http://nextgendog.com/new-research-suggests-that-dogs-actually-love-kennels/ Actually I found the title to be quite misleading. My heart leapt when I saw the title of this article and I rushed to read it. However I was left feeling a bit disappointed when I finished. I don't actually believe that this new study that was conducted actually gave any conclusive results, the article was quite ambiguous and I felt like all it said was "yes dogs do find kennels stressful but it might be as bad as everyone thought, but we don't really know for sure."
Re: New research suggests dogs actually enjoy being in kennels Yes, I agree, Lauren. That's what it says to me too. The article concludes (direct quote from article linked to above "Regardless, if you choose to kennel your pet, you should unquestionably research the kennel and ask for references, but as long as it is a quality establishment, you may not have to worry about your dog’s happiness as much as you previously thought." That conclusion doesn't follow. The impact of kennel quality wasn't assessed as part of the study. Yes it's a great idea to choose your kennel carefully, but this study (as it's reported at least) doesn't speak to the impact of kennel quality or the environment the dogs were in. That'd be a worthwhile direction to go in I think as the focus there would be on things that can be changed to helps dogs cope. Also, it seems to be the case that the measures taken didn't allow the researchers to differentiate between bad stress and excitement. Maybe that's another option for future work.
