You don’t have to feel guilty about leaving your pooch behind while you go on vacation this summer because a new study shows that they actually enjoy staying at the kennel.
British researchers published their findings in the journal Physiology and Behavior, according to the Daily Mail. They studied 29 privately owned dogs and observed stress symptoms in physical measurements like skin dryness, nose temperature, body temperature and amount of food eaten.
They also observed behaviors such as lip licking, paw lifting, yawning, shaking and restlessness, and physiological measures like stress hormones, corticosteroids and adrenaline.
The researchers found that the dogs were more active at the kennels and had fewer signs of stress than at home, which contradicts previous research.
“This study suggests that although dogs appeared to have a higher level of overall arousal or excitement in kennels compared with their state at home, this arousal is not necessarily due to dogs experiencing kennels as negatively stressful,” said Dr. Lisa Collins from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom.
“The emotional reasons for the behavioral and physiological responses of the dogs were ambiguous and no definitive evidence was found to suggest that dogs were negatively stressed by kenneling,” the study reported.
“Findings appear to suggest that the dogs in this study did not perceive admission to boarding kennels as an aversive stressor and perhaps, instead, perceived kenneling as an exciting change of scene, at least in the short-term.”