Reactivity to heterospecific social stimuli in dogs working in Animal Assisted Interventions.

Dogs working in Animal Assisted Interventions are expected to be highly sociable with humans. This study aimed at investigating therapy dogs’ response to stressful situations represented by separation from their caregivers and exposition to other hetero-specific social stimuli. Therapy dogs show better responses to moderately stressful situations involving both separation from the caregiver and exposure to strangers. It remains unclear whether such differences are the effect of the dogs selection for these activities or the result of their working experience.