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| Canaries for the modern age: Dogs as sentinels of human health and wellbeing |
| Courtney L. Sexton, Audrey Ruple. Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Population Health Sciences, Blacksburg, VA, United States |
Through the ongoing process of domestication, dogs have acquired behavioral adaptations that enable them to successfully participate in various human social niches. Because of this, companion dogs offer an under-realized opportunity to learn how our two species’ shared social and ecological environments contribute to aging, health, and wellbeing, for both people and dogs. Here we present justification for broad acceptance of dogs as appropriate, unique and valuable sentinels in terms of public health, individual disease and aging, and social welfare across diverse populations. Dogs’ behaviors and modes of navigating their habitats (e.g. frequent and close physical contact with surfaces; ingesting and inhaling objects and particles) make them especially susceptible to many external risk factors. In our review of the recent literature, we find substantial evidence from across a spectrum of subfields that dogs can indeed offer insight into certain shared risk factors in our exposomes – including vector-borne pathogens; VOCs, EDCs, and heavy metals; reproductive health; and social adversity – which ultimately influence and even determine behavior on both micro and macro levels. |