Service dogs are trained to assist humans. This assistance potentially exposes them to stressors To investigate if service dogs are exposed to more stressors than companion dogs we questioned whether hair cortisol levels differed between both groups.
We studied this by cutting a tuft of hair from the neck of 19 companion and 11 service dogs. Cortisol levels were subsequently analyzed via immunoassay and compared via a simple linear regression model. The influence of coat color, season, sex, other dogs, pets, or mental health diagnoses in the household was also checked .