Body Temperature Regulation in Domestic Dogs After Agility Trials: The Effects of Season, Training, Body Characteristics, Age, and Genetics

An animal's body mass is said to be indirectly related to its rate of heat loss; that is, smaller animals with higher surface area to volume tend to lose heat faster than larger animals. Thus, thermoregulation should be related to body size, however, generalizable patterns are still unclear. Domestic dogs are a diverse species of endothermic mammals, including a 44-fold difference in body size. Previous work in sedentary dogs has determined that body size and other morphological variables tend to predict the thermoregulation of exercising pet dogs. Here, we aimed to address three questions: (1) whether thermoregulatory differences in domestic dogs across seasons are dictated strictly by external environmental temperatures or if individual thermal acclimation is affected by seasonal temperature variation, even indoors; (2) whether athleticism (or training experience) affects or changes thermoregulation in dogs, as it does in humans; and (3) whether thermoregulation in domestic dogs has a genetic basis. We obtained tympanic membrane (T_ear) temperatures and thermal images to measure the rate of temperature change in the eyes, mouth, and nose of athletic dogs following an indoor agility trial. Additionally, we used image analysis to determine body morphology differences. We found body mass to play a strong role in thermoregulation in winter trials (T_mouth p = 0.017, T_nose p = 0.052) but a less determinate role in summer trials. We found distinct differences in thermoregulation patterns between winter and summer. Particularly, coat morphology and length may play different roles in thermoregulation across seasons. Additionally, we found that rates of mouth temperature change differ by an interaction between environmental temperature and training experience (p = 0.044), suggesting seasonal thermoregulation patterns in dogs depend on relative athleticism. Lastly, we found important genetic predictors of temperature change rate, such as GORAB and IGF1, as well as others that exert influence over body size, mitochondrial function, or coat characteristics. These genetic markers indicate markers similar to our whole-animal physiological results. Overall, our data suggest that domestic dogs demonstrate thermal acclimation across seasons, that athleticism changes thermoregulatory patterns in domestic dogs, and that body size-related genes are associated with thermoregulation in dogs.