In humans, stress can alter functional asymmetries. But is this also true for other species like, e.g., dogs, our companion since Thousands of years? The tested dogs were either from private pet owners in the region of Ankara or working dogs from an official dog training tenter. A vet determined which animals showed or did not show signatures of chronic stress. Mild acute stress was induced by placing the animals in an open field. The results clearly indicated that acute and chronic stress reduced natural functional asymmetries in dogs. Thus, such a pattern seems to be a general mechanism and could be used to probe stress levels of animals like dogs.

Salgırlı Demirbaş, Y., Isparta, S., Saral, B., Keskin Yılmaz, N., Adıay, D., Matsui, H., Töre Yargın, G. Adam Musa, S., Atılgan, D., Öztürk, H., Çınar Kul, B., Şafak, C. E., Ocklenburg, S., Güntürkün, O., Acute and chronic stress alter behavioral laterality in dogs, Sci. Rep., 2023, 13: 4092.