Non-invasive measurement of arterial blood pressure in dogs: a potential indicator for the identification of stress.

The reproducibility of indirect measurements of arterial pressure in dogs was assessed using the Dinamap 1846 SX oscillometric monitor and tail cuffs. Measurements on different days correlated excellently in 20 working dogs, with indistinguishable group means for systolic, diastolic and mean arterial pressure, whereas heart rates differed, though not significantly. The similarity of the means did not simply result from 'cancelling out' of individual variations; the rank correlation was also highly significant (P < 0.01 diastolic, P < 0.002 systolic). Remeasurement in the veterinary clinic, rather than 'neutral territory' showed significant increases in pressure but not heart rate. Anticipation of work raised systolic pressure whereas heart rate and diastolic pressure were unchanged. Exposure of a dog to a known stressor for that individual (sound) raised systolic and diastolic pressure as well as heart rate; diastolic pressure was the fastest to recover, heart rate the slowest. The data are compared with other observations on non-invasive blood pressure measurement in both dogs and humans.