Question: What kind of things do you test with the dogs?

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  1. @google: Hi! Thanks for the good CHAT today 🙂

    In my PhD research, I was looking at how introducing an enrichment program (music, toys, exercise, extra time with people, lavender essence to smell, etc.) effected the stress levels and work performance of young guide dogs housed in a kennel facility.

    To measure the effect of the enrichment, some dogs were put into the program and others lived as ‘normal’ without it. I took video of all the dogs so I can go back and code data based on their behaviour (proportion of time spent barking or resting, for example). I also took some physiological samples: saliva (dog spit!) to check for hormones cortisol and IgA and a tiny bit of blood to check white blood cells counts. These samples inform me about the dogs’ stress levels over time and let me have a numerical way of comparing the groups to look for differences in addition to their behaviour. Their work performance was scored by the guide dog trainers doing their normal assessment work using their normal scoring process, I just used that data to compare mine with.

    Is that what you meant? 🙂

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  1. Yeah, thankyou and thanks for the answers today.

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