The purpose of the research was to find out if physical activity influences on the body parts pressure in 8 military working dogs. Our study included German and Belgian Shepherds. The dogs were all males aged between 1 and 8 years. We handled with TESTO thermal camera, which measured surface temperatures of body parts before the activity, right after the activity and 30 minutes after the activity. With the help of testo IRSoft Software program, we marked the area of a body part on the thermogram, which we captured with a thermal camera and the program displayed its temperature. Data were further analyzed with the statistical program SAS, where we used a mixed model (systematic and random effects). The random effect was the dog within the breed and the systematic effects were activity (obedience and defense), temperature measurement period (before activity, right after the activity and 30 minutes after the activity), body part of the dog, side of the body and age. Body weight of the dog was used as a covariate. The results showed that the surface temperature of dog body parts was higher during the exercise of defense than obedience and higher right after the activity compared to before and 30 minutes after the activity. According to the surface temperatures of body parts, the dog body can be divided into 3 temperature-different areas: colder area (croup, pectoral area, hip joint, loin), middle area (neck, shoulder joint, stifle) and warmer area (knee, elbow joint, fetlock, hock joint).
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