A doctor’s white coat does not only send human pulse rate racing, but it has the same effect on dogs who see their blood pressure rise in response to the stress of a visit to the vet, a new study has claimed.
In their study, researchers have determined that anxiety associated with being in a veterinary hospital elevates the blood pressure in retired racing greyhounds.
The average systolic arterial pressure — the top number in a blood pressure reading — in the dogs was about 30 points higher in a veterinary clinic when compared to blood pressure recorded at home, the latest edition of Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine reported.
In general, normal blood pressure in dogs, as in humans, is 120 over 80.
Prof. Guillermo Couto, who led the study at Ohio State University, said: “We see a lot of greyhounds and they are very high-strung dogs. Some greyhounds come in here with blood pressure above what an instrument can read — 300 systolic. “We know this could not really be their blood pressure because these dogs would be dead. But we also almost never get blood pressure under 150 or 160 for systolic,” said the researchers.