Plus-Hex CLINICAL
Behavioural analysis provides good information about the animal ' s experience of a situation [ 28 ]. Commonly analysed factors in stress-related behaviour are posture, vocalisation, hoarseness, facial expressions, escape attempts, shivering, and oral behaviours such as licking around the mouth or making smacking sounds [ 10 ]. All VNs in this study noted similar behaviours in the dogs associated with stress, such as involuntary urination, sweating, hoarseness and licking around the mouth, on all five occasions. The study analysed a limited set of behaviours.
Examination
The assessments were intended to create a situation comparable to a clinic visit. Before each examination, the dogs resided in their kennel a few metres from the examination room. Their stress levels were likely on a par with that of a dog leaving a waiting room [ 29 ]; for dogs transferring from their home environment, the period spent in a waiting room seems to have a restorative effect following travel to the clinic. While external disturbances are a natural part of any visit, the study design aimed to minimise them, and blood pressure measurements taken after the dogs reacted visibly to sounds were discarded.
Using a different VN as the examiner each day was a reasonable compromise between risking the dogs becoming habituated and risking inconsistency in the measurements and assessments made. To ensure that personal differences in handling and observation would not unduly affect one specific treatment, all treatments were represented on each assessment day: two dogs were given DEXO, two other dogs were given FSAR and the remaining two were given placebo. One day before the study began, each participating VN performed a full treatment session on a dog not included in the study to become familiar with the exact procedures and improve inter-sessional consistency.
For dogs visiting a clinic, the emotional state of their owner and the interactions between them greatly influence the emotional state of the dog. For instance, blood pressure and HR were found to be higher when measured by a veterinary surgeon alone than when the owner was present in a clinical setting [ 30 ]. In the present study, the‘ owner’ or‘ handler’ role was played by the same person, who was one of the people the dogs were most, and equally, acquainted with, reducing potential effects such as variations in dog owners ' personalities.
Höglund et al. [ 30 ] found significant breed differences in reactions to stress in dogs in clinical settings. Dogs often react more or differently to stress when they are younger and less experienced. Male dogs may be more stress-resistant than females [ 11, 31 ]. A slight tendency in this direction was observed in this study, but with the small numbers of dogs studied, this could not be confirmed. The lowered HR with DEXO was more evident in females, with a reduction of at least 20 bpm versus 2 – 8 bpm in males. The female beagles were slightly older and lighter than the males, and had been housed together in their own kennel. In contrast, the males were housed together with two older and more socially trained male beagles. It was ascertained that the males also reacted more from being in the vicinity of females in heat. Individual behavioural differences were obvious among the dogs studied.
The usefulness of this study is two-fold. First, the dogs included were very similar to one another. They were of similar age and weight and, having been bred for research, they had intentionally been kept in identical conditions and with minimal interactions with handlers. These factors minimise subject random effects in the analysis compared with using a sample of client-owned dogs, and thus provide a more stable estimate of the treatment effect. Second, the arrival of these dogs at the authors ' institution made it possible to specifically study effects on dogs that had not previously been accustomed to handling, since the dogs most likely to benefit from easily administered products with low risk profiles are dogs that react with hesitation to novel situations. Thus, these six newly imported beagles, unaccustomed to handling, were intentionally selected for study.
Previous studies have been performed to show the effectiveness of DEXO in very diverse populations of dogs, with a wide range of background factors, albeit with problems in common, such as noiseactivated anxiety or travel-related problems. The population chosen for the current study were dogs that were in some sense vulnerable. Being bred for scientific experimental purposes, research beagles are intentionally deprived of most of the socialisation to human carers to which pet and working dogs are exposed. Thus, the researchers had access to a subset of the population of dogs that could be hypothesised to benefit more from a stress-reducing treatment, but these dogs were also, to an exceptional degree, comparable. A similar group of comparable size of unsocialised dogs from, for example, a pound or rescue would have a lot more inter-dog variability. Thus, the current study could be performed with a much smaller number of dogs to see a treatment effect because the subject random effect was expected to be very small relative to other studies with more variable populations.
PVPs such as DEXO have a demonstrable effect. Optimally, it should be administered while the dog is still calm, for example, before departure to the clinic, to best achieve and maintain the desired effect. The effect of successful intervention, that is, lowering the stress level at a clinic visit, is not only specific for that time point: helping the dog to remain calm at one visit can result in lowered anxiety during following visits. Gruen et al. [ 32 ] found that the need for administration of dexmedetomidine decreased when the treatment was repeated over time.
Volume 41( 4) • August 2026
25