Traditional measures include owner or staff questionnaires, ratings of stress, and coding of specific behaviors, e.g., lip licking, whale eye, body posture, panting, and trembling, as well as a range of physiological parameters. The experience and handling skills of both veterinary staff and pet owners may also influence pet behavior and physiology, along with the different types of treatment protocols and whether the dog is in pain. Commonly, data are collected in “real-world” environments where standardization may be lacking and added variables, such as the presence of other pets, staff, and the owner, can influence measures. Possible reasons for this may be because there are no clear protocols specifying how canine stress can be accurately measured and monitored in clinical environments, along with the accompanying complexity of capturing data across different timepoints during a visit, and the inability to obtain output in a timely manner. Although it is widely accepted by owners and practitioners that dogs experience stress and anxiety when visiting a veterinary clinic, to what extent a pet may be impacted is not fully understood. Although the mammalian stress response is an adaptive mechanism that allows animals to respond quickly to certain situations or stimuli, chronic or extreme stress, often categorized as distress, can be harmful to animals, resulting in poor welfare. Veterinary hospitals are considered stressful environments for dogs as well as caregivers, and these negative experiences can have long-lasting effects on animals. Additional research is required to further understand the effect that bespoke music may have in alleviating canine stress during veterinary visits. Overall, dogs experienced changes in physiology and behavior, indicative of increased stress, over the course of the visit. Core body temperature ( p = 0.010) and the odds of ‘relaxed’ lips ( p = 0.020) were lower when dogs were exposed to music compared to control visits. Salivary cortisol, IgA, and infrared temperature all increased significantly ( p < 0.05) from baseline to post-kennel and post-examination, with no effect of music treatment. Dogs were scored as more “afraid” during the physical examination compared to when they were in the hospital kennel ( p < 0.001). In a randomized crossover design, dogs were exposed to no music and a bespoke piece of classical music at a tempo designed to match their resting heart rate during a mock veterinary visit. The present study aimed to understand how canine stress changes during a veterinary visit, establish the effect of music, and highlight measures which may be of practical use. Music therapy has been successfully used in clinical practice to alleviate stress and anxiety in people. Veterinary visits can be stressful for dogs, but how their wellbeing changes during a visit is not well understood. Music was not shown to have a demonstrated effect across measures, suggesting that the stressor may be too extreme for this type of intervention to have a positive effect, or that music therapy requires modification before it can be successful in alleviating stress in dogs during a veterinary visit. The results indicated that certain measures increased over time, indicating that dogs became increasingly stressed. The aim of this study was to examine a range of behavioral and physiological measures in dogs over the duration of a veterinary visit and to establish if bespoke music, which mimicked the tempo of their resting heart rate, could improve wellbeing. Specifically, a process called entrainment, which involves playing music at a particular tempo aimed at synchronizing physiological responses, has been implemented with success in humans. Music therapy has been successfully used to reduce stress and anxiety in people and other animals. Identifying appropriate measures of canine stress, along with successful interventions which alleviate stress in dogs during a veterinary visit, will be of great benefit to dogs and people. Visits to the vet are stressful for many pet dogs, but less is known about how measures of stress change over the course of a visit.
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