Sources of sampling variation in saliva cortisol in dogs

Abstract

The main advantage of collecting saliva cortisol as opposed to plasma cortisol is that it is non-invasive and therefore it is now widely used in stress measurement studies on farm animals and dogs. Although a plasma cortisol response to handling associated with blood collection generally occurs at 3 min from the commencement of handling, there is no information in the literature on the time course of the response of salivary cortisol concentration to handling. The aims of these experiments were to (1) determine if there is a response to up to 4 min handling that affects cortisol concentration in saliva and (2) determine the main causes of variation in saliva cortisol in dogs over time. In ex..