Cortisol

Clodagh

Clodagh

Playing chess with pigeons
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Going on something CC said on another thread I was thinking about cortisol being used as an indicator of stress.

Firstly, would it be like when they tested the battery hens and found they were less stressed than free range birds? Happiness didn't come into it, just that a battery hen never saw anything frightening.

Also, yesterday my OH went shooting. As soon as the gun safe keys come out the labrador goes mental, huffing and puffing and pressing against the door. I assume she would show very high cortisol levels, but it was excitement (and maybe a worry about being left behind). Is that 'good' cortisol?

The lurcher hates gunshots, so she slunk off to hide, now she would probably have shown cortisol as well? How do you define good and bad?
 
It's an interesting debate and could be referenced in a lot of threads on the board at the minute.

Higher levels of cortisol were pinpointed in a recent study of a training method in the UK and was intepreted as a 'bad' thing.
Even higher levels of cortisol were recorded in a different study in Europe, in dogs when they were undertaking a certain helpful task, compared to when they were not undertaking the task. Do we stop the dogs doing a task which is hugely beneficial to us humans, then, because they showed higher levels of cortisol when they were working? When the cortisol levels could have been heightened as a result of strange floor surfaces, bright lights, strange smells, the behaviours of the humans around them etc. They can't talk, so we don't know.

Dogs get stressed by what seem to us, to be the weirdest things - I had a female who showed stress around doorways, gateways, barriers and fences. However in order to go in and out of our house, her kennel, to be able to go for walks, she simply had to negotiate all of those things and we had to make is as untraumatic as possible for her. To have isolated her completely from the things that stressed her was impossible. However I would not have expected her, for example, to do agility, even though she would have made a cracking little agility dog.
 
There did seem lots of threads with it in mind.
If I am at work and perhaps I have a lot to do I get a bit stressed, but it doesn't mean I am hating it, it makes me more efficient to a degree, I wonder if it is the same for dogs. Presumably some dogs would give up sooner, while some would cope with it and keep working.
 
Some can't deal with stress at all and collapse and some work through it OK - same as us I suppose!!! A lot of behaviours we would interpret as 'bad' 'naughty' or 'aggressive' are also borne out of stress. A lot of breeds and/or lines are more prone to it than others also.
 
It's dependant upon the situation - when learning a new task.... you want the dog to have a low stress level, as it can inhibit learning just the same as it does with humans. We had someone new in class last week who was just not interested in hands-off training and physically pushed the dog into a sit and down. 20 minutes later the dog had switched off and couldn't participate in lesson... the dog learnt nothing other than that learning new stuff is stressful and no fun at all.

As CC said - if you're talking about working dogs already trained to do a task - yes of course there is increased stress, but they're not just thrown in at the deep end (generally ;) ) that is the whole point of taking time to train the dog sufficiently so that it can cope with it and still stay focused. Some breeders will intentionally stress young puppies out.... and I don't mean anything ridiculous, but the conclusion was that it enabled them to cope with the stress in adulthood.

As for over-excitement... you can do exercises to help dogs develop a bit of self-control. I flicked through the 'click-to-calm' book which is quite interesting. I'm no agillity pro by any means but I do see the ridiculous behaviour of wired collies waiting to go and wonder if their performance would actually be better if they were of a better state of mind than climbing up walls............... that's just me though, I like my dogs chilled ;)
 
It's a tricky marker to use & interpret as a snapshot in time.
It can be influenced by so many other factors - both external stimuli but also internal things (such as pain and other raised/supressed biochemical molecules)

As a marker for an animals stress in the negative sense, only limited use when evaluated in combination with a lot of other things!
 
stargirl88 said:
It's dependant upon the situation - when learning a new task.... you want the dog to have a low stress level, as it can inhibit learning just the same as it does with humans. We had someone new in class last week who was just not interested in hands-off training and physically pushed the dog into a sit and down. 20 minutes later the dog had switched off and couldn't participate in lesson... the dog learnt nothing other than that learning new stuff is stressful and no fun at all.

As CC said - if you're talking about working dogs already trained to do a task - yes of course there is increased stress, but they're not just thrown in at the deep end (generally ;) ) that is the whole point of taking time to train the dog sufficiently so that it can cope with it and still stay focused. Some breeders will intentionally stress young puppies out.... and I don't mean anything ridiculous, but the conclusion was that it enabled them to cope with the stress in adulthood.

As for over-excitement... you can do exercises to help dogs develop a bit of self-control. I flicked through the 'click-to-calm' book which is quite interesting. I'm no agillity pro by any means but I do see the ridiculous behaviour of wired collies waiting to go and wonder if their performance would actually be better if they were of a better state of mind than climbing up walls............... that's just me though, I like my dogs chilled ;)
Click to expand...

I am sure dogs perform better when not totally wired and generally my dog is very calm and obedient but there are certain circumstances he gets soooo wound up he doesn't think straight but as said earlier it is based on excitement. Since we Stopped with the ball thrower it is the bike and tacking the horses up that sets him off, both bike rides and joining on hacks he loves but the circling us, barking and slavering uncontrollably are probably good indicators that his stress levels are high.
If he hated it I wouldn't take him ( and to be honest I take him less since he gets wound up and this might actually be worse as it makes it more special, I don't know) but onece out of the yard / street he settles down and loves it?
Is it wrong of me to let him get so wound up? ( there truly is no talking him down but still remains obedient even if not very quiet)
I don't know the answer and I'm sure if you looked at blood work alone a dog excited by going shooting/ biking/ hacking/ agility will be fairly pumped up but I know the difference in my dogs behaviour between over ecited and walking into the vets ;)
 
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