Assessment of Adaptil® collar to help handle stress and anxiety in puppies during veterinary consultations

• Autor(a) principal: Pinto, Maria Inês Henriques
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10348/8395
• topic: cachorro; feromonas; Adaptil®; stresse; ansiedade; consulta médico-veterinária

Puppies’ first consultations are extremely important, as they can influence how puppies will react in future veterinary consultations. The veterinarian surgeon plays an essential role in alerting and informing owners, preventing future behavioural problems, explaining how to deal with them and how to prevent consultations from becoming a traumatic experience. The present study had the objective to evaluate the efficacy of an Adaptil® collar versus a placebo collar in reducing stress and anxiety, during veterinary consultations in puppies. To carry out, a double-blind study was performed in 37 initial puppies, however only 30 met the minimum requirements to be evaluated statistically. As a primary requirement the puppy should be between 2 and 7 months old, have good health condition and have never been previously vaccinated. This way, puppies have no positive or negative association with the veterinary clinic. Depending on their age and their living area if at risk, puppies were vaccinated according to two models: younger puppies would have three vaccinations injections, including, two vaccination boosts. Older puppies would have only two visits, just one boost. At each visit, the observer assessed the anxiety and stress levels according to the "Scale to evaluate stress" and performed a small questionnaire with the owners regarding the puppy’ behaviour, 15 minutes after the beginning of consultation. The scale included 10 different parameters, each being assessed on a scale from zero to four. During vaccination boosts, owners were asked if the puppy had shown less / more stress behaviours compared to previous vaccination visits or if there had been no differences. There were no statistically significant differences between the use of Adaptil® and placebo in reducing stress and anxiety between consultations (Visit 2 / Visit 1, p = 0.46551; Visit 3 / Visit 2, p = 0.2299, Visit 3 / Visit 1, p = 0.3818; Wilcoxon's test). However, total puppy scores were low in both groups even at baseline visit, reflecting that puppies were not stressed during consultations. Absolute variation of the total puppy score was equal or inferior to 2 points in the “Scale to evaluate stress”, but there were not statistically significant differences between the two groups, regarding all visits. Statistical analysis, revealed that most owners did not observed differences in the behaviour of their puppy, either in the Adaptil® group or placebo one, at visit 2 and at visit 3. Although this study failed to prove the efficacy of using Adaptil® at veterinary consultations in puppies, it served to alert owners about potential behavioural problems and how pheromones can support their resolution and prevention.