Dogs Can Go Temporarily Nuts When Kenneled

For most pet owners, the experience of leaving your best friend in a kennel for a weekend away can be pretty traumatic. But while saying goodbye to your pup can be sad for you, it has an even worse effect on your dog.

A study, published in the journal Physiology & Behavior, tracked the behavior of 30 police-trained German shepherds who were left in a kennel after their daily shifts. Although this seemed to be a fairly routine practice, when the dogs were left isolated in crates, they began to exhibit behaviors that signaled extreme distress and even mental illness.

Some dogs would literally bounce off the walls of their enclosures for hours on end, while others took to obsessively spinning in circles. While the researchers do not know the exact reason for this reaction, they believe being isolated and separated from humans are at the heart of the matter.

There is no question that holding animals in captivity causes serious stress, but it raises the question of what effect do other animals in isolation experience? These dogs were kept in a kennel – that while not ideal – is still generally safe environment for these animals. Imagine the distress animals raised on factory farms must experience. Forcing animals to live on top of one another and storing them by the thousand in small enclosed spaces would be enough to make any living creature go insane.

While this study does not extend its scope to the plight of farm animals (and would probably be blocked thanks to ag-gag bills), it does illustrate the fact that no animal should be forced to live in a cage. Plain and simple.

Lead Image Source: Emilian Robert Vicol / Flickr