative stress, allowing dogs in a negative emotional state (such as fear, frustration, pain or grief/panic) to be correctly identified.